Bahrain: Jenson in the press conference

Jenson took 3rd
By Phil Huff (04/04/2004)
April 4 2004

Jenson Button secured another podium finish for Lucky Strike BAR Honda today in Bahrain, and therefore had to face the worlds media in the post race press conference. Here's what he had to say.

Q: Jenson, another great drive, two podium finishes in a row.

It's fantastic, it really is. This one was a little bit more difficult. Starting sixth wasn't the best position for me; I was a little bit disappointed because I think we had too much understeer in the car, which lost me quite a bit of time in qualifying. But it was good to fight through, as we did in Malaysia, and the car seemed very, very good throughout the race. It was very consistent. But again, as Michael said, you really had to be careful about staying on line; it was a little bit dusty off line.

Q: You had some interesting battles today – you followed your team-mate Takuma Sato, of course, and you passed Jarno Trulli in the pit stop.

Yeah, I mean, the guys in the pitstops normally do fantastic jobs at our team. We do a lot of practice, as every team does, but they are simply very good and I think our strategy really paid off this weekend.

Q: And how was it with Takuma? Were you racing him there or just sort of sitting behind him, waiting to see what happened?

I wasn't going to push too hard behind him. It was very close between what lap we were going to stop on, so I was conserving fuel a little bit. But then he made a mistake up the back and I was able to pull alongside him and get past.

Q: Jenson, what happened at the start; it was pretty lively for you, I think?

It was. I didn't actually get a very good start. My start off the line wasn't too bad but into turn one I was stuck behind Ralf who also got a bad start. I dropped back to eighth position, I think it was. I was able to get back past the Toyota into turn three and then I found that I had quite a lot of understeer in the car so I was losing quite a bit of time through high speed corners, especially being so close to the cars in front. So at the first stop we made a wing change and it was a big improvement.

Q: Any panics at the end of the race this time?

Not at all. The car was working very well. I worked my brakes very hard trying to catch Juan Pablo and then he had his problems so the next lap I cooled them down quite a bit, but apart from that, the car was working very well.

Q: You were catching Jarno and Jarno was catching Juan Pablo until his problem got much worse. But the tactics in getting past Jarno were extraordinary…

Yeah, I know. I think we had very good strategy again as we did in Malaysia. They always seem to come out of the pits in front of us at the first stop, Renault, or Jarno does, but by the end of the last stop, we're back in front again by a few seconds. We did have a very good strategy and it's great to be on the podium again.

Q: Jenson, you were first in the third and fourth qualifying sessions (practice sessions) but you were still third in the race. What do you think you still have to do to finish first?

I wasn't actually first in the qualifying sessions; that was in the morning practice. We were very quick on Saturday morning but we lost a lot of time when we got to qualifying. I don't really understand what the reason was but that's something we really need to look at in the data. It's all gaining experience for us. This is our third race with Michelin tyres and working out how they work is not as easy as it seems. We're gaining experience and hopefully by the next race we can make another step forward.

Q: Jenson, what is the secret behind BAR's dramatic improvement in performance here?

I'm going to say the same as I always do. We've worked very hard over the winter and I think we gained a lot of experience last year. We're still a very young team in comparison and that's it really. We've all worked very hard, it's not just in one area, it's in every area that we've stepped up our game and everyone is very determined in the team so it's a very exciting season for us.

Q: Jenson, when you were chasing Takuma, how hard did you have to work, or were you just sitting back waiting for the inevitable?

Inevitable? I think I was being held up, but it wasn't a bad thing because I was able to conserve fuel and able to pit a bit later than we expected, so it wasn't a big issue.

Q: How different is fruit juice to champagne?

We smell like ladies now. (Laughter).