World champion Jenson Button suppressed a bout of road rage after repeatedly being frustrated by straggling cars during the rain-affected second practice session of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne, yesterday.

The McLaren driver posted the second fastest lap behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton in an encouraging session at Albert Park's tight circuit, but his attempts to go even quicker as the track dried late on were dashed when he got stuck behind other cars.

"The weather's not been great but also the traffic's been pretty bad out there. All 24 cars are running now," the 30-year-old Briton told reporters.

"So, it's busy and I think some drivers are not being told correct information about cars catching them up."

"I know it's tough, because there's a big difference in speed and here we're one of the quicker cars at the moment and we're catching a lot of traffic."

In one hairy moment, Button nearly ran into BMW Sauber's driver Pedro de la Rosa at turn 11 and 12, and felt compelled to let the Spaniard know about it.

"I caught Pedro coming out of the quick left-right which is a pretty scary place to catch a car," Button said.

"I've spoken to Pedro and he's apologised. You know, I think it's important for teams to give drivers the correct information."

Heavier loads

Although pleased with the car's performance, Button was not reading too much into the practice session, suspecting that rivals Red Bull and Ferrari were carrying heavier fuel loads that would better simulate race conditions.

"From the first lap to the last lap, the car is better, much better than any lap that I drove it in Bahrain in the previous race," added the Englishman who was disappointed with his seventh place at the season-opener.

"We're making steps forward. I still don't know where we are. We look very quick in practice, but I think we're probably running less fuel than the cars that were quick in Bahrain - the Ferrari and Red Bull."