Button getting worried as Brawn take wrong direction

Jenson Button has seen his championship lead diminish badly in the last three races. He has scored six points since Turkey, while Mark Webber has scored 24 and Sebastian Vettel 18. At four points per race, as he lost here in Budapest, he will lose the title lead by Japan.

Brawn had a third bad result in a row on a track where everyone thought they should have re-established themselves. Hungary was everyone’s idea of a strong Brawn track and if you throw in the heat, and the updated technical package, it is deeply worrying for them that they could not convert it all into a strong run. Button had no pace for most of the race and he reported terrible problems with rear graining on both types of tyre. He set only the sixth fastest race lap.

The high temperature was not the silver bullet they were looking for. It’s a tense time for Brawn, with McLaren, Ferrari and Williams looking faster. They seem to have taken a wrong turn on development somewhere along the line and it’s stopped the tyres working.

"I don't know what it is but I don't think we can blame the weather," he said on Sunday night. We have got to be looking in other areas than that."

"We have had two different updates on the car but they shouldn't unbalance the car in any way," Button said. "You can say that the other teams have improved their cars for sure. The Red Bull is a lot quicker and obviously McLaren, Ferrari and Williams have stepped up their game. But our car is not what it was to drive a few races ago.

"It's not that we've got the same paced car and everyone has overtaken us. Our car is not driving as it has done from the start of the season so there is obviously an issue, but the good thing is there is a break before the next race for us to try and solve it."

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