Jenson Button believes McLaren did a better job of utilising Friday's mixed practice session than many of its rivals ahead of qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.
Button completed a total of 29 laps of running in mixed conditions during Friday practice, while McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso amassed 27. Despite the difficult conditions, both drivers ended each session within the top ten, leaving Button optimistic heading into Saturday.
"Obviously we'd like to do more testing but there is no point in these conditions," he said. "Hopefully that's behind us now and I think we made the best of today, probably better than some teams did. We will see what we can do tomorrow."
"I don't think any of us like such gusty conditions because a lot of the time you are out of control which is quite tricky, trying to find the limit of the car. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a lot calmer for everyone's sake but I'm glad that most of us got through today without any major incidents."
The 2009 world champion, who claimed victory at Melbourne during his title-winning campaign before taking further wins for McLaren in 2010 and 2012, feels the Woking-based outfit has made promising steps over the winter.
"I think we are in a much better situation than last year as a whole, the car is reliable which is great. You can actually do the set up work before qualifying.It's not going to be two seconds quicker than the last race last year and we're not going to be fighting at the front just yet, but they are definite improvements. The important thing is that Fernando and I will be giving it everything to get the maximum out of this car."