Button: I Drove My Heart Out
Sunday July 11th, 2004
By Nick Mulvenney
Jenson Button fears his BAR team might be in danger of falling behind their rivals after his disappointing finish at Sunday's British Grand Prix.
Six podium finishes this season had fans believing the Briton might get his first Grand Prix victory at his home race this weekend but in the event he finished fourth behind two Ferraris and a McLaren.
"I drove my heart out, I couldn't do anything else and that was it," the 24-year-old said. "It's not like I'm going to take it easy in front of my home crowd...I gave the maximum I could. For me fourth position is not where I wanted to be and I'm disappointed, not just because of the position but because of how far we are behind the Ferraris and even the McLarens.
"We want to be scoring podiums throughout the season, we don't want to be taking a step backwards. We have to look at the areas where we've got problems and we need to improve the car because it's not good enough at the moment."
Ferrari's Michael Schumacher won the race for his 10th victory in 11 Grands Prix.
Button, who has failed to finish in the top three for the last three races, suggested BAR may have made the wrong tyre choice on Sunday but that there were also underlying problems with the car.
"We're just struggling with very low grip and it's something we have to sort out sooner rather than later otherwise in the next few races we're going to be losing a lot of points to McLaren," he added.
Despite Button's downbeat analysis, it was not too bad a day for his team. As neither of the Renault drivers scored points, BAR drew to within 12 points of second place in the Constructors' Championship. Ferrari lead the Constructors' Championship by 95 points from Renault.
"We've got five points on Renault which is great and if we come second in the championship we'll be delighted, but we'd rather do it by getting podiums and fighting the Ferraris and the McLarens," Button said. |
