Jenson Button baffled by strategy switch during the Hungarian Grand Prix

McLaren opted to switch the Briton onto a three-stop strategy partway through the race as he was running a close third behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Lotus's Romain Grosjean.

Exiting into traffic killed the Briton's hopes however and ultimately caused him to slide down to sixth at the chequered flag.

Button said his tyres were still in working condition when he made his last two stops, and therefore couldn't understand the team's strategy call.

"I don't know what was going on there really," Button admitted. "The weird thing was after the first stop I could still see the leaders so it was close, but we decided to go for a three stop and we were stopping early, and both times I came out in traffic and wondered why.

"The tyres were still in good condition and I think they were trying to jump the cars in front but we went straight back into traffic and that was it. Normally you pit and come out into clean air.

"Then we did that again later on in the race, so not a great race. Hopefully we will learn from this because it happened twice - I don't think we looked too good on strategy today."

Button said his confusion was compounded by the fact he was not struggling for tyre wear but was still asked to pit early.

"I don't know why we pitted so early each time when the tyres were still in good condition," he explained. "I said to the guys 'Is this traffic quicker than the guys we are racing?', and they said 'no'...

"I didn't really think it was [a tough race on tyres] but the team obviously did. I wasn't going slow but we pitted early twice and it put me straight into traffic, which made it very difficult to race those guys. Obviously it was a slight misunderstanding of positioning on circuit. Every time I stopped it just got worse and worse."