Jenson Button admits McLaren's deficit to the front 'massive' after point-less Canadian GP

A downbeat Jenson Button has conceded McLaren face a "massive" task to catch the frontrunners after their underwhelming season reached its nadir in Canada with the team failing to finish in the points for the first time in 65 races.

Team boss Martin Whitmarsh was in a similarly sombre mood when speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race, admitting their own tyre strategy errors had probably cost them a 65th consecutive points finish. "A weekend that'll we try quickly to forget," he admitted. "Qualifying was poor and then in the race, looking back at it now, we made mistakes. We weren't quick enough, that's the starting point, but I think we should have been able to get into the points. "The prime tyre was the much better tyre than we believed it was, we wished we started on it now and wished we got onto it sooner. Also when we put Jenson onto it, we gave him a relatively slow target lap as we were concerned about getting him to the end, but as it turned out he could have pushed a lot harder." McLaren have an enviable record at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, winning five of the previous seven events, so Whitmarsh admitted the no-score was particularly hard to swallow. Asked if the team were having to constantly reassess their targets for 2013 given they remain a lowly sixth in the standings, the McLaren boss replied: "Of course you are but we've got to get the car quicker. We've got to keep working hard, it hasn't always been as fruitful and as positive as we wanted to, but there's no secrets unfortunately, there's no magic wand, we've got to work hard and make the car quicker and make sure that we come through qualifying sessions better than that and do better in the race. "Both drivers are driving well but we're not giving them quite the car that they need to get the job done and we're not quite making it work in qualifying or the race - certainly this weekend."