Hamilton: Button will boost team in '11

The 2008 champion hailed the contribution that Button had made since joining McLaren from Brawn as the reigning title-holder at the start of this season, and thinks he will be able to provide even more direction now he has a whole year of McLaren experience behind him.

"Jenson's arrival made us a stronger team and I think our joint input helped us to stay in the hunt until the very end," said Hamilton in an interview for his official website.

"Obviously, our 2010 car was quite a significant update of our '09 car, but now I think we have a very good baseline from which to evolve this car into 2011.

"We're growing all the time as a team - I had a new race engineer in 2010 and with one season under our belts, we can be even stronger next year.

"I think Jenson will be have a very positive influence on our development over the winter so that we can start testing the new car very aggressively when testing resumes in February."

Button added that he now felt fully acclimatised in his new team.

"It's really been a fantastic year," he said. "It's hard to think that I only joined this team at the start of the year - I've been made to feel so welcome, and such a part of the team, that it feels like I've been here far longer."

He agreed that he could contribute a lot more to McLaren now that he had got his adjustment phase out of the way.

"There's lot I think we can do to make this team stronger and better for the new season - we've got a year's worth of experience under our belts, we've pushed hard all season, and I think we can take that all away and learn from it over the winter," said Button.