Friday: McLaren expects a good harvest in its garden
Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen did not drop out of the top 10 during the two practice sessions. While remaining fairly optimistic, they also admit to having difficulties in warming up their hard tires.
Jenson Button (No. 22) – 7th and 7th
The Silverstone race is special for McLaren, and even more so for Jenson Button. The English driver seems quite comfortable on this legendary track, despite downforce issues caused by windy weather: « Our car performed well today, but we’re still trying to find the right balance in the high-speed sections. We suffer from understeer issues and are trying to have a car with more front-end grip. It’s difficult here because there’s a lot of wind: this year the cars have less downforce than before, which gives a very important role to the wings. When they are heavily affected by the wind, it makes it difficult to achieve many productive results in succession during testing ».
Jenson Button also struggled with his hard tires. This is not the first time this year that drivers have expressed difficulty in heating up Pirelli’s hard tires: « It also proved complicated for us to get the hard tires up to the right temperature; as soon as we got out of a yellow flag or traffic, we couldn’t get them to work again. It’s really difficult. However, the medium tires seem to behave well and seem to last for a reasonably long time. Despite all this, it was a good day. »
Kevin Magnussen (No. 20) – 10th and 8th
Kevin Magnussen, also in the top 10 twice, is also optimistic for the upcoming race, but for now, he is only aiming to compete with the Force India: « It’s a great track – fun and fast. I think our car would probably be more competitive on a slower circuit; so far, things haven’t gone too badly – we don’t expect to be less competitive than in Austria last month. After this Friday, it’s always hard to judge the pace of the Williams, but we will probably fight with the Force India. We should score some good points this weekend, so getting the most out of the car will be very important. »
Like his teammate, the Dane encountered problems getting his Pirellis up to temperature: Today’s sessions showed that the hards are a very tough compound to keep at the right temperature – they cool down very easily. For now, it seems that the medium tires are the best compound for the race on our side.
