{"id":3617,"date":"2010-03-23T07:00:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2010-03-23T07:00:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T11:00:58","slug":"button-swaps-mclaren-for-v8-supercar-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/button-swaps-mclaren-for-v8-supercar-in-melbourne\/","title":{"rendered":"Button swaps McLaren for V8 Supercar in Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jenson Button on Tuesday got a taste of V8 Supercar racing when he swapped his McLaren for a Holden Commodore of the Australian touring car series.<\/span><\/h5>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a Vodafone sponsor event, the 30-year-old did a few laps of the Albert Park circuit in fellow reigning champion Jamie Whincup’s car.<\/p>\n

But while Briton Button enthused about the “quite good” Supercar, 27-year-old Whincup could not stop saying the word “unbelievable” when he emerged from the 2008 McLaren, which was fitted with grooved Bridgestone tyres.<\/p>\n

“It was unbelievable, I can’t really explain it,” said the Australian, who said driving an F1 car had been one of his three dreams, including flying a fighter jet and travelling into space.<\/p>\n

“The car just does everything right,” he added, albeit acknowledging that he braked too early for the corners.<\/p>\n

“The strain on my head was unbelievable.\u00a0 I don’t get anywhere near the Gs in my car — the acceleration and the braking, I’ve never felt anything like it before.<\/p>\n

“I’ve got huge respect for these guys.\u00a0 To do a full grand prix at that pace is unbelievable,” said Whincup.<\/p>\n

It was a mild, windy and overcast day in Melbourne on Tuesday, but although the clouds are likely to stay overhead this week, actual rain is unlikely.<\/p>\n

Button’s team is expecting a more competitive weekend than in Bahrain, but he admits that two other teams are leading the pace at present.<\/p>\n

“You’d have to say the Red Bulls are very strong.\u00a0 The Red Bulls and the Ferraris were so quick in Bahrain,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF|GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jenson Button on Tuesday got a taste of V8 Supercar racing when he swapped his McLaren for a Holden Commodore of the Australian touring car series. \u00a0 In a Vodafone sponsor event, the 30-year-old did a few laps of the Albert Park circuit in fellow reigning champion Jamie Whincup’s car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5339,805,5262,1105,153,5284],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3618,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions\/3618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}