Great interview indeed, one of the best I´ve read with a driver, both the questions and answers were very interesting
I didn´t know anything about this:
Jenson Button wrote:I think it's going in the right direction with the ideas for the future: wider rear tyres, wider cars, because now they are so skinny and long the car just snaps and I don't think it looks good on TV. We are not able to control it and we are supposed to be the best drivers in the world - of course, we do control slides and what we do with the car is beyond the imagination of most people - but sometimes it's unpredictable and it's not driver skill. There are a few things that need to change, and they will
Looks like the PU was not the only big problem
Button wrote:The thing is that the first few tests we were like, 'Oh, my god! Is there a front wing on this car?' There was so much understeer and we were trying to get it so that as you add steering lock you didn't lose front end and didn't get washout, which is a big problem with a single seater. We've been working on that and now we have a lot more front end in the car and there is a lot more to work with.
This is not new, but anycase interesting
Jenson Button wrote:It's very aggressive, more aggressive than any other engine, which comes with issues of course - reliability issues. But we can't really change the design of the engine over the next couple of years anyway, so they had to go that aggressive and just deal with the reliability issues. Aerodynamically it helps massively because the air flow is so clean around the sidepods and towards the diffuser. So it is good, but then you get the other issues. They are working on them right now in terms of reliability and a lot of work is going into that.
[...]
but there is a lot of power coming over the next few races, so that's positive.
And this explains they´ve been 4 tenths faster in Monaco than last season, the only race they´ve been significantly faster, at least it´s a good car at some aspect
Jenson Button wrote:I think Singapore is going to be the race that is going to be the standout race that we need to give it large and come out with a result. We are very good with slow speed corners, which has been a weakness of McLaren in the past.