High speed corners hurt McLaren – Button
Button was eighth in the second free practice session and believes that McLaren's long run pace isn't giving him too much hope.
"We’re finding it tough out there today – especially in the heat," said Button, who won in Malaysia five years ago.
"We’re not as strong as we’d like to be in high-speed corners – and, when you have downforce issues, they’re further amplified by the hot weather. So our long runs were tricky – in terms of both tyre degradation and outright pace.
"We’re now going through the data, but the upgrades we brought here seem to be giving us something – so that’s encouraging – but there’s a lot of work still to be done.
"I’m sure people are getting excited about individual lap-times, but they don’t count for too much around here because you can usually overtake. It’s the long runs that you need to analyse, and that’s where we’re finding it a bit more difficult."