Friday sessions were very useful for McLaren at Sakhir Circuit

Jenson Button (MP4-28A-03 - FP1: 1m35.069s (+0.582s) / 22 laps / 6th - FP2: 1m35.356s (+1.202s) / 32 laps / 11th): “Today’s sessions were very productive for us. We completed some useful investigative work this morning before focusing on longer runs this afternoon.

Jenson Button, McLaren MP4-28

Photo by: XPB Images

“It’s very difficult to know exactly what to do with set-up. This is a big traction circuit, with lots of low-speed exits and a few high-speed corners too, and that puts a lot of load into the rear tyres.

“The tyres are behaving a bit strangely here – driving conservatively doesn’t seem to help their wear-life, so there’s only so much you can do without damaging your outright pace. But we’ve tried a few things, and we’ll get there. I’ve already got a good feeling that we’ve found a set-up and a direction for tomorrow that will be more competitive. There’s a lot we can take away from today that will help us for tomorrow.”

Sergio Perez: (MP4-28A-02 - FP1: 1m35.640s (+1.153s) / 23 laps / 11th - FP2: 1m35.589s (+1.435s) / 37 laps / 13th): “We managed to complete our full run-plan in both the morning and afternoon, which was a positive, but it’s going to be a difficult weekend for us.

“Although we’ll probably be fighting to get into Q3, there’s still plenty of potential for having a good race on Sunday. The team has shown before that, with solid preparation, we can run a clever strategy on Sunday, and I think we have enough raw material from today to help us race strongly this weekend.

“So, scoring points is a realistic ambition for us here in Bahrain.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes: “Neither Jenson nor Checo had any real problems during today’s sessions, but, like many teams, we struggled to make the Option tyre last across a stint – that’s likely to be a recurring problem throughout the rest of the weekend, in fact.

“Nevertheless, there are some positives to take from today: we did a lot of running, gathered some useful data, and our upgrades proved helpful.

“As always, we’ll now go away and analyse our data and we’ll come back well equipped to make a big effort on both Saturday and Sunday.”

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes