Hamilton: McLaren will 'evolve' in 2011

(REUTERS)

Lewis Hamilton believes that Jenson Button's arrival at McLaren will help to make them stronger still in their 2011 world championship campaign.

The two British champions won five races between them and finished the gripping 2010 season with second and third places in Abu Dhabi, but had to concede the top three places in the drivers' title battle to new champion Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Vettel's Red Bull team-mate, Mark Webber.

Speaking in his official post-race debrief, Hamilton said: "Jenson's arrival made us a stronger team and I think our joint input helped us to stay in the hunt until the very end of the season.

"Obviously, our 2010 car was quite a significant update of our '09 car, but now I think we have a very good baseline from which to evolve this car into 2011. We're growing all the time as a team and we can be even stronger next year."

Button added: "There's a lot I think we can do to make this team stronger and better for the new season. We've got a year's worth of experience under our belts, we've pushed hard all season, and I think we can take that all away and learn from it over the winter."