Jenson Button made a strange comment on Thursday in the Austrian paddock when he said he wants team-mate Fernando Alonso to be quicker than him in Austria.
It’s a comment that would have many confused, but said in context, the Briton’s remark makes a lot of sense as the Spaniard will be racing a heavily revised McLaren MP4-30, unlike Button who will continue to use the previous spec.
The Woking team have just one set of upgrades available to them and with Button getting upgrade priority in China, this weekend it’s Alonso’s turn to enjoy a little boost.
When asked if he hopes to be behind Alonso, Button responded: “In theory, yes. It’s strange to say, but yes!”
However the hopefully quicker McLaren will likely struggle for pace yet again as Honda aren’t introducing an upgraded engine on the back of their Canadian upgrade just a fortnight ago.
Meanwhile it’s likely that both Button and Alonso will be hit with penalties for changing power unit components this weekend – though the team are yet undecided on what to do with Button’s car.
“First of all, one of the cars has got a penalty – the other car – and we might have a penalty as well, we’ve just got to decide tomorrow during practice what we’re going to do.
“From a racing point of view you would probably rather have a penalty, if you’re going to have one, here or Silverstone, you don’t want it in Hungary; such a small circuit, it’s a circuit where we could be reasonably competitive.”
With a penalty looming, Button says he would prefer a clean home race, therefore is keen to serve a drop this weekend, rather than at the next race.
“The heart says take the penalty here so we don’t have anything in Silverstone and you can give it your all and you might get something out of the weekend. So if we have to take a penalty I would much rather take it here and get it over and done with.”
