Button decision takes gloss off podium place

MOTOR SPORT/Hungarian Grand Prix: Jenson Button cut a slightly forlorn figure yesterday as he breakfasted in the almost empty BAR-Honda motorhome area in the paddock at the Hungaroring before the first qualifying session for the Hungarian grand prix. The mood was civil, formal, but distinctly subdued.

Here was the first tangible and public evidence that the special relationship between the Briton and the team which had once seemed set to carry him to Grand Prix glory was now reduced to a pragmatic employer/employee relationship, shorn of any passion or spark by the driver's decision to jump ship and join BMW Williams for 2005.

The downbeat mood was reflected on the faces of the other senior BAR players. David Richards, the team principal who has vowed to fight Button's decision, appeared taut and unsmiling. Geoff Willis, the technical director, just looked glum.

Yet for all the team's abject disappointment over the way Button has handled the situation, when he walked from the paddock into the back of the team's pit-lane garages he was entering a professional world. The mechanics and engineers had too much pride to do anything that might compromise his efforts on this challengingly tight little circuit.

"When mechanics are working on the preparation of a 200mph formula one car the meticulous attention to detail is absolutely taken for granted," said an insider. "Some of the guys working on the cars may be disappointed with Jenson's decision but, once the action starts out on track all that is pushed to one side. Their naturally competitive instincts kick in."

Yet the events of the past week have unquestionably taken some of the gloss off Button's superb drive to second place in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

"The entire team left Germany three weeks ago on an immense high following what was without doubt the best race result in BAR's history," said Richards. "The race clearly underlined the fact that we had recovered our advantage over our immediate competitors. The events of the past week came as a shock to the entire team."

And on the evidence of yesterday's practice session it will be Kimi Raikkonen, the McLaren-Mercedes team leader, who carries the battle to Michael Schumacher's Ferrari in tomorrow's race. The Finnish driver strained every sinew to set the fastest time, 0.2 seconds ahead of Schumacher, with Juan Pablo Montoya third for Williams ahead of the other McLaren driven by David Coulthard.

Twelve months ago Schumacher finished eighth here, lapped by the winner Fernando Alonso's Renault. It was a dismal showing which triggered every alarm bell at Ferrari and Bridgestone, with the result that the hot-weather performance of this year's generation of Bridgestone constructions and compounds is in a different class to last year's products. So Schumacher will be no pushover, but if Button or Raikkonen can muster the sort of form they displayed in Germany the world champion may have his hands more full that at any time since Jarno Trulli won at Monte Carlo three months ago.

Overtaking at the Hungaroring is difficult. An ambitious lunge down the inside into the first corner is slightly more feasible than it used to be thanks to the longer approach created by the track changes last year. There is also a chance for passing into the reshaped right-hand turn 12 but generally the tactics will be to wait for a mistake from the guy in front.

In the Williams camp, Antonio Pizzonia was being allowed his second race outing for the team, he and Montoya doing comparative tests between the drooping walrus-style nose section and a more conventional front end developed from last year's more successful car.

Ralf Schumacher has been told to take at least another month off because the damaged vertebrae in his back have still not hardened. His manager, Willi Weber, said his driver might risk even more serious injury if he was involved in another accident with his back in a weakend state.