Hilo OFICIAL PRETEMPORADA F1 2016

[LastSamurai]

"There has been some good and great progress compared with last year," explained Arai. "We only did seven laps in Jerez last year and yesterday, 84 laps, so it is dramatic improvement.

"But it is still not enough. We are looking at Mercedes. They are still far away, we need more effort to improve the performances."

And Arai is also keen to put encouraging noises from Button – about improvements in deployment – in context.

"But last year, it was so bad," he said. "Maybe he compared it to last year, and it is a huge improvement. But I think there is still not enough to catch up on top teams. So we need more."