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Button baffled by Red Bull inconsistency

Jenson Button says he is surprised by Red Bull's inconsistency © Sutton Images

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Jenson Button says he has been surprised by rivals Red Bull Racing's failure to capitalise on its strong start to the 2010 season.

The Milton Keynes based outfit dominated the opening rounds before McLaren hit back in the last two races to lead both the drivers' and constructors' standings.

Although there have been five different leaders in this year's title race, the strongly fancied Sebastian Vettel has not been one of them, despite the German taking pole in three of the first four races.

"They've had a very quick car this year, and Seb's been very quick at times, but it's a strange one," Button told Press Association Sport. "They haven't got it together as often as I thought they would.

"In the last race in Canada they were quite quick considering the type of circuit, but again they finished fourth and fifth. It seems that one of their cars always has an issue in the race and they need to back off.

"I don't know if it's because they always push the car to the limit which makes them very quick in qualifying, and so they struggle in the race, I don't know. When they do get their act together they are awesomely quick and then they are almost unbeatable, as we saw when Webber won in Barcelona he had a perfect weekend."

Button thinks that McLaren's better consistency this season has been the decisive factor between the teams so far.

"But more often than not they seem to have got it wrong somehow, be it reliability or strategy mistakes or crashing into each other. I think we've got it right a lot more. We've had our problems and reliability issues - Lewis and I have both stopped in a race and we had trouble in qualifying in Malaysia. But apart from that we've been pretty good, pretty on the ball."

Despite his optimism, Button knows that it would be foolish to write off any of his rivals this weekend.

"Our car will be good around here, but the Red Bull is going to be quick, and Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari are going to be bloody quick as well. It's going to be competitive and it's not going to be a walk in the park for anyone this weekend."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.