Button eyes defining weekend

Jenson Button
12 April 2012

Jenson Button believes this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix could prove to be a defining moment as to who becomes Formula One world champion this season.

In particular, for McLaren duo Button and team-mate Lewis Hamilton, the night race is an acid test of their title credentials.

"The Singapore Grand Prix will be a very interesting weekend because I think it will give us a clearer idea of the destiny of the world championship," said Button.

McLaren's downfall this season has been low-speed, high-downforce circuits such as the tight, twisty Marina Bay track that includes 23 corners.

Similar venues such as Monaco and the Hungaroring have been unhappy hunting grounds for the team this season, collecting a mere 10 and four points respectively.

Reigning world champion Button, however, is hopeful McLaren have made up considerable ground since they were trounced by Red Bull in Budapest, not least courtesy of the FIA.

Button added: "The last time we were at a low-speed, high-downforce track was in Hungary back at the start of August and our car wasn't particularly competitive there.

"Since then we maybe haven't had a properly representative view of the top teams' relative pace because we've just visited two high-speed circuits (Spa and Monza). But equally a lot has changed since that race in Budapest, not least some quite hefty revisions to the rulebook regarding bodywork flexibility.

"Additionally there has been a lot of work by the engineers at the MTC (McLaren Technology Centre) to ensure our car is now better suited to slower circuits.

"So Singapore will be interesting for all of us. We'll not only get an idea of the speed of the Ferrari and Red Bull, but we'll get to see for the first time whether all our efforts over the past two months have helped put us back in the ballpark at high-downforce tracks."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in