Button expecting tough race

The Honda driver, who up until the European Grand Prix had qualified in the top three in all races, will start the Barcelona race from eighth position.

Button struggled with the balance of his RA106 car during the final part of qualifying, which meant he finished off the pace and behind teammate Rubens Barrichello.

With overtaking proving very hard at the Spanish circuit, the British driver believes the race will be tough for him, despite claiming his pace should be very good.

"One more turn on the car would normally give you less understeer and I don't know what happened, I had big big understeer through Turn 3 and it continued for the rest of the laps so I don't know what the reason was so I lost a lot of time because of that and should have been further up," said Button.

"Even if I had the balance right I still would not have been as quick as the Ferraris or Renaults, but we would have been in front of the Toyotas and that is the most important thing. And now it is going to be a very difficult race."

He added: "I think our race pace is very good, looking at what we have been doing over the weekend and also in Q3, at the start of it. So I think our pace is going to be better than them so I need to get past them on the first lap."