Will Jenson Button Recover?
It didn’t seem so long ago that the British were waiting for an exciting season of formula one racing. The difference this year was, that at last we would have a British driver at least fighting for wins if not the Formula one championship depending on how optimistic you are.
Jenson Button had set some impressive lap times during the winter season and with the strength of Honda behind him, was ready to take on the might of Renault and Ferrari.
Behind him was the legal battle that saw Jenson fork out an astonishing amount of cash to buy himself out of his Williams contract now looked as if was going to pay off with such a competitive car.
But it hasn’t worked out that way, as even with some impressive qualifying places including pole, this Honda car just hasn’t got the competitive pace required to win races. You can see it in Jenson’s face, normally a calm composed and optimistic team player, has changed into a quieter, unsure and inside-frustrated driver. And just when he though it couldn’t get worse, mechanical failure has caused the first breakdown.
The Brits have always thought Jenson as a future world champion, providing he was in the right car, but after 100 plus races, there must be doubt of whether he really has got it in him. You wonder if its Honda’s fault, and how much control the racing team has, or whether the strings are being pulled corporately. There is no denying their best season was 2004, still under the British American Racing badge, with Fry ruling the roust. So the question is now will he recover in time for this season, or has he peaked? There is no doubt that they have a considerable budget and more was expected. I don’t know the answer but what I do know is. This is what will make him a true champion. By digging deep into his resources and finding a solution to these issues, fighting for every second on the track and reliability from his engineers day after day, will decide his real future. Michael Schumacher is an expert at this. 2005 was a terrible season by his standards; 2006 has seen another turnaround as he shows us why he was 7 times world champion.
The truth is, that even if he wins one race, the British public will love him and the bad press will pretty much disappear. It sounds easy of course and delivering will be much harder with and almost impossible without major improvements to the car.
We know improvements are on their way, but so are the improvements to most of the other cars on the grid too, so they better be good.
Jenson hasn’t really been with a small team and I think it is a shame. Even Schumacher spent time at the back of the grid albeit not long, but I am sure he learned how to do a lot with not much. This experience might have helped Jenson with trying to do a lot with a lot.
With all this negativity though, I do believe he has got it, and will eventually win races.
Recovery for this season will be more luck than judgement, but next season with many lessons learnt and not resting on any Honda morals, I think we will see what Jenson is really about, a true racer.
Mark is webmaster for Breakdown Recovery and Distance Learning and Business Consultant Middlesbrough
