Button believed McLaren would win F1 title last season after first five races

London: Jenson Button has revealed he thought McLaren would win the world championship after the season’s first five races.

But Button admitted that, in the final reckoning, the team was just not quite good enough. Button, who also believed early on that Lotus would be McLaren’s main challenger, won the first Grand Prix of the year in Australia after a strong winter testing performance. “After five races I thought we would win the championship. We seemed very competitive and at that stage I wouldn’t have said Red Bull would win,” the Sun quoted Button, as saying. McLaren eventually finished third to Red Bull and Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, with Button taking three victories and team-mate Lewis Hamilton four. Although the Woking team often had a super-fast car, they were stymied by reliability problems. Button added: “You always think you’ve lost if you haven’t won the championship. Red Bull did a very good job and won whereas we still did a good job, just not quite good enough.” “But it’s a very competitive sport and we shouldn’t be disappointed with how we’ve gone about our racing,” he said. ANI