In Formula One they call them "the flyaways". It is when the clamorous circus goes long haul after the European season and prepares for its climax, this year in Singapore next Sunday, followed by Japan, Korea, Brazil and Abu Dhabi.

This year's irresistible championship can be seen as a contest between the fastest car (Red Bull) and the most reliable (McLaren), although with three wins, including in the last race in Italy, Fernando Alonso may well claim that he and his Ferrari have had more than a drive‑on part in this noisy drama.

Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton remain the favourites of the five drivers who could take the title, although things tightened considerably after Monza. They are followed in the bookies' windows by Sebastian Vettel and Alonso.

Jenson Button is the last among equals, quoted as generously as 16-1 to retain his world championship. Yet if anyone decided to base his prediction on a combination of the most reliable car and the most dependable driver he would end up clutching Button's name.

After last Sunday's race even Italian journalists conceded that Button had been the best driver on the day, not Alonso. The Spaniard's season has been plagued by driver errors, most notably in China, where he jumped the start, and in Monaco, where he crashed his car before the race and had to start from the back.

Hamilton made a basic error on the very first lap at Monza and, as for the Red Bull pair, Vettel has made so many mistakes that Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren team principal, dubbed him the "Crash Kid", while the smoother and more reliable Webber is best remembered this year for driving into the back of Heikki Kovalainen at Valencia, with spectacular results.

Button, though, has been error-free. A number of iffy performances in qualifying have confirmed the notion that he does need to be in a car that is perfectly set up for him, but in race mode Button has been superb. His drive to stay in front of the faster Alonso on Sunday was a piece of high-speed craftsmanship of the highest quality. He can be forgiven his lock-up as he came into the pits. Ultimately, it was the timing of that stop, and the fact that it took almost a second longer than Alonso's, which cost him the race.

Button says on his website: "You can't help but look at the drivers' championship table and just think: 'Wow, how can it be so close?' It's funny – after Spa, everyone was saying it was a two-horse race between Lewis and Mark, but I can easily see this championship going right down to the last race. I think we've seen that no one driver's going to walk away with the world title."

But Singapore will have special significance for McLaren and Button because it will be the first time since Hungary that they will be running on a track with the low speeds and high downforce that have so favoured Red Bull.

"Singapore will be a very interesting weekend because I think it'll give us a clearer idea of the destiny of the world championship," Button says. "A lot has changed since that race in Budapest – not least some quite hefty revisions to the rulebook regarding bodywork flexibility and, additionally, a lot of work by the engineers at the MTC [McLaren Technology Centre] to ensure our car is now better suited to slower circuits."

If Button can maintain the recent improvements to his qualifying times, while continuing to avoid making mistakes on Sunday afternoons, he could still emerge as a surprise winner of a very special championship.