Red Bull's vicarious team principal Christian Horner has begun the mind games surrounding the drivers championship early by saying that Brawn GP's Jenson Button cannot afford to continue his poor run of form if he wants to win the title.
Button dominated the first part of the season for Brawn GP, winning six of the opening seven races, but since his win in the Turkish GP in early June, the Brit has scored just 11 points, and failed to complete a lap at last weekend's Belgian GP after getting tangled up with the Renault of Romain Grosjean on the opening tour.
All that has seen Button's points lead cut to 16 pints by his team mate Rubens Barrichello, while the best-placed Red Bull driver, Sebastian Vettel, is 19 points adrift of top spot.
And as Button continues to struggle in a Brawn car that is less than ideal, Horner has taken the chance to add some pressure to Button's big plate of fear and worry.
"Rubens has taken 10 points out of him in the last two races and Sebastian six points here, and he's not had a good weekend since Istanbul in early June," Horner said on the subject of Button.
"He can't continue to have race weekends like he's had without being punished points wise in the next couple of events. It's still a four-horse race between now and the end of the championship."
When it comes to his drivers, Horner is sure that both Vettel and Mark Webber remain in the mix for this year's championship.
"It's all left to play for, and I think there's going to be another twist in the championship between now and the end of the year," he quietly guffed, "Sebastian has moved to within 19 points, and although Mark didn't score, both still have a real chance of overhauling over him."
He reiterated the team's earlier insistence that it was far too early for team orders, saying: "With one-and-a-half-points between the drivers it would be wrong at this stage to back one over the other. We'll continue to do what we've done all year and support both of them with equal priority."
Meanwhile, after his Belgian GP failure, Button insisted that there was no way he was prepared to crawl towards the title, and said that he was fully focused on ending his winless streak.
"We've got to start getting back to being competitive," he claimed, "All I need to do is finish fourth or fifth, but that's not what I want to do. I want to win races. You've got say 'think about the championship', but I still want to win races. It's what I'm here to do and it's what I love doing, competing at the front.
"So I'm going to be aggressive. I'm not going to suddenly back off after qualifying and take it easy in the races because if I'm in fifth I still want to do well, I still want to win races and I still want to be competitive, and that's exactly what will hopefully happen in Monza."
As to whether that streak would be broken at the next race in Monza in two weeks time, Button was cautiously optimistic that he can do well at a track that should favour the KERS-equipped cars.
"We've a little bit of work to do to make sure the car works over the kerbs in Monza, but it's a circuit that should be reasonably good for our car," Button explained.
"I think we will see the Red Bulls going shorter in Monza, but I don't think they will be the main rivals there, it's going to be more the McLarens and the Force Indias because they are good on low downforce. Kimi will also be quick, and I don't know who is going to be in the other Ferrari.
"But we're looking forward to it because it is a circuit that should suit us, although if you've got KERS it will be better for you because you can give it a double boost along the home straight. You've got six seconds out of Parabolica, and six seconds after the start-finish line, so they are going to be pulling half a second, six tenths on us on a qualifying lap."
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