Jenson Button (No. 22) \u2013 11th and 4th<\/b><\/p>\n
The Briton believes that after a tricky FP3, the afternoon was much better with a top 5 in qualifying: \u00ab We were strong with the softs and mediums yesterday, during FP1 and FP2, but this morning in FP3 we were off the pace, even though we weren’t running with much fuel. With the settings we wanted to adopt, the car wasn’t working, but more importantly, we kept a cool head after that and arrived with a much better car in qualifying. \u00bb<\/p>\n
He hopes to compete for the podium tomorrow against Valtteri Bottas and his Williams: \u00ab Tomorrow, I don’t really know what to expect. Our long runs have been very good, but the number of stops most drivers will make is uncertain; if you lock up the wheels here, however, you get a flat spot and, if that’s the case, a one-stop strategy becomes untenable, so as I said, it won’t be simple at all. Valtteri is obviously the guy we’re going to try to get past at the start of the race. His pace seemed good yesterday and today, but Fridays and Saturdays are different from Sundays. \u00bb<\/p>\n
Kevin Magnussen (n\u00b020) \u2013 17th and 6th [11th on the grid]<\/b><\/p>\n
For the young Dane, as for many drivers, the time in Q3 was slower than in Q2: \u00ab Today was not a good day. We got nothing out of FP3 because Jenson said we went in the wrong direction but, still, things felt very good for me in Q1 and Q2. In Q3, however, the car felt very different. Thus, I couldn’t match the time I did in Q2, so we need to look at what happened. \u00bb<\/p>\n
His 5-place penalty, due to a gearbox change after his mechanical issue in FP3, disappoints him but he believes he will be able to overtake on the Russian track: \u00ab Overall, our pace has been a bit better than usual here, so it’s obviously a shame for us to have been hit by a 5-place grid penalty. Despite this, I hope I can make good progress in the race. It won’t be easy, because we are starting quite far back, but at least overtaking is possible here; moreover, there is a good DRS zone and a fairly long straight to turn 2, and our pace on long runs isn’t too bad, so ultimately, I’m quite positive that we can gain places. \u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking advantage of a well-performing McLaren in Sochi, Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen confirmed by securing the 4th and 6th fastest qualifying times. While the Dane is expected to drop on the grid, the 2009 World Champion, on the other hand, hopes to compete with Valtteri Bottas’ Williams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":39969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[92,947,1491],"class_list":["post-14409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-bilan","tag-mclaren","tag-sotchi"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n