Button targeting Williams and Ferrari challenge

Jenson Button believes McLaren will be able to race with Williams and possibly Ferrari in today's Belgian Grand Prix.

The 2009 world champion qualified ninth on Saturday, splitting the two Williams drivers after Felipe Massa made a mistake at Turn 1. Despite Spa-Francorchamps putting an emphasis on power unit performance, Button is confident McLaren can fight to move forward in the race.

"We’re probably running a little bit more downforce than others, so the first five corner will be tricky but in the downhill section we’re fourth quickest or something," Button said. "Our long run pace on Friday was reasonable, so we should be able to fight with the Williams and maybe even one of the Ferraris, we'll see.”

While the Ferrari suggestion appears optimistic having been a second slower than fourth-placed Sebastian Vettel in Q3, Button says McLaren should be stronger over a race distance.

"We won’t be racing near the front but our race pace should be better than our qualifying pace. I have a Williams in front and one Williams behind me and we should be able to challenge them.

"The team has done a great job this weekend, Honda has brought a new power unit that is a definitive improvement. We didn’t expect to be this far up in qualifying here, so that’s up to the progress made by the whole team. Hats off to Honda for bringing a really good upgrade."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.