10/05/2015
NEWS STORY
Jenson Button claims the first half of the Spanish Grand Prix were the scariest laps of his life.
The Briton, who was side-lined in the previous race after the team discovered a late "electrical glitch" with his car, finished a distant 16th, the only drivers finishing lower down the order being the Manor pair.
Whilst teammate Fernando Alonso's Barcelona nightmare ended after 26 laps, when a brake issue saw him overshoot his pit slot and hit a couple of crew members, Button, assured that his car was not suffering a similar issue, battled on.
In the team's official post-race press release he admitted to being scared, though it was only when talking to reporters direct that he admitted how scared.
"My car was pretty scary to drive today: as soon as I touched the throttle, it just snapped away from me," he said in the team statement. "It was unpredictable: in low-speed corners, the car was just slow, because I got wheel-spin immediately; in the high-speed stuff, it was just scary, because the rear end would snap away immediately under power.
"I was talking to my engineers for most of the race to try to find out what the root of the problem was, and we switched on quite a lot of handling balance changes to try to cure it. It got a little bit better towards the end of the afternoon, but it was a pretty tough afternoon."
"It was pretty scary to drive," he told reporters. "Every time I touched the throttle, it just snapped. I am sure there is something wrong there.
"Hopefully, today was an off day," he added. "It didn't feel right. It was like flicking a switch in the race. Not the easiest, and it was like that from the word go. The first 30 laps were the scariest laps of my life."
Though previously he had talked of improvements, following today's race he clearly felt it was a case of 'one step forward, two steps back'.
"After today, I don't think I expect points at all this year," he admitted.
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