Button: Jerez will deliver a clearer picture

Jenson Button has downplayed the importance of lap times after finishing fifth in Valencia - and insisted that a clearer picture of the 2010 pecking order will only emerge after next week's test in Jerez.

Having stood by while his team-mates put the first laps on McLaren's new MP4-25 on the opening two days of testing, Button finally had his chance on Wednesday, the final day.

But it was a slow start for the defending F1 World Champion, who managed just three laps in the first hour due to an ill-fitting seat.

Once underway, Button put in the laps, working his way up to fifth on the timesheets, almost 1.5s slower than the pace of Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari.

"I think you can say that Ferrari are fast, but we don't know how fast," Button told Autosport after his first day as a McLaren driver.

"They can't do that time if they are not competitive, but you never know what fuel they are running when they do that time. Their slower runs, which I'm guessing were using a lot higher fuel, were still reasonably good so I guess they are fast.

"But this is the wrong place for us to be thinking about who is quick and who isn't. I'm guessing everyone is going to be having updates for the first race anyway and with the difference in fuel loads, you could be running 10 kilos or 160 kilos, so there is a massive difference and it is difficult to read into it.

"I think at the next test we might have more of an understanding when people are running very different fuel loads, and you can get an understanding of the difference of those loads and how much time per 10 kilos it is.

"Then you can work out who is quick and who isn't. But at the moment it is important for us to put our blinkers on and work with our car and improve it."

Button's comments were in sharp contrast to last season when his first test in the Brawn GP001 had him singing from the rafters.

But as the Brit points out, it's a rather different situation this year given the venue, the completely new machine to what he's used to and the new regulations.

"Well it's difficult because first of all this is not the best circuit to get a feeling for how the car is going to be at the start of the season - because it is very different to any other circuit we race on so the balance is very different," he said.

"But today it's been a busy day of finding my way around the cockpit. Because at Brawn it was pretty much the same seat, everything worked the same inside the car and it was also the same in the way the car worked.

"There is a lot more to get your head around here and to work on before I would comment on anything like that. From Lewis's comments yesterday he is happy, we all want more. That's the way we are, but we have a good base to work with.

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