Button frustrated by lack of pace

"It's been a very frustrating day for me," said Button, who struggled for pace during the race and had to settle for ninth position, outside of the points.

"I had no grip with either the front or rear tyres, as well as understeer and a lack of traction. The difficulty with this circuit is that there is just so much rubber going down which leaves marbles on every corner.

"If you make a slight mistake or lock-up, you go off-line and then you lose a few seconds trying to get the tyres back up to temperature. The car was difficult to drive all day and it's disappointing to finish outside of the points, which was our aim.

"We have to get through Indianapolis now and do the best we can with the car we have, then we'll be testing a new package ready for France next month."

Teammate Rubens Barrichello completed a dismal race for the Japanese squad by retiring on lap 11 when he felt a sudden loss of power from his engine.

The result meant Honda have now gone two races without scoring a point.

"A disappointing way to end my race. The engine felt quite tight from the beginning of the race then after my 11th lap, you could see I was losing a lot of places as everyone was able to overtake me on the straights as I just started to lose power," Barrichello said.

"The team are making a real effort to find more reliability and horsepower with the engine so we'll just have to analyse this problem, see what the cause was and hopefully resolve it before the next race in Indianapolis."