Jenson Button says the McLaren-Honda project is "very exciting" to be a part of as the team continues to make rapid progress.
Issues with the Honda power unit left McLaren struggling for mileage in pre-season testing, and Button was comfortably off the pace in the Australian Grand Prix. However, with both cars reaching Q2 in Barcelona last weekend, the team has made big steps forward at every race.
Speaking to F1i during an exclusive interview, Button admits he didn't expect to be so uncompetitive in the opening rounds but says the progress made since then is almost as exciting as fighting at the front.
“It’s coming from a massive low, and I think everyone was quite surprised how slow we were at the start," Button said. "But we had a lot of reliability issues in the winter and we didn’t really run too much, so to be where we are now I think is fantastic. It’s very exciting seeing the progress.
"If we’d started sort of in the midfield and we’d made up a couple of places by now you’d find it quite boring but now with the massive progress that we make, it’s great. At some point it will stop, it will be harder to progress, but at the moment it’s still big strides that we’re taking every time we drive the car.
"So it’s very exciting. Obviously it’s not as exciting as fighting for the world championship, it’s not as exciting as fighting for race wins - it never is going to be - but it’s an exciting challenge all the same.”
Click here for a look at the radical Honda power unit design
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
