Britain: Jenson's turn in the press conference

By Phil Huff
July 6 2007

Jenson Button sat alongside team mate Rubens Barrichello at the pre-race press conference, chatting to the assembled media about Silverstone itself, changes to the car, just how much he's missing Anthony Davidson and, of course, Lewis Hamilton. After all, what press conference would be complete without shoehorning in a question about the championship leader? Here's the entire transcript.

Jenson, eighth place last weekend but it must have felt like a bit of a relief?

Yes it did. More than gaining a point it was more the performance that we did over the weekend. Sunday's race was good fun and it was nice to be able to see the Renaults in front and then a McLaren, on the same lap! Quite unusual at the moment.

What sort of modifications have been made and how much better did the car feel?

There have been quite a lot of modifications, aerodynamically and mechanically as well. For me it felt like a big change in the race. Qualifying… we are still not there in qualifying. There is still a bit of speed that we need to find compared to a lot of the teams. In the race the pace was ok and the consistency was reasonably good. It was nice to have a car that I could work with and push to the limit. We are still nowhere near where we want to be. We are still quite a long way off the Ferraris, the McLarens and the BMW's but we have moved forward and that’s the important thing.

Second on the grid here in 2005, fourth in the race in 2004. What are the chances of getting some more points this weekend?

Well, the car in 2005 was pretty crap, so anything is possible. But I think qualifying is going to be reasonably difficult for us. It would be nice to get in Q3 but we have got to sort out a few things before we do that. We really don't know where we are here. We haven't tested here, so we have really just got to wait until tomorrow to see how competitive we are. As I said, we have got to work on our one lap performance a bit more.

Do you think the leaving of the test driver Anthony Davidson is one of the reasons for the recent car performance at the beginning of this season?

So you're saying it was all down to Anthony that we had a quick car last year? I can't give him that much credit. Anthony was good to have in the team because he was very experienced. We worked together for many years so yeah it was very useful but he's gone on to better things. We've got Christian [Klien] in the team now and he's doing a very good job. He doesn't get that much testing, the testing rules have changed so he's not getting as much testing as he would have hoped but he is doing a good job as well.

Do you want him [Davidson] back?

I think it is a bit unfair to try and steal him back from racing. I think he's enjoying himself.

Not only this weekend but throughout the entire year another British driver has grabbed all the headlines. How do you view the whole 'Hamilton hype' thing?

It's the first time I've been asked this question (laughter). He deserves the amount of hype he's been getting. He's doing a great job, leading the championship by 14 points in his first season. You can say that he's in the best car, which he has been for most of the year, but he's still beating his teammate so yeah he has done a great job and he deserves the credit.