Jenson Button is a three time Australian Grand Prix race winner, so it's unusual to hear the Brit say ninth was satisfactory.
The 2013 race was a tough one for McLaren, their evolutionary car was causing concern due to the poor ride and struggle to find a good set-up. Both Button and his team-mate Perez struggled for pace throughout the race but both advanced on their starting positions.
Button managed to sneak into the points with ninth, whilst Perez missed out on tenth place by just six tenths of a second.
When talking to Sky Sports F1's Natalie Pinkham in the "pen" Jenson said "We definitely were not getting any more points than that,"
He continued "We definitely weren't quick and I think we made the right calls considering what the conditions we had in after qualifying. The last four laps of the race were tough because my prime-tyre stints were very, very long because of the short 'option' stint.
"But we got it home and got a couple of points, so that's not bad. I think as a team we did a great job this weekend but we're not quick enough and there's a lot of work we need to do to move forward and challenge the front guys."
"We're a long way off."
When asked how long the problems will take to fix with the MP4-28, he said with complete honesty "I don't know. Who knows? We're not what we think we are so it could take quite a while."
With the Malaysian Grand Prix just a week after, there's no time for McLaren to sort the car out. Button was hopeful that the Sepang circuit would be better suited to their car. "We struggled here with ride - everyone's noticed, it's no secret - so hopefully in Malaysia it's a smoother circuit, hopefully we will get rid of those issues and we can find a bit more performance - you never know."
"If we can get into the points again with the car that we had at the moment I don't think it's too bad. We had races last year with a good car that we struggled to get into the points, so we will see what we can do."
Team-mate Sergio Perez started 15th after a blunder in Qualifying, but rose to an eventual 11th place. However it was a tough debut for his new team. "That was a very, very tough race.
"I got a good start, which is always a bonus, but, after that, even though the team did a great job with the strategy, we just didn't have enough pace to make significant further progress.
"Having said that, I nearly managed to score a point, but in the end I couldn't quite get up to 10th place at the end. To finish 11th is never really satisfying, but I think Jenson and I both drove pretty good races today. In fact I want to say 'well done' to Jenson, who maximised the performance of his car really well to finish ninth.
"Our engineers are aware that our car isn't yet as quick as it needs to be, but I know I'm now part of the best team in Formula 1 so I'm certain they'll improve it fast."
The team have a lot of work to do back at the MTC to fix the issues with the car, Button certainly will not want to make ninth place a habit.
The two championship points were pretty important for a very big milestone. Before the 2013 season Jenson Button needed just 1 point to reach the 1000 point mark, and he scored two. His career tally now sits on 1001 points.
For a look at the whole race weekend, check out my Australian GP weekend review: http://bit.ly/XCoMID
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| (c) Sky Sports F1 |
Button managed to sneak into the points with ninth, whilst Perez missed out on tenth place by just six tenths of a second.
When talking to Sky Sports F1's Natalie Pinkham in the "pen" Jenson said "We definitely were not getting any more points than that,"
He continued "We definitely weren't quick and I think we made the right calls considering what the conditions we had in after qualifying. The last four laps of the race were tough because my prime-tyre stints were very, very long because of the short 'option' stint.
"But we got it home and got a couple of points, so that's not bad. I think as a team we did a great job this weekend but we're not quick enough and there's a lot of work we need to do to move forward and challenge the front guys."
"We're a long way off."
When asked how long the problems will take to fix with the MP4-28, he said with complete honesty "I don't know. Who knows? We're not what we think we are so it could take quite a while."
With the Malaysian Grand Prix just a week after, there's no time for McLaren to sort the car out. Button was hopeful that the Sepang circuit would be better suited to their car. "We struggled here with ride - everyone's noticed, it's no secret - so hopefully in Malaysia it's a smoother circuit, hopefully we will get rid of those issues and we can find a bit more performance - you never know."
"If we can get into the points again with the car that we had at the moment I don't think it's too bad. We had races last year with a good car that we struggled to get into the points, so we will see what we can do."
Team-mate Sergio Perez started 15th after a blunder in Qualifying, but rose to an eventual 11th place. However it was a tough debut for his new team. "That was a very, very tough race.
"I got a good start, which is always a bonus, but, after that, even though the team did a great job with the strategy, we just didn't have enough pace to make significant further progress.
"Having said that, I nearly managed to score a point, but in the end I couldn't quite get up to 10th place at the end. To finish 11th is never really satisfying, but I think Jenson and I both drove pretty good races today. In fact I want to say 'well done' to Jenson, who maximised the performance of his car really well to finish ninth.
"Our engineers are aware that our car isn't yet as quick as it needs to be, but I know I'm now part of the best team in Formula 1 so I'm certain they'll improve it fast."
The team have a lot of work to do back at the MTC to fix the issues with the car, Button certainly will not want to make ninth place a habit.
The two championship points were pretty important for a very big milestone. Before the 2013 season Jenson Button needed just 1 point to reach the 1000 point mark, and he scored two. His career tally now sits on 1001 points.
For a look at the whole race weekend, check out my Australian GP weekend review: http://bit.ly/XCoMID
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