Frustrated Button rues 'terrible' start

The Brawn driver dropped to ninth place on the first lap after starting from the third row, and could only recover back to his starting spot by the end of the 60-lap race.

"I got a terrible start," said Button. "Jarno Trulli, in front of me, got a really slow getaway, as they [the Toyotas] normally do, and I had nowhere to go.

"I tried to go to the inside, but that wasn't there, and I tried to go to the outside and that was full, and then everyone shot by me on the outside."

Button, who, like his Brawn team-mate Rubens Barrichello, adopted the unusual strategy of using hard tyres for his middle stint, was unable to make the most of his car's outright pace in the cool temperatures.

He said his car was transformed when he took soft rubber for the final stint. By that point though, the podium was out of reach.

"Behind Trulli in the first stint, I slowed up behind him to give myself some clear air and see what times I could do, and I was eight tenths to a second quicker," Button said. "There's just nowhere to pass on this circuit [because the corners are of such high speed].

"Then on the hard tyres the car just didn't work and I couldn't get any tyre temperature. That's the way our car is in cooler temperatures.

"On the soft rubber near the end I was able to close in on Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa like they were standing still, but you still can't pass around here."

Button's result means that his championship lead has been cut from 26 points to 23 with half the season remaining.