Button rues KERS problems

Jenson Button said he was was happy to secure third place at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after a KERS problem robbed him of performance early in the race.

Button lost his KERS power boost on lap 12, dropping him off the pace of leaders Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso and into the clutches of Mark Webber and Felipe Massa behind. Button still managed to take a solid third place by the chequered flag, but admitted it had been a tough race.

"I think it was from lap 12 that I didn't have KERS basically," he said. "I had to fend off Webber and also Massa, which was quite interesting without KERS. In the next stint the team told me what I could do to get KERS back, and I eventually got KERS back, but it lasted for two laps at a time and I had to keep resetting it."

KERS works by harvesting energy from the car's driveshaft when the driver is off the accelerator and Button said his McLaren became unpredictable under braking without it.

"The problem is that it's not just when you accelerate, it's when you brake," he added. "When you have KERS you have a lot of engine braking from the KERS and when you don't have it, you don't have any braking performance. So every time I arrived at a corner I didn't know what I was going to get, engine braking or not, and it was pretty tricky. So coming home and finishing third I'm relatively happy."

ESPNF1