JENSON BUTTONMP4-28A-03FP1 1m33.139s (+1.385s) 24 lap 7th
FP2 1m31.568s (+1.152s) 37 laps 9th
The car felt pretty good as soon as I drove out of the garage this morning. Were still a way off the front, but our pace relative to the cars around us doesnt seem too bad. The overall feeling with the car is not so bad.The Pirelli tyres are working very well here; obviously, the Option has much more grip than the Prime. It seems that the idea behind the two compounds is to give us a qualifying tyre that doesnt last longthe Optionand a race tyrethe Prime. Its not a bad compromise, we just need to deal with the tyre not lasting too long on Sunday.We wont be challenging the cars at the front this weekend, but it would be nice to be able to attack the teams who are normally immediately ahead of us.SERGIO PEREZMP4-28A-01FP1 1m33.456s (+1.702s) 18 lap 10th
FP2 1m32.086s (+1.670s) 36 laps 14thI think its been our best Friday for a couple of racespartly because of the dry weather, but also because we got a useful amount of work under our belts.Were still in the same situation as we were in last weekendthe potential of the car hasnt changed dramaticallybut I think we can fight tomorrow to get into Q3. That may still be hard, but thats our target.MARTIN WHITMARSHTeam principal, Vodafone McLaren MercedesWeve made a little bit of progress with the car and can hopefully continue to improve it throughout the weekend. Naturally, the majority of the day was spent learning about the new Pirelli tyres that we have for this weekend. Pirelli has changed the construction of the tyreand it was good to see that it was a quiet day on the tyre front.Both drivers conducted a range of development runs in the morning, before spending the afternoon running a comparison test between the Prime and Option tyres, and undertaking longer runs using a heavier fuel-load.Its clear that theres a significant step in both performance and longevity between the two compoundsthat will inevitably make for some interesting considerations during the race.
