Button: My season's not been wasted

Button, who is preparing for his home race at Silverstone this weekend, switched to the Benetton-Renault squad on a two-year loan deal from Williams and after finishing regularly in the points last year, he has struggled to make it into the top 15 in this year's so far uncompetitive B201.

The 21-year-old has not finished higher than seventh so far this season and has been overshadowed by team mate Giancarlo Fisichella for pace. But Button insists that the poor form cannot be blamed solely on the team and that he has had difficulties of his own. However, he says learning to drive a difficult car has also helped to improve his confidence.

"It's been tougher than I thought [this season]," said Button. "But a lot of the other problems haven't just been the team - I've also had my own problems. The car has been quite difficult to work with, but the good thing is that I'm more confident now than I was with it and I'm getting to grip a little bit more with it now. It was a matter of confidence, among other things."

The Renault-owned team introduced improvements to its radical wide-angled V10 engine for the French Grand Prix two weeks ago, as well as aerodynamic developments, with little marked improvement. But Button says the biggest improvement is yet to come.

"Nothing's decided yet [on the next development]," he said, "but that's probably going to be the biggest one this year, but again we don't exactly know when they're going to take place."

Despite the impending improvements however, Button admits that he had expected more of the season, but now both he and the team have turned their thoughts to next year, when the Benetton name is dropped and it becomes Renault proper.

"I didn't think it would be this tough, but I don't think a lot of other people did as well," said Button. "But next year is the year that we are more concentrating on and I think we've got to now. But we still have to push very hard this year to get everything together for next year."