Jenson Button has revealed the key differences he has noticed in Le🔯wis Hamilton since their time t🐠ogether as Formula 1 teammates at McLaren.

Ha🔯milton and Button were teammates at McLaren for three seasons between 2010 and 2012 and the latter believes his former teammate, who is on the brink of clinching record-equalling seventh drivers’ title෴, has upped his game since making the switch to Mercedes in 2013.

But the 2009 world champion disagrees with Hamilton’s recent c👍laim that Valtteri Bottas fails to get the credit he deserves for how competitive a rival he is, adding the Finn could and should be pushing him harder.

“Lewis is ♊a different Lewis to what I knew,” Button recalled on 𒀰. “Lewis when I knew him was lightning quick in qualifying. Like Valtteri can do.

“But in the race, he was quick, and sometimes he could getꦬ one over on you, but a lot of the time he’d make mistakes or he would not understand how to get from A to B as quick as possible. He’d try and do every lap as fast as he c☂ould, and he would destroy tyres, he would over-use fuel, choose the wrong strategy.

“But no💫w it’s a completely different Lewis. He doesn’t do that. Also because he doesnไ’t have a Max Verstappen pushing him. He doesn’t have a Nico Rosberg pushing him, either. I’m not going to say my name in that because that would be weird.”

Button feels both he and Hamilton were always closely-matched during their spell together as teammates and reckons one of them could have claimed the title with McLaren had the tꩵeam not fielded such a strong line-📖up.

“He beat me in qualifying,” 🐭Button explained. “He won more races than me. But I thiꦡnk I won eight, races, he won 10 races, so it was pretty close.

“We had a lot of great races in our time to💫gether. For me, he was quicker than me in qualifying. I out-qualified him a few times, but nothing like he did with me.

“But in the race, that’s when I ꦚwould come into my own, and I knew how to work the cars, work the tyres, work the strategy, in mixed conditions especially. So I loved our fights. It was sad when he left the team, it really was.

“I wish I had the opportunity to race against him in a championship-winning car. If one of us wasn’t in the other car, we might have won the championship. We took so many wins off🙈 each other.”

Button also revealed he feels Max Verstappen is the outright quickest driver over one lap on the current F1 gr🦩id.

“Over one lap I think he is, over the race, who knows,” Button replied when aꦍsked if he truly believed Verstappen was the fastest driver over one lap.

“I think h💧im and Lewis are up there. I also think Charles Leclerc is with them at the moment. I think that Danny Ric[ciardo]’s with them. I think those four stand alone at the moment.”