Jenson Button outshone veteran BAR team-mate Jacques Villeneuve at the A1-Ring to record the fourth fourth-placed finish of his F1 career. When will he make it to the podium?
Jenson Button outshone veteran BAR-Honda team-mate Jacques Villeneuve at the A1-Ring to record the fourth fourth-placed finish of his F1 career. When will he make it to the podium?
The Briton has been seeking his first taste of champagne on a grand prix podium since his rookie year with Williams-BMW in 2000. To date, his best-ever result has been fourth place.
Button finished the Austrian Grand Prix in fourth place – the fourth time that the Brit has been a tantalising one place away from third spot and a trip to the podium. Despite his frustration, the BAR driver was happy with his result – not least because he beat Villeneuve, who has been very critical of Button’s talent.
“I had a great race. I matched my best race finish today so it’s great to be back up there getting the points again. The team did a superb job in the pit stops to get me out ahead of the Ferrari and everything just went well for me,” Button said.
“This is just what the team needed and deserved. We earned our result today; it wasn’t just a fluke.
“I’ve had a great weekend all round really. I think we’ve shown how quick we are all the way through practice and qualifying, and today’s was a genuine race performance. It was nice to be able to challenge the frontrunners, which is what we are capable of doing.
“We have to maintain the momentum now and I’ll be doing three days testing in Valencia next week in preparation for Monaco to make sure that happens,” he added.
Villeneuve had been on course for a finish in the points until an electronics problem caused him to stall during his second pit stop and lose a lap.
The Canadian said: “We had a problem all the way through the race because the electronics on the steering stopped working on the first lap. I had no limiter button, no idea of which gear I was in, no neutral – no nothing. I had to do it all manually. My race engineer was even counting my speed down for me coming into the pits!
“Then the electronics problem caused a stall at the second pitstop. We had decided not to change the steering wheel at the first stop because it can mess up the electronics, but after the car stalled we changed it but had to wait for the system to reset.
“It was a fairly disastrous stop. When you lose a lap because of mechanical problems there isn’t much you can do. I’ve had problems in four races out of six now and it’s obviously very frustrating. It’s a great shame because it will be difficult for us to get a car that’s better than this in race trim,” he added.