Jenson Button believes that McLaren have improved significantly from Australia, but due to the characteristics of Sepang, that wasn’t obvious in Malaysia last week.
Button and his rookie team-mate Kevin Magnussen both finished in the podium at the season-opener in Australia earlier this month, but failed to replicate that performance in Malaysia last week.
Before the race in Kuala Lumpur, McLaren Group CEO reported that the Woking outfit will improve by about half a second per lap after adding several upgrades to the car.
Despite that improvement not reflecting in their results in Malaysia – Button finished sixth and Magnussen ninth – the 2009 World Drivers’ Champion maintained that he is confident that the upgrades would see McLaren move up the grid as the season progresses.
“I don’t think we’re as competitive as we were at the first race, but I think that’s just circuit dependent,” Button told Autosport.
“I feel that we’ve made a step with our car. We haven’t done a back-to-back [test of the parts]. When you have such big parts, such big aero changes to the car, you can’t just do back-to-backs.”
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