Belgium: Jenson Button in the press conference

By Phil Huff
September 11 2005

Jenson Button's podium finish at Spa meant a long overdue trip to the Podium Press Conference. Sitting alongside Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso, here's what he had to say.

Jenson, this is your seventh consecutive finish in the points and the first points ever for BAR-Honda at a circuit that has not been too kind to the team in the past.

No, and I didn't think it was going our way at the start of the race either. I was really, really struggling with oversteer on the first stint, I didn't even need to turn into the corners, the rear end was coming round! After the first stop we adjusted the win, went out on slicks which was the wrong choice so we came back in and put intermediates on and the car was working very well. It was nice to catch up on the leaders in the last few laps.

What was it like in the pitlane, a narrow pitlane here at Spa, with all that activity taking place.

It is very difficult and a lot of the teams were bringing in both cars so it made it a very busy pit lane. I obviously couldn't pull into my box until Taku had gone because he was in front of me at that point, so it made it very difficult. But in the end we made the right choice at the second stop to double stint the tyres and I think that paid off for us in the end.

And some good racing in the end there with Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello.

Yeah, definitely. It was a very fun race and those conditions always bring that to a race. It was fantastic, but a lot of it I have got to say thanks to the team, they have done a fantastic job in the stops and also double stinting that set of tyres was the right way to go, so a big thank you to them.

And of course they are not too used to changing wheels that much in a race these days.

Exactly, I think they got a bit of a shock when we came in and were changing tyres so often, but they did a great job.

A pretty lively race for you; overtaken by Ralf and Fisichella in the early stages, then it was your turn to get back and overtake Monteiro, Webber, Villeneuve and Rubens. Pretty lively for you, wasn't it?

Yeah it was. The first part of the race was very difficult. We did set the car up wrong, I had much too much oversteer with the car which left the door wide open for the people behind me. After the first stop we made some changes to the wing which made a big difference and the car was much better. And in the last stop we left the tyres on and that made a big difference. I think that was why we had so much better pace than the cars around us.

Did you have a particularly favourite place to overtake these people?

I think it was possible everywhere because my tyres were in much better shape. I didn't have the blocks to be rolling around on so it was a good choice by the team and myself to stay on those tyres, because after the first stint I was 16th or something because we messed up at the beginning of the race but it's nice to end on a high and I have to thank everyone for it, for helping us get onto the podium.

It must be nice to be back onto the podium.

It is nice, yeah, it's been a little while. I think the next three races will be better for us so I am really positive. We have a lot of aero work coming for the next two races and I think we hopefully will be challenging the Renaults and they will be taking it a bit easier, so they might earn us a few points which would be nice.

Do you think you can interfere in the title battle over the last three races?

As I said before we have a new aero package and Renault have as well so I don't really know where we are going to stand going into Brazil. I am happy that we can make a good improvement, it is just how good their improvement is really. But we are very positive for the last few races because of the downforce level that you run at those circuits, so that's how the car seems to work, so we are looking forward to it and hopefully we can get a few more podiums, that would be a nice way to end the season.