Jenson Button believes McLaren is the team to beat at the Belgian Grand Prix
Jenson Button believes McLaren will be the team to beat at this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix
Following victories for Lewis Hamilton and himself in Germany and Hungary, Button thinks that the British team - which trails Red Bull by 103 points in the constructors' championship - has every chance of making it three grand prix wins in a row for the first time in three years.
When asked whether he believed McLaren was the pre-race favourite, the 2009 world champion said: "You'd think so.
"They're [Nurburgring and Hungaroring] very different kinds of circuits, with very different conditions and we won both. You could say that it was cool and the Red Bulls don't like cool conditions, but I think it should be cool here too.
"We're in good shape. I don't think we'll have an advantage over the Red Bulls - they'll still be very strong - but if we call our strategy right then we've got a good chance of winning here, and we have to. Red Bull don't need to win. We do."
Button's Hungarian victory kept him fifth in the championship, but reduced his personal deficit to series leader Sebastian Vettel to 100 points.
While he admits that taking the title would be a long shot with only 200 points available across the remaining eight races, the Briton said that neither he, nor Hamilton, will give up the fight easily.
He does, however, believe that Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, fourth in the championship and 89 points behind Vettel, is best-placed of the chasing pack due to his undisputed number one status in the team.
"We have to beat Seb in every race we go into if we're going to win the championship. It's a long shot, we know that, but we're going to hang on and fight to the end. We're in a reasonably good position." he added.
"It will be really difficult for any one of us [himself, Hamilton, Alonso or Red Bull's Mark Webber] to catch Sebastian. For Mark it will be most difficult because whenever his car is quick, so will Sebastian's car.
"For us it's a bit easier, but its easiest for Fernando. If his car is quickest, he's going to win."
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