World Champion Jensen Button shows his pace and desire in Spain
Last updated 21/02/2010 14:17:40
World Champion Jensen Button shows his pace and desire in Spain
World champion Jenson Button may have changed cars but he has still clocked the fastest time of pre-season tests at Jerez in the last two weeks.
The 30 year old McLaren driver posted a time of one minute 18.871 seconds on the final day of the third winter F1 test in Spain while his rivals struggled.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was only sixth fastest, while Red Bull's Mark Webber was unable to repeat his fast time from Friday as his car came to a halt on the track.
Button will march on to the final test run in Barcelona next week before the long awaited season-opening race in Bahrain on 14 March.
Alonso clocked the fastest time of the opening winter test in Valencia for Ferrari, while the 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton recorded a time of 1:19.583 at last week's four-day test in Jerez.
With the new season less than a month away the general feeling in the paddock is that Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren are ahead of the rest of the grid at this stage of the season.
"The F10 is growing very well and there's nothing that should worry us," said Alonso. We worked on the long run and the signs we got are really positive."
Button's former team Brawn, now renamed Mercedes, look to be marginally behind the top three with Formula 1 giant Michael Schumacher racing for them. Team principal Ross Brawn believes the German outfit are in "good shape for the start of the season".
"We have been able to make good progress on the set-up of the car and completed a number of our systems evaluations," added Brawn.
Red Bull's Webber said: "We learned a hell of a lot, no question about it. We did a lot of stuff with Renault and also leaned about the aerodynamics and the chassis."
New teams Virgin and Lotus have been the slowest this week but are confident about their progress, while fellow newcomers Campos and USF1 have yet to test or complete their driver line-ups.
Campos restructured their ownership and recruited the experienced Colin Kolles as team principal on Friday.
USF1's chances of making Bahrain look remote amid reports that they have asked to miss the first four races of the season but Serbian team Stefan GP say they are ready to step in despite not having a 2010 entry.
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