Jenson Button believes he was set to finish in sixth before the Mercedes engine in his McLaren let him down.
The McLaren driver made considerable progress from 11th on the grid into the points and was running seventh behind Valtteri Bottas, who struggled with his tyres in the closing laps of the race and fell out of the points. But an engine shutdown deprived Button of an opportunity to collect a healthy number of points for his team’s tight battle with Force India for fifth in the constructors championship.
Despite late retirements in Malaysia last year and Bahrain earlier this season, Button’s non-finish in Singapore was the first non-classification since Korea in 2012 and was left frustrated not being able to utlise the McLaren’s pace advantage over the Williams.
“The engine cut off and annoyingly it was just when we started to use modes that we could use to the end of the race because we had saved everything for the end of the race because we knew Bottas’ tyres would go off,” he said.
“And they did, but we couldn’t capitalise because we were parked by the side of the circuit. I think we could have had Bottas’ position, I don’t think we would have caught Felipe [Massa], but we didn’t finish so…”
Button later commented on social media, saying that he “felt like P6 was on the cards.”
