Jenson Button admits that he is more concerned at the MP4-27's lack of pace than the mistakes the team has been making this year.

Despite three pole positions and one win, the early stages of the Woking outfit's 2012 campaign has been littered with needless mistakes, be it bodged pit stops or 'accidentally' sending Lewis Hamilton out with too little fuel on his final run in Spain, subsequently costing the Englishman his spot at the front of the grid.

However, it isn't the errors and cock-ups that frustrate Button, rather the MP4-27's lack of pace, particularly in Spain.

"The most important thing is to understand why I didn't have any pace over the weekend on low and high fuel," he told Press Association Sport. "Even if qualifying doesn't go well, normally we can get some good points in the race, but I couldn't look after my tyres and I didn't have any pace. It's something that's a concern."

However, while Button, whose moaning about lack of grip and constant understeer punctuated the weekend, struggled to ninth, teammate Hamilton, consigned to the back of the grid following his team's misdemeanour, gave one of the best performances of his life, eventually battling back to eighth.

"Yes, Lewis did a fantastic job in qualifying, and the team did well to produce a car like that," admits Button. "In the race you can say Lewis again did a good job by finishing eighth, which he should be happy with, but still the pace isn't there.

"It was a worse weekend for me," he continued, "but if you look at Lewis' pace in the race, I still don't think it's where you would expect us to be. My fastest lap of the race was 2.6s slower than the quickest overall, which is just strange, and I don't understand why that is. And it wasn't one end of the car I struggled with, it was both. I've never been in a position like that. It was very extreme."

Reflecting on a weekend which saw Pastor Maldonado score his first F1 win and Williams first in eight seasons, while McLaren, Red Bull and the other big guns struggled, Button admits: "It's not just us. The Red Bulls did a better job at the weekend than us in terms of points, but still they weren't quick when you compare them to Williams, Sauber, Lotus and Ferrari.

"Five different teams winning five different races, we really don't know what's going on, and I think that's the same up and down the pit lane."