McLaren driver Jenson Button believes that winning the Australian Grand Prix will put the British team on the map for the start of the season.

The new Formula 1 campaign kicks off this weekend and Button is hoping that he can emulate his 2009 victory in Melbourne.

"It's important because it's the start of the year," Button told Sky Sports News.

"We come away from winter testing doing all our tests and you can normally see the performance of the cars at the first race, and that team can pretty much hold it together for the whole year. So, yeah, it is an important race but it's not everything."

Previous seasons have shown that the last four winners in Australia went on to be crowned World Champion at the end of the campaign.