McLaren driver Jenson Button was unsurprised by his team's struggles in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, but said he had a "good feeling" about the car.

A poor pre-season meant McLaren were always likely to struggle at the season opener, but the extent to which they did came as a surprise on Saturday.

Button and Kevin Magnussen, who is replacing Fernando Alonso in Melbourne, were out in Q1 after setting the two slowest times of competing drivers.

Expecting a "tough day" on Sunday, Button could find some positives after Saturday's troubles.

"This level of performance wasn't a surprise for us," the Briton said. "We knew from winter testing that the pace wasn't there, so we knew we weren't going to be competitive here.

“However, there's a good feeling about the car – I know we're so far off, but the basic car is there beneath me, and we're adding to our experience and learning with every lap we do.

“And that's really impressed me – we've gone through our first race weekend together, and we've managed to solve each issue that's confronted us.

"There's just a lot of work needed to add power and downforce – but this is an important car for the future of McLaren-Honda."

Racing director Eric Boullier admitted on Friday he was unsure just how long it would take McLaren to get the most out of their new Honda engine, and he described Saturday as enormously dissatisfying.

Yasuhisa Arai, Honda's motorsport chief, revealed McLaren had taken a conservative approach into the weekend – unwilling to risk their engines in Australia.

“Unfortunately, today's higher temperatures didn't help the conservative data mapping settings that we chose to run this weekend," he said.

"From the outset, we took the decision not to gamble any engines away in the opening race, so there'll be more to come from us."