Button delighted to recover to fourth

"That was a great race, and I'm so happy to have made up 10 places," said Button, who had struggled with his McLaren in yesterday's grid-deciding session, finishing in 14th.

"But it's hard to overtake around here, so I knew I had to make up a lot of places off the start-line.

"In the event I made up six places, but I then had to push really hard on the Option tyre in the first stint. That strategy worked for us and I came out behind Fernando, who had a drive-through, so I picked up fourth."

The world champion admitted, however, that he was sorry not to have been able to overtake Nico Rosberg for a place on the podium.

"It's a pity I couldn't get onto the podium in front of my home crowd, who have been absolutely amazing all weekend," he added.

"You can never forget the fans around here - I genuinely think they helped Lewis and me to a good result today. And they got to see and cheer Lewis on the podium too, so it's not been a bad weekend for them overall, I hope.

"After Friday, to pick up second and fourth today is great. I'm still second in the drivers' championship, and the only pain is that Lewis has pulled away a bit. But we'll try and get that back at the next race."

And the Briton is adamant that McLaren will be more competitive in the next race in Germany once it can get its update package working.

"I reckon we'll turn up at Hockenheim with a stronger car, and that therefore we won't be fighting from the start of the weekend. I hope we'll have a good race there and can really take the fight to the Red Bulls."