Jenson Button is planning on using his time at McLaren between Lewis Hamilton's departure and Sergio Perez's arrival to work on the 2013 car and tailor it as much as possible to his driving style.

Hamilton raced in a McLaren car for the last time in Brazil on Sunday, and will now join Mercedes for the 2013 season and beyond. Meanwhile, 22 year old Perez will no doubt be taken under the older and more experienced Button's wing as he learns the ropes with his new team.

But with two months still to pass before Perez joins McLaren, Button is taking full advantage of the opportunity to help direct the making of the car to his advantage.

"I still think we're going to have two drivers that want to win the World Championship, I don't think that changes. We're all here to do a job and we all think we can win the World Championship," Button told Sky Sports.

"It is different though. Lewis is going to be leaving this team, he's won 25 grands prix I think [sic. 21], he's won a World Championship with this team.

"When you're team-mates with Lewis you share the direction of the car, if you like. Whereas now, with Lewis leaving, I have a couple of months to really direct the team into what I would like with the car before Checo [Perez] arrives.

Jenson Button
Jenson Button will be working hard on tailoring the McLaren car over the next two months.

"That's an important couple of months for me to really feel that I've got a good direction with the car because Sergio is going to be quick and that's good, you need a team-mate that's quick, and also I think he's going to learn very quickly which is very good for him."

Button admitted that he was disappointed with his achievements this season, but would take the lessons and learn them in time to hopefully be challenging Sebastian Vettel for the title come 2013.

"In terms of the end result and the points, I'm not very happy," he explained. "But in terms of what we've learnt this year it's been really useful.

"In a way it's been like a great 'testing' season because we've had great results, we've had bad results in terms of the whole team and also I've had some bad results.

"We've learnt a lot and in that period around Monaco and Canada when I had some really bad races we got a lot of information with the direction we took with the car, which was wrong, and it's been really useful for us for the rest of the year.

"In a way it's been a good year of how much we've learnt with these tyres as well and the car and I think we can take that forward to 2013."