• British Grand Prix

Button hopeful of McLaren chances

Jenson Button says McLaren is fully prepared for the race weekend © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• British Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Jenson Button

• Teams:
• McLaren

Jenson Button is hopeful that McLaren can still challenge Red Bull for victory in the British Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel has won six of the first eight races, finishing second in the other two as Red Bull has dominated the 2011 season so far. Only Button and team-mate Lewis Hamilton have beaten Vettel this year, and last time out in Valencia they were both unable to match the pace of Red Bull. Button, however, says that McLaren has prepared fully for the off-throttle blown diffuser ban in order to try to close the gap at the front.

"There's always a chance [to win]," Button said. "Whether it's a big enough one I don't know. I think if you look at the last race we saw that the Red Bull was very strong and we were quite a long way behind them. We have updates for this race that will hopefully help us and also we have the difference of the blown diffuser this race and the electronics. That might help us more than the other teams, I don't know it might not - we'll have to see when we get out on the circuit.

"The important thing is that we've done a lot of preparation work for this race with new components and also running with the new blown diffuser system. It's about preparation for this race, this is a pretty tough circuit to go out on with a new package so preparation is key and we've prepared very well. Hopefully that will show tomorrow when we get out there."

Laurence Edmondson is a deputy editor on ESPNF1

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