Button surprised by Honda's troubles

The Briton and teammate Rubens Barrichello lacked speed in practice and were only 17th and 18th fastest in qualifying, although they will gain places from Nico Rosberg's grid penalty.

"I'm just surprised," Button told reporters in France. "This is a circuit where I thought we'd go reasonably well.

"The good thing is that hopefully we'll have a reasonable race and then we'll go home, we won't get depressed about it, we'll sit down and discuss it, and we'll look at where we need to improve. And we'll come back stronger at the next race."

Button believes the Red Bull-owned teams' recent progress has pushed Honda out of the upper midfield group.

"Also the problem is that Toro Rosso have the same car as the Red Bulls now, so there are four cars that are very competitive," he said.

"And they seem to have made a little bit of a step forward, so that makes it more difficult.

"Really, if you compare us against the Williams, who don't seem to be much different compared to us over the last few races, it's the Red Bulls that have got a lot quicker. So it's four cars really that are ahead of us that maybe would have been behind or fighting with us.

"It's tough, but we know what we've got to improve, and we will."

He thinks it will be difficult to make progress in the race, even though he believes Honda have more speed in race trim.

"We're alright with our race pace," Button said. "We're competitive with the cars that are running from 10th to 14th, but it's still not points and that's what we want.

"We're not the quickest in a straight line. I think everyone is very, very close in straightline performance, but we're sort of on the tail end of that.

"So it's difficult for us to overtake and we've just got to hope that we can make it work in the race and that we can look after our tyres. I think it's going to be a hot race and I think people are going to struggle with their tyres, especially with their rears."

Button is not optimistic that Honda will be in better shape for his home race in a fortnight.

"We were never going to go that well in Britain," he said. "We're not quick enough. To score points in the British Grand Prix would have been nice but hopefully we can change some things after this race and make the car a little bit better. But it's not going to suddenly be massively quicker."