But quizzed on his future in Japan, Button, in the midst of a lacklustre campaign, said he could not comment on his whereabouts for next season.

“I can’t give you anything else since the last race,” said Button. “There is no more information to give you so you are going to have to wait a little while, I am sorry to say.

“We are in good talks, the team and myself, and that is it.”

Button has scored only six points from 13 races with McLaren's renewed Honda relationship having long since descended into a farce.

Speaking after he retired with a gearbox failure in Singapore, Button said: ’The joy you get is competing. It’s about fighting at the front. It’s about the possibility of standing on top of the podium. That’s the joy of Formula One.”

It appeared to be the biggest hint year that Button would not extend his career, which has yielded 281 grands prix, 15 victories, and one world championship, into a 17th season.

But ahead of this week’s Japanese Grand Prix, the 35-year-old, who has been linked with a move to the World Endurance Championship, as former Red Bull racer Mark Webber did in 2014, and a career in television as a new presenter of Top Gear, said: “There are so many possibilities about what can happen next year - so many possibilities, but I have got nothing else for you I am sorry to say.

“I do not think any driver has joy when they are not fighting for victories and that is what we are here to do, the challenge of fighting at the front and the possibility of fighting at the front.

“I don’t like finishing 14th. I don’t like finishing 10th. That is not what gives me joy and that is not what excites me.

“But there are so many other things that if they work in your favour, if you see a future, there is the possibility of joy coming back and that is exciting. That is a challenge but after the Singapore Grand Prix I was not joyful.”