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Button hoping for 'further step forwards'

Jenson Button: "The whole car has benefited from lots of fresh thinking and new ideas in every area" © Sutton Images

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Jenson Button says that he is hoping the new McLaren MP4-27 will provide the team with "a further step forwards in 2012".

McLaren won six grands prix in 2011 with Button and team-mate Lewis Hamilton securing three victories each. Despite those wins, Sebastian Vettel was dominant in the Red Bull winning six of the first seven races before McLaren could mount any sustained challenge. As a result, Button said that he hoped that the new car could build on the progress made towards the end of last season with the MP4-26.

"With the regulations remaining relatively stable, we've really been able to focus on the detail with this year's car," Button said. "I still think we had a very fast package last year - it was very strong in certain areas - and our race pace was almost always fantastic, but we're hoping for a further step forwards in 2012. With Mercedes-Benz, I think we also had the best overall engine and KERS Hybrid package in the pitlane.

"We were also able to continuously develop throughout the year to match Red Bull - and that shows that we have the knowledge, effort and resources to sustain our efforts across the course of a whole season, which can be crucial. I know that the whole team is extremely proud of the MP4-27. It may look like a direct evolution of last year's car, but we've analysed every area of performance over the winter and the whole car has benefited from lots of fresh thinking and new ideas in every area."

Button also admitted that after the difficulties of the 2011 pre-season it would be important to maximise the potential of the car early on.

"I'm really looking forward to getting behind the wheel in Spain next week. I know that everyone will be watching us very closely to see what progress we make during the pre-season tests, but I genuinely believe we have every reason to feel optimistic about the progress we've made and our competitiveness this year."

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