Jenson Button insists he is still in contention for the 2012 F1 title despite his recent run of bad form – which had left him playing catch-up in the race for the championship.
The
McLaren driver has slipped down to eighth in the championship having scored just six points in the last five races – with just two top ten finishes since he finished second in the Chinese Grand Prix back in April.
It means the Briton is 62 points behind
Fernando Alonso heading into the British Grand Prix, but he insisted that his title chances aren't over despite the current gap to the points leader.
“No definitely not,” he told the
BBC when asked if he was worried his title hopes have already gone. “It is 60 points but we see how quickly it turns around.
“If it was one person streaking away in the lead like Seb [Vettel] then it would be a big chunk to get back. But if I win this race and
Ferrari isn't on the pace, it's a lot of points in the bag.”
Button added that he was confident of returning to form this weekend at Silverstone, with
McLaren introducing a series of upgrades for its home race.
"We do have a few [new] bits aerodynamically, and mechanically there is some stuff that is very exciting for here," he said. "But even without the bits I think we would have had a pretty good car around here.
"Looking at the last race everyone was quite excited by how quick the
Red Bull was. Their pace was phenomenal and they had a big aerodynamic package and it worked in low-speed corners, which is an area where it is very difficult to get the car working aerodynamically. But they have worked out a way of doing it and at low speed they had very good downforce.
"That shouldn't matter to us here because it's a high-speed circuit and it's high speed where the downforce works for us, so we should be competitive."