Vettel in the driving seat

MCLAREN duo Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton offered a grim assessment of their chances of overhauling Red Bull in China this weekend, admitting their main title rivals still enjoy a significant performance advantage.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel led the way in both of yesterday’s practice sessions as the Red Bull man’s bid to make it three wins out of three at the start of 2011 got off to a predictably solid start.

Hamilton and Button finished second and third to the German in yesterday’s second 90-minute session at the Shanghai International Circuit, after a day spent evaluating the merits of new technical upgrades.

Less than three tenths of a second covered the top three after second practice, but even that modest gap is one that Button does not expect to bridge tomorrow. Asked if he felt the team was closer now to Red Bull than they were in Malaysia last weekend, a downbeat Button said: “No, not at all. I don’t think we are at the moment.

“I’d be surprised if we can fight them for pole position in qualifying. They look very fast.”

Runs both with and without McLaren’s new upgrades to the floor and exhaust of their car provided inconclusive results in the immediate aftermath of practice, but Button hopes analysis of the data overnight will better guide them tomorrow.

“If we sort our balance out we’ll be closer. So it’s not been a perfect afternoon but we have a lot of information on the changes we made, so we can hopefully work on improving the set-up.”

Hamilton has so far been Vettel’s nearest challenger in qualifying, finishing second to the world champion in both Australia and Malaysia. And while the gap between the two remains minimal so far this weekend, Hamilton fears the Red Bull will again prevail on a Shanghai circuit which plays to the strengths of the RB7.

“My feeling is that they’re very, very quick this weekend,” he said.

“You need good downforce on this circuit and they have shown time and time again that they generally have more than us.

“It looks like there’s a bit of a gap between us and them.”

He added: “It’s not been the best of days. Set-up wise, we struggled a little bit today, which is the first time since we’ve had the new upgrade on the rear of the car.

“There were some positives and negatives and the guys are just trying to understand which way we’re going to go with the upgrade that we have.

Vettel’s performance continued his sublime start to the new campaign. Two rounds in, his record reads two poles, two wins and a maximum of 50 points — 24 clear of Button in the embryonic drivers’ standings.

He again put team-mate Mark Webber firmly in the shade, the Australian finishing second in first practice and a lowly 10th in the afternoon, but the 23-year-old is refusing to accept he will run away with the race come Sunday.