Jenson Button was in the incorrect engine setting for his qualifying lap at the Japanese Grand Prix, meaning he did not have full power for the entire lap.
Button qualified 16th with a time just under a second off Fernando Alonso's best effort, but was hampered by the engine setting issue on his first lap and yellow flags caused by Max Verstappen's stationary Toro Rosso on his second attempt. Button said the team had "messed up" by not informing him of which setting to use.
"Yeah they didn't tell me what setting to be in at the start of the lap which happens at every start of qualifying lap, and they forgot to tell me. I went to the one I would normally go to and it just emptied the pack half way round the lap, so the last half of the lap I didn't have any deployment. We can't make little mistakes like this on the simple things, we've got bigger things to worry about.
"So it's tough and then we had the yellow flag so I obviously backed off in the middle sector and was slow in the middle sector but I was able to find quite a bit of time back in the last sector because I had deployment, but it wasn't enough."
"You need to get everything out of it, you can't make a single mistake. Even just getting the front wing half a turn out; everything has to be right. Then you have a chance of doing something at least but we definitely messed up today."
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier said the team did not follow the correct procedures.
"I must apologise to Jenson on behalf of the team. We have a set of procedures ahead of a qualifying lap, and we didn't follow all of those today. He must feel frustrated to have lost out on his first run, and then not to have got a decent shot at it on his second. The yellow flags are a factor in motor racing, but we should have been a bit tighter with our procedures."