Villeneuve unsure about Button

By Phil Huff
December 12 2002

The mind games will start for Jenson Button tomorrow in the cold, early light of a Spanish morning. When the British driver gets into his new BAR Honda for the first time at Jerez, he will suffer not only the scrutiny of a new team of mechanics and engineers but the close attention of Villeneuve.

Button’s new team-mate, the 1997 world champion, is infamously difficult to work with unless you have his full respect and Button, 22, knows that he will have to earn his spurs quickly or be consigned to the role of also-ran to the French-Canadian.

Villeneuve was withering in his assessment of Ricardo Zonta, his first team-mate at BAR, and Button will not want to suffer the same cool treatment as the Brazilian, whose Formula One career was short and unpleasant.

Button’s three years in the sport have veered from success to failure and a 2002 season that started with much promise and then withered as it became clear that his career with Renault was over and they wanted him out.

He was rescued by David Richards, the BAR team principal, and asked to step into the vacancy left by Olivier Panis, now with Toyota. Villeneuve said yesterday that he was keeping an open mind about Button, but made no bones about the fact that his new team-mate would have to beat him regularly if he wanted to be treated as an equal.

"I really don’t know what to think of Jenson yet," Villeneuve said. "It’s very hard to judge his F1 career so far. He started this year looking as if he was back on the pace, but then halfway through he slipped back into reverse. Hopefully, it was just because he didn’t like the environment of working at Renault and the good feeling at BAR will help him, because if he’s not competitive, it will be impossible for me to respect him.

"Jenson appears to be very good when the car is easy to drive, whereas the Renault appeared to be a car which was extremely difficult to drive and it looked like he couldn’t cope with that. Next year’s car, our car, should be far better for him. I hope the environment of working with British people will make him happy and allow him to drive at his best. Jenson’s a good guy. He’s funny and we get along. Whether he’ll be as good a team-mate as Olivier, I’m not sure."

Source: The Times (London)