MOTOR SPORT FORMULA ONE: WITH THE air of a man on the verge of being handed a golden handshake for long service, Formula one title leader Jenson Button ambled into Sao Paulo's Interlagos circuit on Thursday wearing the easy smile of someone who knows that if he just keeps punching the clock for a few more days he'll get his valedictory speeches and gold watch.
“I woke up happy today and looking forward to the weekend,” Button said when asked if the pressure to wrap up the title was growing. “I don’t think it adds to pressure, knowing that you could win the World Championship that weekend. I think it adds to the excitement. It’s not a negative, it’s a positive.”
In Brazil, this weekend, Button has good reason to bask in that positivity. If the second half of this season have seen Button’s early-season charge to multiple wins mutate into a stumbling lurch for the finish line, that chequered flag is now firmly in sight.
Interlagos is the penultimate round, he still carries a 14-point lead over team-mate Rubens Barrichello, a 16-point gap to his only other rival Sebastian Vettel and the knowledge that to land the title here he has only to finish third. Barrichello must win, on a home-town circuit where in 16 attempts he has never won and has failed to finish a whooping 11 times. With only a single result out of the points this season, Button has good reason to believe that the title is now in the post.
Faith though is not always rewarded. Of the three title contenders Button will line up on the grid in Brazil with the worst recent record. Sandwiched between eighth in Japan, a fortunate fifth in Singapore, a failure to finish in Belgium and seventh at the European Grand Prix, Button’s second place at the Italian Grand Prix last month has been the one bright life-giving moment to his increasingly nervy progress to the title.
By contrast Vettel has sloughed off a mid-season slump to take a victory and a podium from his last four outings and could have scored another in Singapore had a pitlane speeding penalty not dropped him from second to fourth. Barrichello too has eclipsed his team-mate recently taking two wins from his last five outings. Button may have the calm air of a man on the brink, but what lies over that brink may not be the golden glow of victory but the inky blackness of abysmal defeat.
And the form book initially held true in free practice yesterday. In a first session upset by rain and by a stoppage – when Renault’s Romain Grosjean demolished a braking point marker and scattered debris across the track – Button looked to be struggling with understeer. He slotted into seventh and was peering past the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima and twin McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen towards the sharp end of timing sheet, where Barrichello in second was sandwiched between the Red Bulls of quickest man Mark Webber and Vettel.
But the Brawn GP driver turned it round in the afternoon and while Fernando Alonso finished on top the sheet ahead of the unlikely Toro Rosso of Sébastien Buemi, Button had moved to fifth, two ahead of Vettel and slotted in behind fourth-placed Webber and Barrichello in third.
Off track Fernando Alonso yesterday played down comments made by his future Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa that the Spaniard must have known about the plan in Singapore last year for Nelson Piquet Junior to crash out and boost Alonso to the top.
“I think first of all I don’t know if it’s true or not (that Massa said that), maybe there was a misunderstanding with the media or with Felipe,” Alonso said.
The two-time world champion added that the FIA had cleared him of any wrongdoing and “there is no doubt” he had nothing to do with the incident.
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