Button finished second and Hamilton fifth last season as the championship was dominated by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel for a second successive year.

Formula One drivers, from left, Gary Paffett, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, and Oliver Turvey, pose for the photographers behind the MP4-27, partially seen, the newly-unveiled Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One car for the 2012 season, during a photo-op prior to the launch near Woking, England, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012.

The MP4-27, which features McLaren’s silver livery, will be first tested by Button in Jerez, Spain on Tuesday.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh says he “won’t know until qualifying in Australia (in March) where this car is, recalling that “last year we had, by McLaren standards, an abysmal winter testing session where we didn’t have pace.”

Whitmarsh insists that “we’re in a better position this winter compared to last.”

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