Button will stay at McLaren - Dennis

Jenson Button will remain at McLaren in 2016 and not retire from F1, according to Ron Dennis.

The McLaren boss was present at Suzuka for yesterday's Japanese Grand Prix at the end of a weekend which has seen much speculation about Button's future. Reports in British newspapers suggested Button would announce his retirement from F1 as early as the Suzuka weekend, but the 2009 world champion was tight-lipped over his future on Thursday.

However, Dennis says McLaren has taken up its option on Button and believes the uncertainty came about due to a lack of discussion ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend.

"Jenson has a two-year contract," Dennis said. "I should have taken away any doubt about our commitment to him earlier than I did. I didn’t speak to him until Thursday, but at the end of the day it would have been more constructive if he’d known that I had no intention of exercising our option to terminate him.

"We didn’t put it in there to exercise it and we didn’t. These sorts of decisions are not mine and mine alone, we need consensus from the shareholders and once I had consensus I informed Jenson formally. I could have done it a couple of days earlier, but I didn’t think it would be an issue."

Asked if Button wants to stay, Dennis replied: "I think the position he found himself in was, like any relationship, that you need to know the other party wants you.

"It’s the same in a human relationship or any sort of partnership and I took that doubt away because I don’t think it was constructive."

When pushed by Sky Sports' Martin Brundle on whether Button and Fernando Alonso will be McLaren's race drivers in 2016, Dennis confirmed: "Yes, what more do you want?"