Button fears for championship lead

The Brawn GP driver had a disastrous qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, managing no better than 14th on the grid, and he is worried that team-mate Rubens Barrichello and rivals Red Bull Racing will take more points off him in the race.

Although Button has an 18-point margin over his team-mate, he thinks it is not a comfortable enough lead for the way his form has trailed off in recent races.

"It is not a huge advantage," said Button in Spa. "I lost eight points to Rubens at the last race, which was frustrating even though it wasn't down to the pace. Here I don't have the pace, and he is starting fourth and I am starting outside the top ten.

"Even if the positions stay as they are, he is going to gain a lot of points for me this race. It is a lead that is going to disappear very quickly if we start having bad weekends, but at the moment I cannot do anything about it."

He added: "At the moment, I cannot get the pace out of the car. It is something we need to look at.

"We have a couple of weeks before Monza and hopefully we can find out the reasons. The car doesn't feel to me like it did earlier in the season. We had a couple of cold races but since it has been warmer, I still can't find a good balance."

Button has struggled to find a good set-up on his car over the Spa weekend, and matters were not helped by a small error he made in qualifying when he ran wide at the quick left hander before Pouhon.

When asked how much his frustration was growing by what is happening, Button said: "Well, it is obviously not a good position to be in. I am leading by quite a bit but with a couple of bad races that will be it. So, it is frustrating but there is also no use in thinking about it too much.

"You have to concentrate on trying to improve the situation, and that is exactly what I am going to be trying to do."