McLaren Honda
Jenson Button says he is encouraged by the pace which he was able to display during qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix.
Button was 13th quickest during Saturday's session at the Sochi Autodrom but is wary of the likelihood that rivals will be faster in race trim.
"This was probably my best qualifying performance of the year," he said. "Today, we got into Q2 due to our actual speed, rather than because of the others having any issues.
"Q1 was straightforward – I was only a tenth and a half off the top 10. In Q2, it cooled down a lot – my new-tyre run was three-tenths slower than my old-tyre run.
"That last lap was really low-grip, even though I’d done a couple of warm-up laps beforehand. I think a lot of people struggled to get the temperatures right.
"I’m encouraged, because it was always going to be a very tricky weekend for us. Nonetheless, the race will be tougher for us than qualifying was because our deployment isn’t as good as other people’s, so we’ll be affected along the long straights here.
"In turn, that will affect our fuel consumption – since we use more fuel because we don’t have as much deployment capability."
