Formula 1 News

Jenson Button: Honda far away from success 

Jenson Button, British Honda driver, admits the team is nowhere near achieving the success they crave ahead of Sunday’s British Grand Prix. Button claimed his first championship point of the season last weekend in France and while he welcomed the step forward he is realistic about his chances at Silverstone.

“I think qualifying is going to be reasonably difficult for us,” he admitted. “There is still a bit of speed that we need to find compared to a lot of the teams. In the race in France the pace was ok and the consistency was reasonably good but we are still not there in qualifying. We have got to work on our one lap performance a bit more. We really don’t know where we are at Silverstone. We haven’t tested here so we have really just got to wait to see how competitive we are.”

Button said he was relieved to finally have a car in which he can feel comfortable but accepted that despite the progress that Honda have made they remain a long way back from the top teams. “There have been quite a lot of modifications, aerodynamically and mechanically,” he added. “Sunday’s race was good fun. It was nice to have a car that I could work with and push to the limit but we are still nowhere near where we want to be. We are still quite a long way off the Ferraris, the McLarens and the BMW’s but we have moved forward and that’s the important thing.”

Button was once considered the great hope of British motor racing, a role that now seems to be filled by Lewis Hamilton. But Button believes the 22-year-old McLaren driver has earned all the praise he has been getting by outperforming Fernando Alonso. “He deserves the amount of hype he’s been getting. He’s doing a great job, leading the championship by 14 points in his first season,” said 27 year-old Button. “You can say that he’s in the best car, which he has been for most of the year. But he’s still beating his team-mate so yes he has done a great job and he deserves the credit.”

Source: f1-live