Button frustrated by stop-start Friday

MONTREAL, June 11, 2011 (AFP) - Jenson Button was left feeling frustrated after Friday's chaotic practice sessions for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix.

The first day at the Montreal circuit saw four big crashes and three red flags, drastically affecting the Briton's testing schedule.

The 30-year-old McLaren driver, fifth fastest, said the stop-start nature of the sessions had made it difficult to fine tune his car and hopes that Saturday will be a trouble free day.

"It's very difficult doing any kind of set-up changes when there's so many red flags," said the former world champion. 

"It's surprising how many red flags we've had today - one touch of a kerb in the wrong way can send you into a wall. It's not perfect, hopefully tomorrow will be a nice clean day."

However, the 2009 champion was glad to have thoroughly tested the latest super soft Pirelli tyre and believes the information will help improve his car's performance.

He said: "We've done some high-fuel work with the soft tyre and I think that was key today, to really get some laps on the super-soft.

"I think it was useful information, and hopefully we can improve the car on low-fuel."

His McLaren team-mate and Lewis Hamilton was not put off by the amount of crashes and explained that it was just a natural part of racing.He said: "That's racing. People are testing the limits of the cars and you would be blaming them if they didn't try."

The 2008 champion, fifth quickest, said he was happy with his performance and is feeling optimistic ahead of Sunday's race.

"It was a very good day for me, we got through a lot of test components and we're just trying to find the exact balance I want," added Hamilton.

"We're going to go and sit down and analyse some things. Long-run pace is not so bad so I think the speed is there."