Button defends his victory drought

Jenson Button has defended his path towards the world championship and his points gathering performances in recent races.

The Brawn driver has not won a race since the Turkish Grand Prix in June, leading to suggestions that his lack of success in the second half of the year would undermine his likely title.

But Button rejected this criticism and reckons he has done a good job of managing his lead at a time when his car's competitiveness has fluctuated.

"This is not a one race series, it's 17 races," he said.

"I've kept the lead over the last few races and the distance to second place has been constant - after Monaco I had a 16 point lead and I still have a 14 point lead.


"If I knew that I would have the same lead now after Monaco, I would've been very happy at that point in time."

"I'm not in such a bad situation."

He denied that he had become conservative in his driving, but accepted that rivals Rubens Barrichello and Sebastian Vettel would be taking more risks.

"I haven't purposely gone out to finish in the points and not win races," Button said.

"I go out to get the best out of the car in every race I compete in, and I've led the championship all the way through the season.

"So it's a different situation to the people that are chasing for sure, it has to be.

"They need to be more aggressive than I am.

"I don't want to just finish in the points, that has never been my objective, but there are situations that you don't want to put yourself in time - where you could have an accident, for instance.

"So you've got to be a bit cautious in some areas, but also in other areas you need to be aggressive otherwise you don't pick up any points at all.

"I think I've had a reasonably good balance."

The Briton cited his passes on Heikki Kovalainen and Robert Kubica in the early stages of the Italian and Japanese Grands Prix as proof that he had not backed off and cruised through the second half of the championship.

"I've shown in a few races of late that I'm not just going to sit back and hope for the best result - for example Monza with Heikki, and Kubica at the last race," said Button.

"You need to make the moves when you can, and that's what I've been doing."