Button impressed by Toro Rosso pair

© XPB 

Jenson Button admits he was impressed how the two Toro Rosso drivers performed during the first two practice sessions for the Monaco Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen was second fastest in FP1 in what was his first ever session around Monaco, and followed that up with seventh fastest behind team-mate Carlos Sainz in FP2. Asked if his experience could help him recover from a lack of running on the opening day, Button replied: “You hope around here.

"I think Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz did a great job day today with very little experience around here. We’ll see what happens in qualifying when we’re all giving it our maximum and we’ll see how we fare. But considering the running I had I’m reasonably happy with how the car feels.”

Having missed the first hour of FP1 due to an energy recovery system, Button admits he is on the back foot more than the rest of the field with rain interrupting the second session.

“You always want to run here as much as you can. Monaco is very unique, it’s a unique circuit these days. It’s somewhere you need to build up, you can’t just go straight out and go flat-out like most of the circuits these days that have a lot of run-offs. You need a lot of laps, I didn’t get a lot of laps so Saturday morning is going to be very important for me especially.”

Click here for Thursday's gallery from the Monaco Grand Prix

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