http://www.f1network.net/main/s169/st140377.htm By Phil Huff February 19 2009 The shenanigans of the last few weeks have weighed heavy on Jenson's mind, with the British driver spending his winter with as much uncertainty as the rest of the Brackley squad, albeit it with perhaps less pressing financial concerns. Button has a habit of being either in the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at the wrong time. Never ha she managed to move his career to the ideal location - the right place at the right time. Over the winter break he has kept up his fitness regime, competing in triathlons (even though some fitness experts suggest that's the wrong kind of training), spending his days on a mountain bike, and relaxing on a training break at La Santa in Lanzarote. Button started out in 2000 with Williams. Undoubtedly the right place, but the wrong time - going in to a leading team with little experience proved tricky and, even though he eventually held his own against Ralf Schumacher, it was a difficult year. A switch to Benetton the next year proved difficult, and the transition to Renault saw Button fall out of favour, despite some strong performances. That led to BAR where he was paired up with Jacques Villeneuve. This was as close as he got to the ideal situation, with the 2004 BAR proving quite competitive. In another year, he may have won the championship. In 2004, the Ferrari was just too strong, and nothing could compete with it. Right place. Wrong time. At that point, Jenson signed a contract to return to Williams for 2005, despite having a contract to drive for BAR that year. A lengthy legal battle ensued, and he was ultimately forced to return to BAR against his wishes, and that's when the team started to fall further and further back. The next year he'd got another deal signed to return to Williams, and this time he was free to go. However, since signing, Williams lost their factory BMW engines, and Honda purchased 100% of BAR. Suddenly the Grove outfit didn't look to appealing. He'd signed for the wrong place, at the wrong time. Another lengthy contractual battle started, and he eventually bought his way back to the new Honda Racing F1 team. Despite a race win in 2006, there were clear problems at Honda. The next season got worse, with Honda being beaten frequently by the Super Aguri team, a Honda 'B' team to set up to run Takuma Sato with year old Honda chassis'. The 2007 season was far worse, even with the removal of Super Aguri early on in the season after Honda withdrew funding. A decision was made to concentrate on 2008, and have another 'learning year'. To few people's surprise, 2008 was about as bad as it's ever been. He was sure it wasn't him, saying "It's all the car. You put anyone in our car and they are not going to win races. That's the way Formula One is. It is a team sport and you need to have everything and we don't have a competitive car at the moment. It hasn't been a fun car to drive, plus, mid-season we started concentrating on the '09 car, so we didn't improve this year's car as much as the other teams. And the areas that I wanted to improve with the car we didn't do, because we were concentrating on '09." However, silver lined the clouds, with the arrival of Ross Brawn and a flurry of senior technical staff, the exit of Shuhei Nakamoto, and a significant change to the regulations. Internal numbers suggested the car was ahead of most of their competitors, but these things are always somewhat vague. Leadership from Brawn was beginning to have results internally, there was funding from Honda and a team mate (or potential new team mate) that gelled well. Seeing that, he renewed his contract with the Honda team in October for another four years, two of them option years, and at considerable expense to Honda. There was good reason for optimism, and finally it appeared Jenson may have finally been in the right place at the right time. And then Honda withdrew. After nine years in Formula One, Button's career hangs on a knife edge once more. It looks likely that he'll be on the grid in Melbourne, but what state will the team be in? Will it be another character building year? Will he ever have the chance to sit in a championship winning car? There's no doubt Formula One has been kind to Jenson, but there's a point where the money doesn't matter, and winning becomes the only thing that matters. We fear he'll not experience that again, and that would be a great shame for the Briton. Hopefully this Honda deal will go thru and Jenson will have a chance to prove himself. Oh.... Go Button!
