Jenson Button has revealed that he felt his victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix was possible right from the moment he took on his first set of slicks on lap 12.
Button worked his way up to second after his first pit stop and then attacked Lewis Hamilton for the lead in his final stint. After a tense battle, Hamilton then had to make two extra pit stops and serve a drive-through penalty, giving Button a clear run to the finish. But the race winner said he felt the win was possible much earlier in the race.
"It's very easy to say now, but personally I felt [a win was possible] at the end of the first stint," he said. "I felt that I was able to look after the tyres for the remainder of the first stint. I think that halfway through people began struggling and I was able to push on and the car felt really good. I think I was about three seconds behind Lewis when he pitted on the first stop, he'd pulled in about a second a lap up to that point.
"So at that point I knew that I was in good shape, the car was working well for me and I thought it was a matter of time in the dry conditions for us to get the jump on Lewis, because at the end of the stints he was struggling. Obviously it turned out a little bit differently with the rain coming down, it was difficult on the prime tyre - those aren't the conditions for those tyres - but a lot of fun all the same. It's always fun racing with Lewis, I think we're pretty fair, I don't think we touched this time and it was great to come away with a victory this time."
He said a win was the best possible way to enter the four week summer break and to mark his 200th grand prix start.
"It's good having a couple of weeks break because it might take me that long to get over tonight," Button added. "This is the first place where I won a grand prix back in 2006, in these sorts of conditions, and this is my 200th race and we've won here again. For some reason I like these conditions, don't ask me why, but it was a great call by the team to put me on the prime tyre when they did. And I think a great call by all of us when we decided not to go to the inters.
"All round, an amazing weekend and I want to say a big thank you to the whole team; the mechanics, the engineers, everyone within the team who have worked so hard to produce the car that we have now. I think we're going into the break on a nice high, but I think every day that we're on holiday we're going to be thinking about Spa already. I'm excited about coming back and hopefully doing the same again."
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