Button: 'It's a pity I couldn't join Alonso in Q2'

Button reported his mechanical failure was very similar to what afflicted him on his first flying lap in free practice on Friday.

Despite this setback, he believes McLaren is making progress as Fernando Alonso progressed to Q2 for the first time this year.

"Fernando got through to Q2, which is a good step for us, and it's a pity I couldn't get there as well," said Button.

"There are improvements, so we've got to stay positive. It's just frustrating when you can't actually do a lap in qualifying."

"There's a loud bang"

Button was buoyant over his pace in practice this morning, when he was 11th fastest.

"Surprisingly FP3 was good," he added. "After yesterday's limited running, we were looking alright [for qualifying] but what happened was similar to Friday morning, when everything just shuts down, there's a loud bang, you get out.

"We've probably had less problems than another engine manufacturer, and they've been in it for a year [of the V6 hybrid rules] already. Everything's sort of come at once this weekend, but the important thing is we are improving.

"There's a lot of work needed to do, but it's on its way and we're improving all the time. We knew it was going to be a hard start to the year, but we've had more positives than we thought at this part of the season. So it's not so bad."