Button: Strange but enjoyable

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Saturday 27th September 2008

Jenson Button admitted he found his first experience of racing at night "strange" after enjoying a useful practice session ahead of today's qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Honda driver finished eighth quickest in the second session under the floodlights on the Marina Bay circuit with a time of one minute 46.901 seconds.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton finished fastest in the first session while Renault driver and two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso was quickest in the second.

The tropical climate in Singapore has wreaked havoc with the weather with heavy rain and thunder in the morning giving way to sunshine by the afternoon.

Consequently, the heat and humidity was high in the evening and Button admitted that had caught him by surprise.

"It's been a very strange day of testing," he said. "You would expect the conditions to be cooler but this has to be one of the hottest Fridays that we've ever had and it's just so humid.

"The circuit is interesting to drive and it's very bumpy, which adds to the excitement as the bumps bounce the car all over the place.

"We spent both sessions trying to improve the ride quality and balance of the car by testing many different things and the outcome was largely positive.

"We didn't get the best out of the car on my final run with the new tyres, due to too much understeer, but it was still nice to end up eighth quickest.

"All in all, a good start to the weekend and I'm sure there is still a lot more to come."

Button heads into the weekend hoping to add to the three points he has managed so far this season.

But although he admitted anything could happen in the race, he played down his chances of adding more points in Singapore.

"It is a difficult one," the 28-year-old added. "If you look at the last two races we didn't manage to finish any higher than 15th.

"It will be difficult but this sort of circuit is new to everyone so we just to have make sure we do everything perfect over the weekend and there might be a possibility of scraping a point."

Your Comments

EndlessCT9A

"Jenson old boy... seems like your days at Honda are numbered. You should have stayed at Renault when it was still Benetton F1 or gone to Williams like you should have. Dumb career decisions. "