Renault a step ahead, says Button

The British driver was unable to mount a challenge to pole position man Giancarlo Fisichella in the Malaysian Grand Prix and admits that Renault are simply quicker than Honda at the moment.

"Obviously we want to be winning races and so just being on the podium is disappointing," said Button. "But I think these two (Fisichella and Fernando Alonso) have proved just how quick the Renault is, especially around this circuit, and that is what we have got to try and achieve.

"We are just not quick enough at the moment. I did get held up by Scott Speed by quite a big margin, quite a few seconds, just before I had my second stop which cost me a lot of time and maybe that was enough to come out of the pits in front of Fernando, I don't know.

"But if you look at the full picture, we are just not as quick as the Renaults."

Button fears that Renault's edge may not be closed down by the next round of the championship in Australia - although he expects Ferrari to be stronger than they were in Malaysia.

"We have to wait and see. We can't say anything yet. The pace of the Renaults is very good and at the moment, it looks like we are the closest rivals but we are still not quite on their pace.

"But it is also a very different circuit, Melbourne, to here. So wait and see. I think Ferrari will be there. The conditions are going to be cooler and maybe it will help them out a little bit, but hopefully were not going to let them get away with the points they have already. We need to push as hard as we can to make this championship exciting."

Button is hoping that improvements to his RA106 can be found in testing this week - although he is aware that it will not be easy to close down the advantage that Renault have.

"Well we've got obviously testing next and we've got to wait and see. It is a reasonable gap and obviously it is going to be difficult especially because both of them are competitive and doing a good job.

"It is just the Renaults that are very quick and seem to have the edge over us, so we've got to hope we can solve the issues we've got next week and move forward, because they need somebody to challenge them."