Button said he took satisfaction from holding off the twin challenges of Red
Bull’s Mark Webber and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa to hang on to
third place yesterday despite his KERS isssues.McLaren team principal Martin
Whitmarsh described his performance as “stunning.”
“Lewis has been strong all weekend and he was very determined,” Whitmarsh
said. “He did a great job. But I think Jenson’s race was stunning as
well because he didn’t have KERS for half the race, or more than half the
race, which apart from the loss of performance you lose balance of the car,
your brake balance, so he did a fantastic job. “We tried to reset it and
fire it up again and then it failed.
So he had a variable car which is very difficult for a driver to get into any
rhythm.
”Button – who in the second half of the season has given away just
two points to world champion Sebastian Vettel – said he was now
focused on securing second place in the championship in Brazil. He currently
leads third placed Fernando Alonso of Ferrari by 10 points.
“My best qualifying of the last five years in Sao Paulo is 13th but I’m
looking forward to it,” he said. “But obviously it holds a lot of good
memories for me as well with my world championship victory.”