Button hangs on to his helmet to claim second

Motor Racing German Grand Prix Jenson Button did not expect to be battling for second place in the German Grand Prix any more than he anticipated having to drive one-handed for the last 20 laps - of what was undoubtedly the most formidable performance of his career - holding his helmet steady after its neck strap worked loose and threatened to strangle him.

In reality, Button's dilemma was not quite as bad as it may have looked to television viewers, but it added a suitably dramatic flourish to the best race of the 24-year-old's career as he stormed across the finishing line just 8.38 seconds behind Michael Schumacher's Ferrari in a result which consolidated his third place in the World Championship with six of the season's 18 races left to run.

This was also a race which went a long way towards addressing those critics of Formula One who claim that the sport offers insufficient genuine overtaking on the circuit. On this occasion, the entire 66-lap event was punctuated by vivid passing moves and wheel-to-wheel moments.

"Towards the end of the race my helmet strap started to work loose and my helmet was lifting down the straights, which was pulling the strap tight against my throat and choking me," Button said. "I had to drive one-handed for most of the time. I couldn't breathe very well. It was just more worrying than anything else. I was just slightly pulling it down to get more air in.

"This was without doubt the best race of my Formula One career," said Button who qualified superbly with the third fastest time but, after a 10-place penalty for an engine change during Friday practice had been applied, actually lined up in 13th place on the grid.

Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams-BMW FW26 had qualified on the front row a fraction slower than Schumacher's Ferrari F2004 in pole position. But any realistic hope of the Colombian carrying the fight to Schumacher's Ferrari evaporated at the start when he made a painfully slow getaway.

By the end of the opening lap Schumacher was already one second ahead of Fernando Alonso's Renault, but Kimi Raikkonen forced the McLaren-Mercedes MP4/19B into second place next time round and gallantly kept the Ferrari in sight through the first series of refuelling stops.

By dint of running a longer opening stint in a bid to vault throught the pack, Button found himself leading at the end of the 13th lap just as Raikkonen's McLaren suddenly spun out of control in front of the pits, slamming off the road into the tyre barrier when its rear wing failed dramatically.

Within a lap and a half of Raikkonen's accident and mindful of the need to protect David Coulthard in their other car, McLaren's crew had accessed the team's database in Woking in a bid to decide whether Coulthard might be at risk.

"These components had covered thousands of miles and we had to assume this was an isolated failure," said McLaren's CEO Martin Whitmarsh after confirming that the Scot could continue. "We must assume that this was either a quality control problem or the component has somehow become damaged."