F1 News
Date:
18/April/2013
Jenson Button may have endured a low key start to the 2013
season, but in terms of the bigger picture the former world champion believes ‘Formula
One is great at the moment.”
The high rate of tyre degradation during the opening three
rounds has led to contrasting race strategies, which have in turn helped overtaking
opportunities.
Ten different drivers have so far led a race, including
Button, but some have criticised the need to spend large parts of a grand prix nursing
their tyres, rather than pushing to the limit.
33-year-old Button disagrees: “We’re never going to be happy
with everything in this or any sport, but I think the racing has been good fun.
“I was on the receiving end of most of it at the last race,
because obviously doing less stops you’re running old tyres most of the time,
so there’s people overtaking you most of the time.
“But I think if you were doing a three-stop strategy at the
last race it was a fun race. They seemed like they were able to push pretty
hard.
“In the past we had tyres that would last the whole race and
there wasn’t any overtaking. It’s very difficult to get the correct balance.
“But we’re having two or three stops which I think is what
the idea was for racing in 2013 so that’s good and there are a lot of teams
fighting at the front.
“I think Formula One’s great at the moment. I’m really
enjoying racing. I haven’t watched a race on TV, but from what I see around me
it looks good.”
Meanwhile, with his McLaren car currently off the pace,
Button added that he has little choice but to ‘gamble’ on a risky race
strategy.
That was perfectly illustrated last Sunday in Shanghai, when
the Englishman went against the grain with a two-stop race strategy, resulting in
a season-best fifth position.
Button said: “To finish fifth at the last race and beat some
very quick cars, we had to try something different.
“We beat at least one of the drivers from every single
[team] on the grid, which is positive I think. P5 is not where we want to be,
but we have to take a lot from last weekend and yes, we had to try a different
strategy.
“A lot went into the strategy and trying to understand what
we had to do with tyres and the lap time we needed. It was a tricky weekend but
in the end a good result.
“Here [in Bahrain] it’s probably more likely that everyone’s
going to be running the same sort of strategy, but we have to wait and see.
“It’s a very different circuit to Shanghai. Shanghai is very
front [tyre] limited. Here it’s rear tyre limited. Last year it was a really
tricky race to look after those tyres.”
Free practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix will start on
Friday morning.
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