McLaren defends Button practice repairs

F1 News
Date: 9/June/2012

While Lewis Hamilton led both Friday practice sessions for the Canadian F1 Grand Prix in Montreal, McLaren team-mate Jenson Button spent much of the day in the pits.

Button, last year’s Canadian winner, completed just 12 laps in the morning and 14 laps in the afternoon due to a series of technical issues. Once a gear box oil leak had been fixed, a ‘secondary problem’ was discovered forcing the repairs to start all over again.

“This morning in P1 Jenson had an oil leak, which was leaking onto the clutch, and we thought we’d fixed it,” explained McLaren Managing Director Jonathan Neale.

“The oil leak was in the gearbox. The mechanics did a great job in repairing the seal, but as soon as we fired the car up we could see there was a secondary problem that hadn’t revealed itself before that time. And unfortunately we had to change the gearbox and the whole rear end of Jenson’s car.

“So, disappointing that we didn’t get the mileage in that we were looking for. But I have to say, hats off to the mechanics and on Lewis’s side as well, the moment that Lewis’s car left the garage, all of the mechanics came across to help Jenson get running and that was terrific.”

But some commentators weren’t quite so complimentary, with the BBC’s Gary Anderson - a former F1 Technical Diirector for Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar - criticising a team of McLaren’s calibre for ‘taking four hours to fix a gearbox issue’.

“Well, he’s entitled to his opinion,” said Neale. “I think it helps if you’re standing a bit nearer the problem. He’s right, though. In terms of these things we don’t want to happen, but Formula One cars are designed to be right on the edge. From time to time there will be a technical problem.

“It certainly wasn’t trivial, and having been back over it this afternoon, I don’t think that we missed anything in our first diagnosis that would have led us to believe that we were going to have the problem that we did after lunch.”

Button concluded practice in ninth, but just 0.553s from Hamilton on a day when the top 13 drivers were covered by 0.73s. Button is one of the six different race winners this year, although Hamilton is three places higher in the championship (fourth).

Hamilton drove for 73 Friday laps, the best of which was 0.054s ahead of Ferrari’s World Championship leader Fernando Alonso.