Button: I just don’t have the pace

Jenson Button was left lamenting a lack of pace in his McLaren MP4-27 after failing to make Q3 for the second race in a row in Monaco.

The 2009 champion had topped the timesheet in the rain-affected FP2 session here on Thursday and said he felt happy with the car in this morning’s free practice session, in which he finished sixth. But this afternoon, he couldn’t find the performance in the latter stages of Q2 and was dumped out of the top-10 shoot. He finished 13th but will start from 12th thanks to Pastor Maldonado’s 10-place grid penalty.

“I just don’t have the pace. That’s it really,” he said after the session. “It’s very strange, because it’s there at some points during the weekend. Even this morning I felt the car was good. I was happy and the pace was pretty good this morning, but I didn’t have it all of qualifying. We did make some set-up changes which I thought would have been better but maybe they’re not.

“Monaco is all about qualifying,” he added. “I think that was proved last year: the top three were the top three at the end of the race. It might have been a slightly different order but it’s the way Monaco is.

“I’ve only finished in the points here three times and that’s been a first, a second and a third so I just hope it’s another one of them this weekend! It’s going to be a really tough race starting where I am. I don’t know if the pace is going to be better in the race and that’s what we have to hope for. You still can’t overtake here and I guess the people where I am are going to do the same strategy, so it’s going to be tough but we’ll try and do our best.”

It was a much better outing for team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who slotted into fourth place at the end of the session. He’ll start third thanks to the five-place penalty imposed on pole-winner Michael Schumacher. “It was very exciting [but] massively tough,” he admitted. “It was one of the toughest qualifying sessions I’ve experience for some time now. But it was so much fun. I really enjoyed it. I think we probably struggled a little bit in the middle and last sector. I think it was more the low speed corners where we were not so quick.

“I think it’s going to be a tough race. I don’t know what the weather will be like. They said it would rain today and it didn’t. Now all of a sudden, tomorrow’s forecast is even better. Tyres and strategy can play a big role here.” However, the 2008 Monaco winner said he was optimistic about tomorrow’s race.

“If we get a good start, we’re in a fighting position to win. So I’ll give everything tomorrow to move up,” he said. “I’ve got a good feeling about the weekend but I’ve got two great drivers in front of me who will make it as hard a possible for me to get by but we’ll do everything we can.”