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Button concerned opposition is closing in

Jenson Button has an eye on his rivals © Sutton Images

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McLaren's Jenson Button is concerned about the improved pace of his rivals at the last two grands prix.

Despite McLaren leading both the constructors' and drivers' championships, on pure performance Red Bull has had the upper hand this season, taking nine pole positions in ten races. At the last two grands prix Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes have all brought major updates to their car, and although they have had mixed results, they appear to be closing on McLaren.

When asked by his official website if he is concerned about opposition, Button said: "I am, yeah. We've seen since the start of the season that the Red Bull has been the car to beat. I've won a couple of races, and so has Lewis [Hamilton], and you could say that, for a few races at least, we perhaps had the quickest race pace, and we were able to make the most of that.

"But Valencia showed us that the opposition never stands still. And a number of teams showed up with some significant upgrades, and even if the results didn't necessarily show it, we became aware of their intent."

Current development in F1 is focused on the blown diffuser concept, used by Red Bull since the start of the season and introduced by Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes and Williams over the last two races.

McLaren ran its version during practice for the British Grand Prix but failed to get it to work and reverted to its old floor for qualifying and the race. However, Button is confident his team will iron out the problems and that it will help combat the improved performance of the competition.

"We saw ourselves at Silverstone, that it's not easy to arrive at a track and simply 'switch on' a new package - it requires quite a bit of effort - so I think over the next few races, we're going to see a lot of the top teams further fine-tuning their refinements," he said. "So we can't afford to stand still. And we're not. I think we've perhaps punched above our weight at the last two races - which is great for us - but we're not standing still.

"At the moment, we're hopeful of taking the blown diffuser to Hockenheim to run it on Friday. We learnt quite a bit about it from the day's testing at Silverstone, and I hope we'll be in a position to get it working more effectively at the German Grand Prix.

When asked what the exact problem with the blown diffuser at Silverstone was, he said: "It's one of those things where, perhaps, you go into it feeling optimistic that it will deliver the required performance step, but, in reality, it's more complicated than that.

"At Silverstone, we had the added complication of a new track configuration that we'd never driven on before. And it was also very, very bumpy, which didn't help us quickly fine-tune the set-up of the car.

"On Friday, we struggled to make the car feel nice - it was just unpredictable and difficult to feel comfortable in. That could have been a set-up issue, but Lewis was reporting exactly the same issues from the other side of the garage, so it quickly became apparent that it wasn't an individual problem, it was something affecting both cars.

"Was it the right decision to go back to the old floor? It was a tough decision, but you've got to look at the result we got on Sunday to say that we made the right call."

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