Jenson Button hopes strategy and not a lack of pace was to blame for his disappointing 13th-place finish at the Chinese Grand Prix.
McLaren fitted fresh medium tyres to Button's car after the deployment of the safety car in China at a time most of its rivals switched to softs, making for a painful stint against cars on a quicker compound. If strategy cannot be blamed, Button thinks the result is proof McLaren is simply not quick enough to be challenging for points on a regular basis.
"After the safety car we put on the medium and I'm not sure it was the right [choice], we'll have to look at the data," Button said. "Everyone else was on the soft tyre and it was just really, really difficult in terms of pace. We'll have to see if that was the right tyre to have on the car or not. If it wasn't then we had a chance of battling into the points, but if it was the right choice then we're still away from the points.
"Then we put that [super-soft] tyre on at the end trying to do a two-stop but it didn't look like it was ever going to work. We could have stayed out on the medium but I was in 11th and I thought I'd rather have some fun but the option tyre just disintegrated after about three laps.
"But anyway, we weren't in the points. Hopefully we made the wrong strategy call putting on the medium because if we didn't we're not quick enough to be in the points at the moment, because nothing else went wrong so I'm hoping that was the wrong choice and we made a mistake there. Maybe our pace just isn't good enough, or make it was the wrong choice of tyre, we'll have to have a look."
The contrast of McLaren's call to the rest of the field during the flurry of lap four pit stops can be seen in the strategy map below, with only Sauber's Marcus Ericsson opting for mediums over the soft compound.
#ChineseGP: In #F1 Strategy is about having the correct response to any number of scenarios: https://t.co/DEakAqBdhQ pic.twitter.com/PAZznnaEOF
— Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) April 17, 2016
Button's disappointment is compounded by the fact he had such an encouraging start.
"It was fun for the first stint, we made up a lot of places at the start. I think I was running well into the top ten, I think we were seventh, something like that, battling out there overtaking people and them overtaking us, it was good.
"I thought we were in a good position but we were on the medium tyre and stood still compared to everyone else, where our pace on the option was pretty good in the first stint. It was fun racing it with the quick cars for a while!"