Sunday, 21 June 2009 00:00
Jenson Button said Brawn’s problems generating tyre temperature in the cool conditions was what restricted him to a disappointing sixth place in the British Grand Prix.
Brawn was comprehensively outpaced by Red Bull for the first time this year in dry conditions and, after starting sixth, Button endured a frustrating race amid the increasingly distant chasing pack.
At one stage it looked like he might barely scrape a point, but he gained two places at the final pit stops and then found a new lease of life after switching to the grippier soft tyres in the final stint, catching Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa but having to settle for sixth.
Button said his pace in the closing stages – when he lapped within 0.5s of winner Sebastian Vettel’s best time – showed that Brawn’s main problem was tyre temperature, not a fundamentally slow car.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen today,” he said.
“I think I showed that when I was on the soft tyre I had good pace.
“I don’t know what it was like compared to my team-mate but compared to Rosberg and Massa the pace in the last stint was phenomenal and we had a good car.
“But on the hard tyre the car just doesn’t work and I couldn’t get any tyre temp. Plus you can’t overtake here and I got a terrible start.
“[Jarno] Trulli in front got a really slow getaway, as they [Toyota] normally do, and I had nowhere to go.
“I tried to go to the inside but the gap wasn’t there and the outside was full, so I was stuck and everyone just shot by on the outside.
“In the first stint I slowed up a little bit behind Trulli just to see what times I could do, and I was sort of eight-tenths or one second quicker than him – but you still can’t overtake.
“I was able to jump two of them in the pit stop but Massa got me because he was going very long.
“I could reel in Rosberg and Massa at the end of the race like they were stood still, but you can’t overtake and if you don’t get the qualifying right, which I didn’t, and you get a bad start, you’re stuck.”
While he acknowledged that Red Bull has made a step forward with its latest aerodynamic upgrade, Button felt this weekend’s cool conditions played into its hands and exaggerated its advantage.
“I haven’t had sleepless nights thinking about the championship,” insisted Button, who still has a hefty 23-point cushion over team-mate Barrichello and 25 points in hand over Vettel.
“Vettel gained seven points on me here, which is obviously not good, but I got three points on a weekend that we weren’t very strong.
“We’ve just got to hope that Nurburgring is a bit warmer than here.
“They’re going to be very quick – they’ve got a quick car and their aero package has helped them a lot.
“But I don’t think it’s as big as it looks; I think it’s because our car is not working in these temperatures.”
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