Contract wait goes on for Jenson Button

Jenson Button has been warned he faces a lengthy wait to learn if he will be retained for a sixth season with McLaren.

The Englishman, who was crowned World Champion in 2009 with Brawn before transferring to McLaren, is out of contract at the end of the year and his future has been plunged into considerable doubt by the Woking outfit's open flirtation with Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard reiterated his intention to remain at Ferrari for next season in an interview with Sky Sports News HQ this week but, nevertheless, McLaren remain in no rush to confirm their 2015 line-up.

“Jenson is not as comfortable as he would like to be but we are keeping the situation open and transparent with him,” McLaren Racing Director Eric Boullier told Sky Sports F1. “He knows that we are looking at what strategies we would like in the coming years and he knows that he is part of the strategy, but we don’t know yet what our driver line-up will be.

“He is part of the driver line-up we are considering but we have not decided yet.”

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While it seems likely that McLaren will keep their current line-up, with Button performing well this term and the up-and-coming Kevin Magnussen still improving, the team revealed their ruthlessness 12 months ago when, almost without warning, they dropped Sergio Perez to bring in the young Dane. With another protégé in the form of Stoffel Vandoorne waiting in the wings, it appears that, despite the Alonso rebuffal, Button is still under threat of history repeating itself.

“We have to consider every scenario,” added Boullier. “We don’t want to look at 2015 and then 2016 – we need to look at also at 2017 and 2018.We can afford to take a little bit of time but it’s not comfortable for us, because we would like to tick the box on the driver line-up and focus on the car only, but it’s a deliberate choice. We want to wait as long as we need to make sure we don’t make a mistake.”

Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel is believed to have been the subject of a name-your-own-price offer from McLaren in recent months – a suggestion the German did not deny on Thursday when he faced up to the media – but it seems inconceivable that Vettel would abandon Red Bull until Honda, who will return to the sport next year as engine suppliers to McLaren, have proved their mettle.

“I know what is going on within this team and I know the direction this team wants to go in so I feel that I will be racing on the grid next year in a competitive car," a positive Button told Sky Sports F1.

"I’ve been in this position before, a lot of drivers have, and especially after racing for 15 years you get out there and you do your job – you do what you are good at.

“That is what I have been doing for so many years – getting the best out of myself, for myself, for my team and for the fans that are out there and I feel that I have done a pretty good job to be fair. So long may it continue and hopefully it will be sorted sooner than later.

“When I racing and I am with these guys I don’t think about I don’t have a contract for next year, I just get on with it because I am doing what I love."

Button, though, is getting frustrated by the repeated questions about his future telling reporters at Monza: "I have been racing for 15 years in Formula 1, it is not unsettling, the future will hopefully be positive next year and take the course I think it will and have thought it will all year and I don’t think that is going to change either so I have no worries.

“But the questions get boring more than anything else. But in terms of my feelings about next year I do feel I will be racing next year.”

One threat to Button's immediate future has been erased after Mercedes reiterated their determination to hang on to Lewis Hamilton - linked, somewhat outlandishly, with a return to McLaren - and rejected suggestions they were considering a change of line-up following the breakdown in relations between the Englishman and Nico Rosberg.