Spain: Jenson Button Race Q&A

Jenson, another brilliant day for you and your team. A switch for your team-mate to a three stop strategy relatively early in the race and then just a great day for you.

Well, it was the other way around. We were both going that direction but they switched me to a two stop just to cover all our bases. Three stop was the quicker strategy we thought and I wasn't sure about going to a two stop. When we put the fuel on board it felt very, very heavy and I didn't think I would come out in front of (Felipe) Massa and (Sebastian) Vettel but I did. From then on I could get my head down and concentrate on putting the laps in and being as consistent as possible. So to come away with a win, they all mean a lot obviously but coming back to Europe and winning in Barcelona, a circuit that I've always found a little bit tough, it's a good feeling and gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.

Let's have a look at the start. Your start with Rubens taking the lead and the first corner accident and weaving through the debris afterwards behind the safety car.

Yeah, the start I felt was okay but Rubens got a flier of a start. I moved to the inside to try and hold the line but when he has got that much of an overlap at the start you can't really do much about it into turn one. Rubens did a great start and I wasn't able to stay with him on that and as soon as he was in front I knew it was going to be very difficult to beat him.

And the mayhem behind you?

We obviously didn't see any of that. The only thing we saw was the debris. When we got to it the debris was all over the circuit, so it's a surprise that there were no tyre issues afterwards as there were massive amounts of debris.

When you come into that situation behind the safety car what are you looking for? What can you do to try and avoid issues with the tyres, etc?

Well, you are very limited. If there is carbon fibre all over the circuit you are limited to what you can do. You have got your spotter, you have got your engineer who has been looking at the accident, he knows where the worst bits are. But look at the pick up on the tyre, it's massive. And a great thing that there were no issues with the debris, so it is positive really.

We won't mention what lies ahead other than the immediate future which is the Monaco Grand Prix and what a momentum you now have.

Yeah, it is a dream come true so far this season. Even when times are tough we seem to be able to get the wins. When it is going well, it goes well, doesn't it. And it was the same last year. When it was going bad, it went really bad. I do feel like I am on top of the world at the moment as I am sure the whole team do also. They have done a magnificent job and with this new package you can see we have got a bit of an advantage again. I am very proud of all the guys back at the factory. I don't think they get enough of a mention, the guys at Brackley, so thank you very much and also thanks to Mercedes Benz as we can't do it without you.

I mentioned earlier on today about that statistic about starting from pole. The last eight winners. Now it makes nine winners. But you were on the clean side of the circuit in theory and yet you got a worse start than Rubens who was on the dirty side.

No, Rubens started right behind me.

Yes, that's right. You had Sebastian right behind you.

Yes, thanks for that statistic. I was thinking about that when I came out of turn one second. It wasn't the best start. It was a good start but this guy just got an amazing start and as soon as he was in front I couldn't do anything about him on the first stint. Basically I was hoping I could get a big enough gap with Massa as I knew he was stopping a few laps longer. I thought if he gets in front of me then that's it, I'm screwed. I was pushing him as much as I could and we both pulled away. Rubens pulled a little bit of a gap on me and I was able to get the gap to Massa. They realized I had enough of a gap to pit and exit in front of Massa even though he was stopping later, so they tried to cover both bases. We were both on a three stop initially and they put me to a two. The three was a quicker race we thought but obviously the two worked. As soon as I came out of the pits in front of Massa then it was just trying to put the laps in. It was difficult as I had a lot of fuel on board on that second stint. I had to push so hard on a heavy fuel load and I damaged the tyres quite a bit but I could get the lap time out of the car being aggressive with it. And that's the good thing about this car. You can be aggressive and it doesn't seem to eat up the tyres. It is not normally my style but it is a style I had to take for this race and it made the difference and Rubens had his problems with understeer on his third set of tyres. When I got onto the prime I could get a reasonable lap time out of them which most people couldn't. There were lots of little factors which all came together and I crossed the finish line first. This is a race which I didn't really think I was going to, so yeah, I am very happy and this means a lot going into the next couple of races.

It sounds like you learned a little bit during this race as well?

Yeah, I mean different circuits you have got to drive these cars with a different style. Bahrain is a circuit where a smooth style sort of helps and here I have found over the last couple of days that you can't get the lap time by driving smoothly. You have to come out of the corner and plant the throttle. As you see from the on-board cameras there is a lot of nervousness and if you don't have that you don't have the lap time. It is something I have learnt and it definitely paid off learning from watching people but also learning from watching Rubens. Rubens has been very fast this weekend. I have obviously watched him out on the circuit and looked at his data, so he has helped me quite a bit.

What about Monaco? Will that be a bit of a wild card as a race?

It is very different and it is 'chuck all the downforce on' and don't worry about the drag and see what happens. It is a circuit which I think is very similar to this. I think I have always been a little bit too cautious around circuits like this, so I have to change my style a bit to make it work on different circuits and Monaco is a circuit where I need to get the best out of the car and maybe change my style a bit from the first four races as it's a bit more like here, so I am looking forward to it and this guy is going to be a big challenge there and that is what we look forward to, the challenge.

