No reason to be down, says Button

The championship leader, starting from 14th on the grid, retired from the Spa race and has now failed to finish on the podium for five consecutive events.

His team boss Ross Brawn also admitted during the weekend that the outfit was again suffering from the tyre warm-up problems that has hindered Button lately.

But despite his poor run of results, and the prospect of struggling again at the Italian Grand Prix, Button is staying positive for the upcoming races.

"We've got to look forward to Monza, which is a circuit with low downforce, like here, but less. The car did work here. We've just got to make sure we get the right balance with the car," Button told reporters.

"We've already talked about the ideas for Monza, the certain things you need to have a quick lap there, and also how we go about the weekend.

"I'm positive. There's no reason to be down. I lost two points of my championship lead, which is not good. We've just got to hope it goes the other way at the next race."

Button's team-mate Rubens Barrichello finished in seventh position to reduce the gap in the championship to 16 points.

The Brazilian could have done better, but was hampered by a problem at the start and had to charge from the back.

"It can always be worse," Button said. "Also it could have been a lot better. Rubens got a bad start, had a problem and I was up in 12th or 11th, and it could have been a good race for me until I got hit at turn five."

He added: "After the accident now it's a relief, but having Rubens behind at the start was a good position to be in, and just behind the Red Bulls as well. So it was very disappointing when I actually crashed, but then to watch the race after...

"Rubens obviously got a couple of points, then Red Bull made a mistake in the pit stop and he wasn't able to score any points, which is good for the championship.

"This is a race we expected the Red Bulls to easily win, so it shows that a lot of teams are strong now.

"And when your weekend doesn't go perfectly, like it didn't for the Red Bulls because they had a bad position after qualifying, it's very difficult to win from that far back."

The Briton made contact with Renault's Romain Grosjean on the first lap, and the Frenchman said Button had taken him out of the race.

But the Brawn driver saw things differently.

"I can't believe he's blaming me. He hit me, but to be fair I don't really care. It's not really important. I didn't score any points, and that's what's important."