Button expects step forward by France

The Japanese squad are yet to score a point in five races, but the team have showed signs of improvement recently, especially at the Monaco Grand Prix two weeks ago, when both Button and teammate Rubens Barrichello qualified in the top ten for the first time this year.

Honda will continue to push hard with the development of their car, and Button is expecting to be closer to the top by the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours.

"Yes, you are going to see improvements," Button said ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix. "The good thing is there are lots of improvements coming through the year.

"We are not putting things on the car that aren't working, which is what was happening at the start of the year, but Magny-Cours is the race I am personally most looking forward to.

"Here you need a car that is good for braking, you need to have confidence in the car, before Monaco I would not have enjoyed this race but now we have a car that is a lot more driveable and better under braking I think we should have a reasonable result here.

"We made a step forward in Paul Ricard in the car, the pace might not be there but the consistency definitely is and the confidence given to the drivers. It is a good step forward and I hope we can build on that in the next few races."

Despite enduring a tough race, Button admits he was left encouraged by their performance in Monaco.

"It was an improvement definitely, we were helped by Kimi (Raikkonen) hitting the wall in qualy but even so the improvement was there," said Button.

"In the race you can say we didn't perform as expected, didn't get in the points which I was hoping for, but 19 cars finished and we finished halfway up the grid which is an improvement for us.

"Plus we didn't have the best strategy, although we thought we did before the race as you always do. Our results in practice were not correct with the tyres and how long they were going to last through the race, so we didn't get the strategy quite right but that is experience for here."

The Briton, who last scored points at the 2006 season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix, is under no illusions about his prospects for this weekend's race.

"I have qualified well here in the past. It is just turning it into a race result here," he added.

"It would be nice to get into the points, but that is tough at the moment because there is so much competition, especially with the reliability that is so good at every team.

"But we are just going to see if we can get a better result in Monaco - because I think we thought we could get more out of it than we did."