It is going to be his birthday in Monaco. He is going to be expecting a birthday present.

We will see about that. I don't think I can help out. I think that is down to you, fella!

At what stage in the race did you get the call that you were switching to two stops? Who do you have to thank for that call and what were your thoughts initially?

Well, it was about a lap before I stopped. It was very, very late and I think they were judging the distance between me and Massa. And initially I didn't think it was a great idea because I wasn't sure who I was racing at that point. Rubens was obviously in front and I had Massa and Vettel behind and initially I thought maybe they were worried that I was not going to get out in front of Massa and Vettel, so they were going to send me long, so I could get them at the next stop but obviously that isn't what they were thinking and it was a very different situation to that. But when I first drove the car with a lot of fuel on board it was moving around quite a bit at the back and it took a while to find my feet but when I did – well, I had to, as soon as possible. Shov (Andrew Shovlin, race engineer) was on the radio, my engineer, shouting at me ‘you've got to put the laps in now, you've got to put the laps in now.' And then closer and closer to Rubens's second stop they were telling me ‘Rubens has got a three second advantage over you, you've got to keep pushing.' Every lap was flat out, I've never driven in that style before and I'm sure when you watch it back on replay it looks pretty messy but it was the best way to get the lap time out of the car. I got every tenth and everything out of that car that I could do today.

Who made that decision?

I didn't ask.

You've now won four out of five races. How hard is it for you to not start thinking about the championship because it looks to many of us that this could be a runaway season?

I think it would be good if I believed that, in a way, but also I think that at this point of the season, as I've said, you need to be aggressive and you need to fight for every single point. There's no point hanging back and expecting it to happen. We need to be very aggressive and we need to get everything out of this car at every race we go to, as I keep saying. It might be getting boring for you guys but it's just the way it is. This was an important victory for me, for sure, first victory back in Europe, five races in and a reasonably good lead now. It's a good feeling but I'm not getting comfortable. Rubens is very quick and he's proved that this weekend, and also the Red Bulls, when they get it together they've got good pace and obviously Mark and Sebastian are doing a great job. Sebastian's been ahead of us twice now in the last two races, so if he gets a free shot, like Mark, he'll be close to Mark. It's not easy and we've got to take every race as it comes and we are obviously going to look for a victory in every race that comes, so we need to be aggressive and have that style of racing, I think.

You mentioned in the earlier press conference that you felt that the car is still ahead after this round of upgrades. Is that the case?

If you look at the result you would say so but obviously Mark and Sebastian were both held up behind Massa and if they had free runs we don't know what would have happened. I'm very surprised that Mark was able to sit on the back of Rubens. I think we've had very good weekends and this weekend you can say that our strategy was good, which it was – probably Rubens will say more on one car than the other – but I think when Red Bull have a clear shot at it and they do everything right, they are going to be competitive and we can't forget that and they are going to be on us in Monaco for sure.

You mentioned that you need to be aggressive and it looks messy with this year's car to be quick. Ordinarily, messy, aggressive and Monaco wouldn't go very well together, so how will you approach the next race relative to years past?

Well, I think you do need to be a bit more aggressive in Monaco. Obviously you've got the barriers as your limiting factor. As long as you stay off them you're fine but you can't pussyfoot round Monaco and that's why I think Rubens has always been pretty spectacular around Monaco, Mark also, so it's going to be a tough weekend in Monaco, for sure, for myself, but I go there full of confidence that I can have a good weekend, but for sure it's not going to be a boring Monaco Grand Prix. I think there's going to be a lot of very competitive people and I think you will see a very exciting qualifying, for sure, and I think the race could be interesting also.

Do you still see a challenge from Ferrari, McLaren and BMW – the big teams – or is it too late for a turnaround in terms of the championship?

Well, it's quite strange because BMW at the first race were competitive. You can say some of it is down to the strategy with the tyres but they did a good job. McLaren at the last race were surprisingly quick, the same with Ferrari here, in qualifying. They've had good races but they just haven't had the consistency and I think that when you've started so far back compared to the competition, you're throwing things at the car and I'm sure they're putting lots of new parts on the car to improve it. Some might not work, some probably do work. It's a much easier position for us, obviously, at the front. We can really test the parts and make sure they really are an improvement before we put them on whereas Ferrari and McLaren need to put as much performance on the car as possible. But they're both great teams and they've both achieved so much in the past, as we all know. They've had tough years before, maybe not quite as tough but they will definitely bounce back. They're very strong teams. We'll see them being competitive throughout the year, I think.

Does that question, that you're winning races because you're somehow being given better machinery or some advantage frustrate you? Does Rubens believe that?

We both work very closely together within the team and it's a very good atmosphere within the team. We're all here to win; it went my way today and it might go Rubens's way in Monaco and that's just the way it is. He had a problem in his stint and I didn't. I made it work and I won the race today but you know that can swing around at the next race and that's the way we go racing and that's the way racing should be and I think it has been, within most teams in Formula One. I don't ever want to go down that avenue of talking about that because it's so far from the situation within our team.