Belgium: Jenson Button in the Thursday press call

By Phil Huff
September 8 2005

BAR Honda's Jenson Button sat down for the Thursday press conference today, but didn't get to say much. With championship contenders Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen either side of him, attention swung their way.

Jenson, you have been described as the key to the championship recently.

Yeah, we didn't really show that in Monza did we! I think Monza was a very difficult circuit for us, with low downforce, for some reason the car just didn't work very well. But I think here the car should be working much better and for the next two races also. We have a new aero package in Japan so the next four races should be good and hopefully we will be getting a bit closer to these guys.

And obviously you drive your own race.

Yep. What else am I supposed to do?

Well, as I said, you are the key to the championship, apparently.

Well, we are not going to hold back and just let these two guys race for the championship, we are here to do the best job we can as well and I think it will spice it up a bit, hopefully, if we are quick enough.

Now, you are going to be asked this on a regular basis so get used to it! The Williams and BAR situation, have any further meetings take place on that, has there been any progress, what about the suggestion that you might take two years off?

Wow. That would be interesting. I don't know what I am going to do for two years! Um, we have talked and I think that it is going in the right direction.

To your satisfaction, which means you stay at BAR?

I think it is going in the right direction for both of us, you know. We both need to get this cleared up as soon as possible. We all want to get everything sorted out before the end of the year so that we can just concentrate on next season.

Attendance was down in Italy, sales are going badly here, for you what can be done to make Formula One more attractive?

I think that in some places the attendance might be down but in others it's definitely up, for example, Spain and also Britain seemed to be pretty good this year and at the new circuit in Turkey. I think the attendance has very good at a lot of races this year. Maybe in a couple it has been down but I think overall it has probably been up.