Button: Maximum commitment

Jenson Button is hoping for a change of fortune in Korea as he bids to help McLaren consolidate their fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship…

Jenson Button is hoping for a change of fortune in Korea as he bids to help McLaren consolidate their fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

The Brit has only netted points in one of three starts at the Yeongam circuit, bringing his McLaren home in fourth place at the 2011 race.

The previous race he had finished a lacklustre P12 while last year he retired on the opening lap after being hit by Kamui Kobayashi.

“If there’s one circuit on the F1 calendar that hasn’t been particularly kind to me, then it’s the track in Korea,” said the Brit, who is 50/1 with the F1 bookmakers to win in Korea.

“I had a pretty tough race there in 2010, an average race there in ’11, and I didn’t even have a race there last year – someone smashed into me at Turn Three on the first lap, and my race was over.

“Of course, it would be easy for that to make your head drop, but, in fact, the opposite is true: I travel to Korea next week even more determined than normal to reverse the trend, get the absolute maximum from the car and get a good result.

“I think we had a solid weekend in Singapore, the engineers, the strategists and the mechanics got the best from the car, and we couldn’t have realistically expected more. That’s the aim again next weekend.”

And with more points, the 2009 World Champion intends helping McLaren hold onto fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship, where they are favourites with Paddy Power to beat Force India.

“This is the first of three pairs of back-to-back races that conclude the season. I think it’s very important for us to further consolidate our position in the Championship, so getting points in both Korea and Japan will be important.

“We go into this weekend with maximum commitment.”