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Jenson Button says his McLaren needs a “bucket load” of both pace and reliability to get anywhere close to being competitive at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend.
Button finished the second session in 13th but was nearly 3.7s off the pace of the fastest time set by Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes. The McLaren-Honda had a troubled start to life in pre-season testing and the first two practice sessions of the year showed few signs of a sudden upturn in form.
Asked if the McLaren needed pace or reliability most, Button said: “We need a bucket load of both right now! But we are all in it together and we will fight as hard as we can to get the best result we can this weekend.”
“I’m hoping it won’t be the last row of the grid tomorrow, hopefully 20 cars will run,” he added. “It’s not going to be easy, we all know that, and that’s the important thing, we are all working as one. We are not pulling any fingers, we are just solving the problems as we go and hopefully we will be competitive sooner rather than later. There is a lot of hard work needed, but we knew that coming into this season.”
But he admitted there was no sugar-coating the size of the gap to Mercedes.
