McLaren need to find race pace – Jenson Button

McLaren driver Jenson Button says the team need to start focusing on unlocking their Formula One race pace in 2016.

Button and team-mate Fernando Alonso have shown relatively good pace in practice and qualifying but have found it difficult to find consistency during race day.

Neither of the two have finished higher than 12th this season, with Alonso’s fill-in in Bahrain, Stoffel Vandoorne, finishing in 10th.

Button believes the team have improved reliability-wise this season, but just need to translate their early-weekend form into the race.

“The last couple of races have been a bit like rolling the dice for us, and we haven’t managed to hook up the perfect weekend yet,” the 2009 F1 world champion said.

“We’ve seen some promising results on a Friday and Saturday, but over a long Sunday afternoon race we’ve found it more difficult to maintain our pace.

“The car feels good and we’re definitely heading in the right direction.

“But we need to keep pushing and working hard to bring more improvements and power for us to see further progression.

“It’s easy to say we deserved to take more from the first three races, but we need to pull together all of the elements over all three days to give ourselves a fighting chance of scoring some points.”