Jenson Button believes his disappointing eighth place in the European Grand Prix was more a consequence of other drivers getting better luck than any lack of pace from him or his McLaren.
Buttn has had a run of frustrating races since his second place in China in April, and was not a podium threat in Valencia. But he reckons his difficulties this time were more due to the race becoming something of a strategic lottery.
"It was a really difficult race to read. Obviously I got a terrible start and I think I was 14th after the start. I just got unlucky," said Button.
"We had a strategy in mind, but nobody seemed to be able to look after the tires. It just seemed that if you pushed like hell, destroyed your tires and just kept coming in and getting new tires, that was the way to go. Normally that wouldn't be because you can't get past people here.
"I don't think we did a bad job in terms of strategy, but I think a few people lucked into their strategies at the end there when they put new tires on with 10 laps to go and nearly won the race."
Button said he could actually take some encouragement from Valencia even though the result was underwhelming on paper.
"It's still not a good result but I had fun out there, that's the main thing, and the car felt good at some times in the race," he said. "It's a lot to work with and I really don't think anything went in our favor today. It could have been a very different race for us."