Brazilian GP: Button relishing chance to fight with Hamilton

The British duo have often gone wheel-to-wheel on track during their three seasons paired at McLaren.

Hamilton beat Button to pole by just 0.055 seconds at Interlagos, and Button said he had no intention of making life easy for his team-mate.

"I want to win this race because he's leaving!" Button joked when asked if Hamilton's departure made any difference to how they would race on Sunday.

"Both of us want to win. Neither of us are fighting for the championship, so we're both going to fight for the win.

"I'm looking forward to it. We both qualified pretty well here - it's the best qualifying we've both had here at Interlagos and it's a fun circuit to race on.

"We're going for a win. That's what we're here to do. It's obviously an important weekend for Lewis, leaving the team, but we've come here to win."

McLaren still has a shot at beating Ferrari to second in the constructors' championship. The British team trails its Italian rival by 14 points, but Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso were only fifth and eighth in qualifying.

Button admitted that McLaren could not count on turning its qualifying dominance into a one-two with rain forecast for Sunday, though.

"It's good for the team for us to be on the front row and it's so close. Trouble is when you are on front row you hope for a dry race and a nice calm race so you can get some good points," he said.

"We both want to win tomorrow so it's important for us to do well in terms of the constructors' championship.

"But it's going to rain. And it's going to be a tricky one.

"I think we're looking forward to it. There are two more people who are under more pressure than us two. It'll be a fun race for us hopefully."