Button Confident of Holding Off McLaren Challenge

Briton Jenson Button said on Thursday that his BAR-Honda squad can chase down the resurgent McLaren-Mercedes team after they returned to the front with their recently introduced MP4-19B machine.

Button, who had never finished higher than fourth before the start of the season, enjoyed a run of six podiums in seven races earlier this year but has failed to break into the top three finishers in his last three outings.

Renault and BAR-Honda enjoyed a strong first half of the season and shot into second and third in the Championship behind leaders Ferrari as regular contenders McLaren and Williams-BMW struggled to perform.

The latest major modification from the Woking-based team has shot them back to the front but while Button is annoyed by his rivals' pace he is not concerned and believes they will struggle to continue to improve the new machine.

"It's frustrating," admitted Button, who is currently third in the Drivers' Championship. "McLaren seem to have put all their effort into that one car and we expected the car to be good - but maybe not that good. But their big step was the new car and it is going to be a lot more difficult for them from now on.

"They are not going to make improvements like that again - it will be a lot of small steps. There are lots of things happening in the future (for us) so we are not worried. What we have been looking at are things to improve to get back in front of McLaren and I think we can do it."

Button's team suffered a disappointing home race at Silverstone two weeks ago and are looking to bounce back with a stronger performance - and a two-car finish - at Hockenheim this weekend.

Takuma Sato has failed to finish six of this year's races - mostly because of engine failures - and the team are behind Renault in the Constructors' Championship because of his failure to claim vital points.

"We come here thinking our car should work better here than it did at Silverstone so hopefully we can get a better result here than we did at Silverstone," said Button. "This should be a strong Michelin circuit, this along with the next race in Hungary. The important thing here is traction. The Michelin tyres are very good at that and our car is good at that so we should be strong.

"The other strong cars should be the McLaren - it seems strange saying that this season - the Williams and of course the Renault. If Ferrari have lost their edge there could be five teams fighting for the win."