Button's 'missed opportunity'

Button: missed opportunity

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Jenson Button acknowledges that he is losing vital ground to McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the battle for the world championship after his retirement from the Belgian Grand Prix.

The defending champion fell 35 points behind overall leader Hamilton at the weekend, when the latter claimed victory at Spa following Button's collision with fellow title contender Sebastian Vettel.

Button still feels aggrieved by Vettel's actions - the young German losing control of his Red Bull and t-boning the Briton's McLaren as he attempted to pass at the Bus Stop chicane.

Believing it was "a missed opportunity" as he was running second behind Hamilton at the time, Button said: "My thoughts haven't really changed.

"At the time I was pretty confused by what Sebastian did. Now, I still think what he did was completely unnecessary.

"He didn't need to pass me at that point, and I wasn't making his life difficult, so his car shouldn't have been on such a knife-edge when he hit me.

"What's most frustrating is that I've lost out on a good handful of championship points.

"I know there are 150 points still up for grabs, but it doesn't help to now be 35 behind Lewis.

"Anything's still possible, but at this point in the season you've got to take every point you can, and the incident in Spa certainly didn't help."

Positive

Yet with six races to come this season, Button is taking plenty of positives from the turn of speed McLaren showed in Belgium, particularly following their disappointing showing in Hungary at the start of August.

"We were very pleased with our performance (in Belgium)," said Button. "We were on the pace for the whole weekend, and had one of the fastest cars, probably the fastest car in mixed conditions, so that's all very positive.

"While Spa wasn't a personal highlight for me, I think Lewis' win came at exactly the right time for the whole team.

"Hungary was probably the low point of our season, so to be able to bounce back so strongly will have given the team the assurance we're headed in the right direction for the rest of the championship.

"We know it won't be easy, and that some circuits won't favour our car as much as Spa, but we're heading into the final six races in full-on battle mode.

"We know how to win and we want to keep winning."