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McLaren closer to Red Bull this year - Button

Jenson Button: "Seb is obviously the favourite, as he should be as he won the last two championships" © Getty Images

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Jenson Button is confident McLaren will be closer to Red Bull at the start of this year than it was at the start of 2011.

After a torrid testing campaign last year McLaren had to make significant changes to its 2011 car to make it reliable for the first race. From that point onwards it was playing catch-up with Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel ran away with the title.

This year the new MP4-27 has been much more reliable in testing, and although Button expects the Red Bull to be quick he is confident McLaren will be closer.

"Seb is obviously the favourite, as he should be as he won the last two championships," Button said. "There have been regulation changes, but still Red Bull will be strong from the word go. But I don't think they will have the advantage they had at the start of the season last year."

He said he was particularly happy that the McLaren could complete over 100 laps per day.

"It was nice to get in the car and be able to bosh out 114 laps," Button added. "Over the three days we've averaged 116 or 117 laps, so it's good that we can do that. It's something that's new to us because we couldn't do that last year or really the year before. It's very useful because you're able to do reliability work but also you have more time to do set-up work and improve the car and understand the tyres.

"The tyres might look the same as last year's tyres but there is a very different feeling so it's about understanding them, getting a good feel for them and working out the way forward, not just for tomorrow, but the next test and the first race."

And Button confirmed that McLaren would bring a significant update to the next test to prepare itself for Melbourne.

"There will definitely be something new before Melbourne," he said. "We have an update on the car for the first race, it's not a completely straightforward update. It's not just about bolting downforce onto the car, it's slightly more than that I would say. I just hope that we're going in the right direction. The windtunnel says we are so I'm looking forward to the update next week and then we can start balancing the car and finding a direction for the first race.

"It's the same for a lot of people, we do a lot of testing with the launch cars and then we bolt on a different package for the first race and a lot of it you have to do all over again. It's important to understand what does what and if everything works correctly, so that if you find yourself in a situation at the next test and you need a direction you know exactly where to go."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.