Jenson Button is convinced he will still be in this season’s Formula One world title hunt if McLaren can end their current pain in Spain next month.
At present, Button is hanging on in the championship scrap with a car off the pace of McLaren’s main rivals in Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus.
Button at least managed to claim 10 points for a solid fifth place in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix on the back of a remarkable two-stop plan given the high degradation of the Pirelli tyres.
But ahead of this weekend’s fourth round of the 19 in Bahrain, the 33-year-old trails championship leader Sebastian Vettel by 40 points.
The likelihood is the gap will widen further on Sunday as Button knows he is unlikely to improve on his result in China given his car.
It will be a case of damage limitation at the Bahrain International Circuit before Formula One heads to Europe from early May with the Spanish Grand Prix.
That is traditionally when teams bring a significant upgrade to their cars, and for McLaren it could prove to be make or break especially for Button’s title hopes.
“Barcelona is always important, and for us it needs to be a good step forward not massive, but in the right direction,” said Button.
“If we can keep building on the package, and if it is in the right direction, it does work and gives us a few tenths then that would be great.
“If we get what we think we’ll get in Barcelona, then that will be a positive and we can move from there. But I’m not ruling out anything (with regard to the title) just yet.”
Button realises, though, time is of the essence for him and the team, especially after what occurred in Malaysia when a minimum fifth-place finish was wrecked by a pit-stop gaffe.
“We’re losing a lot of points which is a pain, a bit of a problem, at this point of this season. The previous race didn’t help that,”he added.
“It’s difficult at the moment. Getting double-digit points in China was good, but we need to do the same this weekend.
“If we can carry 20 points over into Europe, and then if we can get a good package on the car, it’s a positive.
“But we’re definitely worse off than we expected to be at the start of this year, even though we knew it would be more difficult compared to other teams because a lot of them carried over their car from last year.”
Despite the stability in the regulations from last season through to this, McLaren were the only team to adopt a radical approach with their car rather than maintaining development of one that won the final two races of last year.
Although McLaren have a car that should eventually come good, it could be too late.