As the rain halted and the track started to dry, Button began to pick up position after position.

After a fourth stop to switch from wets back to intermediates just one lap after the race returned to green, Button got caught up in a clash with Fernando Alonso at the first chicane. 'He said 'I get it, you didn't see me, I don't put blame on you.' It was a great chat with Lewis, because it meant I could focus on getting my head back in the game, getting ready for the restart.'īut another incident would quickly follow. 'I went to go and say I was really sorry about the incident,' Button later explained. He used the stoppage to find Hamilton to apologise for causing his retirement. The safety car was called one lap later, leaving Button 10th under the red flag. The intermediates briefly looked like the right tyre to be on, allowing him to claw through to eighth before admitting defeat and pitting for a third time on lap 19 to switch back to wets. He dropped from 12th to 15th as a result, the gap to Vettel returning to 20 seconds. He could not serve this under the safety car, making his earliest opportunity the first lap after the race resumed. Hamilton pulled out to pass, only for an unsighted Button to squeeze him, causing a collision.īutton avoided a penalty for the clash, but had been caught speeding under yellow flags, resulting in a drive-through. Hamilton tucked into Button's slipstream as they came across the main straight, following his team-mate as he drifted toward the pit wall. A mistake from Button at the Turn 6/7 chicane - later the site of his race-winning pass - allowed the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher to get by and Hamilton regained a position, leaving the McLarens nose-to-tail as they judged the limits of grip in the damp.īutton and Hamilton clashed on lap seven, after Schumacher had forced a gaining Hamilton wide at the hairpin on the previous lap. I don't think he was in the best mood!' Jenson Buttonīutton had started the race seventh for McLaren, but gained a place when the race went green on lap five after Hamilton spun Red Bull's Mark Webber around, sending him to the rear of the field.

He's got one car out, one car that has pitted five times and is last. He was just there in the garage, his face is lifeless. Torrential rain in the lead-up to the start meant the race started behind the safety car, which made two further appearances before the red flag came out on lap 25, sparking a two-hour delay. The opening 40 laps of the race took three hours and 20 minutes to complete, and offered just 12 laps of green flag running.

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