World Championship leader Jenson Button says his Brawn GP teammate Rubens Barrichello deserved to win the European Grand Prix at Valencia, and that the Brazilian had done a better job that he had with the car available.
"Rubens did a great job this weekend and he deserves the victory," Button told the BBC. "It's been a long time for him, five years. I'm happy for him.
"Sure I would rather be on top of the podium, I'm not, he did the better job this weekend. He didn't make a mistake."
Button, who finished seventh in the race, added that he was disappointed not to have done better but was pleased to have come away from the weekend with an 18-point lead.
"We did what we came to in a way," he said. "We came to beat the Red Bulls and claw back a couple of points on a circuit that our car suits.
"But I didn't expect my team-mate to finish so far in front of me. So that is something I have got to solve in the next race.
"It's been a tough weekend for Red Bull, but we are going to circuit where they will be very quick," he added. "I've gained a couple of points on Mark which is good, I've lost a lot of points to my teammate Rubens."
"Still a big gap, it's not too bad. It seems that people behind are jockeying for position behind and sooner-or-later they are going to start closing if I don't do something about it."
Button said he was looking forward to Spa next weekend, despite the traditionally unpredictable weather raising questions over Brawn's ability to extract performance from its tyres in cold conditions.
"So we have to go to Spa positive and ready to have a good weekend," he said. "We have got to do a lot of work to do to make the car work in the cold conditions, I think we know what we are doing, and if we qualify well, we can have a good race."