Jenson Button believes that Ferrari has the fastest car out of all of the front runners, after the first day test day of the week at Jerez.
Although Mark Webber set a searing pace in today’s session Button, the reigning world champion, claimed that he was more impressed with the pace of Fernando Alonso, who was second in the F10.
“I think the Ferrari is a very strong car,” he said. “If you look at their runs today, they’re very consistent. I think they have better consistency than anyone at the moment.
“It’s always interesting to observe what they’re up to. I think our pace is good, but there are still areas we need to work on for me to be happy with the car.”
Button believes that the Ferrari is handling perfectly, after spending a number behind Alonso.
“I followed a few drivers today, Fernando, Michael. It’s always interesting to see what’s happening,” Button said. “You never know what fuel loads people are on but you can see what sort of balance they have.
“The Mercedes to me seemed like it was a little bit twitchy at the rear, and braking it looked like it was locking the rears, but if they’re on 150kg it’s understandable. It’s interesting. The Ferrari looked good on the circuit, good consistency.”
Button, like Alonso, also used today’s dry session to focus on longer stints and although the Brit is not entirely happy with the performance of his McLaren, he insists that the Woking-based team are getting on top of their problems.
“For me, our car over one lap is getting there.” he added. “We’re improving step by step. And on the long runs, we’re improving every run we do. There’s so much information we’ve got from today – more than any other test day, for me anyway. We’ll go through all of that this evening and hopefully have another good day of testing tomorrow.”
