And it's not necessarily because the team will build on a somewhat decent 2010 season, but because Button will bring a higher contribution to the new McLaren car. Signed by the British team after his mind-blowing 2009 campaign, at the end of which he secured his first F1 title in career, Button had limited time to help develop the MP4-25. That will all change now that the 30-year old racer has one year of experience with McLaren.
“Jenson's arrival made us a stronger team and I think our joint input helped us to stay in the hunt until the very end. Obviously, our 2010 car was quite a significant update of our '09 car, but now I think we have a very good baseline from which to evolve this car into 2011,” said Hamilton.
“We're growing all the time as a team - I had a new race engineer in 2010 and with one season under our belts, we can be even stronger next year.”
“I think Jenson will be have a very positive influence on our development over the winter so that we can start testing the new car very aggressively when testing resumes in February,” added the British ace.
Button finished the 2010 campaign, his first with McLaren, in 5th place overall, although he was in title contention with 2 races to the end of the season. His points contribution for the squad counted a lot in the constructors' classification though, where McLaren passed Ferrari for 2nd place overall.
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