Jenson Button says McLaren has "taken a massive step in performance" despite failing to get out of Q1 during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
McLaren looked more competitive throughout the three free practice sessions at Sepang, with the team setting times comparable with the likes of Force India and Sauber. However, when it came to qualifying, McLaren was still over half a second adrift of the time needed to make it through to Q2.
Despite the deficit, Button says he can see clear progress with the way the session unfolded and believes McLaren should take encouragement from the improvements made since Melbourne.
"It was easier than the last race," Button said. "We've had no issues this weekend which is good, and we've taken a massive step in performance.
"We've not challenged the other cars, but we are a lot closer. It is an improvement so we should be happy with the step."
Button outqualified team-mate Fernando Alonso by 0.1s, and with the gap to Q1 pace-setter Lewis Hamilton 2.4s, it marked an improvement of half a second since Australia. However, with Mercedes running the medium compound tyre in the first part of qualifying, Button says the gap has closed even more than it appears.
"It's actually quite a bit bigger than that because in Q1 in Australia the Mercedes didn't run the option tyre, they were only on prime. So you would say it's 1.6 seconds [gain] or something. So it's a lot bigger than what you see."
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