Button: Singapore shake-up “exactly what the sport needs”

Although his own qualifying session didn't go as he'd hoped, Button said that Ferrari's pole position, and Red Bull also being ahead of the Mercedes, was just the boost that F1 was looking for.

"It's great, this is exactly what the sport needs," said Button. "This weekend is very important for Formula 1. You can't take it away from Mercedes, they've done an amazing job, and nobody else has done a good enough job this year.

"This race, to see them 1.3s off, is good for the sport, and actually it's probably good for Mercedes as well because they see competition and it adds a bit of spice to it.

"This is great, and hopefully it will continue, but I'm a little bit unsure – when we get to Suzuka it'll go back to Mercedes being a second quicker than everyone.

"We'll enjoy it while it lasts and I'll be watching it on the screens while I'm going round in the middle of the pack."

New tyre struggles

Button qualified 15^th, over half a second off 12^th-placed teammate Fernando Alonso. He blamed Carlos Sainz's accident for hampering his laptime, but admitted there was little chance of making Q3 on pace anyway.

"Qualifying wasn't quite what I'd hoped for, and Q2 on the old tyres felt quite good but on the new tyres we just had massive understeer everywhere, and then we had Sainz," he added. "But I won't be too upset when I go to bed tonight.

"On sheer pace we're not going to score points, but this is one of those races, not like Monaco, where you can overtake and people take more risks.

"Incidents happen, and we've got to be intelligent about the way we go racing tomorrow, strategy might play a big part."