Jenson Button says that fifth place was the maximum result McLaren could have achieved from the Chinese Grand Prix.
Button ran a two stop strategy to rise from eighth on the grid to finish in fifth place.
"I’m very happy to have finished fifth today – and the team should be too," he said. "The race was always going to be tricky: we weren’t quick enough to adopt the same strategy as the others, so we had to run longer than the rest and make two pitstops, rather than three."
"For us, a two-stopper was the fastest way to the end of the race. It meant I had to let others past me and protect the tyres. If we couldn’t run to our target lap, it would’ve destroyed our race. I had to cruise when I’d normally fight the others. It’s not the most exciting way to go racing, but we got 10 points today because we did it."
"We know we still have a lot of work to do to challenge at the front, but we can take a lot of positives away from this weekend," he said.
Sergio Perez said he struggled with the MP4-28 as he wound up eleventh.
"This was a difficult afternoon for me – there’s a lot for us to analyse, and a lot to learn. It wasn’t my best weekend in terms of pace, so there’s some work to do," he said.
"I couldn’t find a flow throughout the whole race and was struggling with the car."
Team principal Martin Whitmarsh believes Button drove an excellent race.
"Jenson drove a brilliantly executed race. He was extremely controlled throughout, completely understood the requirements of the strategists, and withstood the temptation to push when the right thing to do was conserve the tyres," he said.
