Button aims to zip up grid

Jenson Button hopes 13 will be his lucky number in tomorrow’s European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring after a disappointing qualifying session.

The BAR-Honda driver’s return from a two-race ban proved to be an anti-climax as he struggled with an early starting position and poor handling in qualifying.

He ended up 13th after lagging over two seconds behind pole position man Nick Heidfeld but put his faith in BAR’s strategy to drag him through the field.

He said: “We expected to be a little bit higher, not a great deal though because going out first never works well. There is actually quite a good balance for the race even though it doesn’t look good for qualifying.

“Our strategy as always is one of the best. I’m not that far back, I’m 13th. A lot can happen on the first lap – I could be in a points position. For me starting 13th is fine. I think we can do a lot from there.

“I think we will have a good race pace. It’s just a matter of seeing how good our strategy is – I think it is good compared to the people around us.

“It’s difficult to say because if you put them on the circuit with us now we would be quite a bit quicker than them.”

Button is predicting an action-packed race as he looks to fight his way through the pack and challenge for his belated first points of a difficult season.

The 25-year-old finished third in his last race at Imola but was stripped of that result following a weight infringement which also brought a two-race ban, and now he is keen to make up for lost time.

“We will still have a good race and score some good points. That’s our aim now, to get up as far as we can,” added Button, who admits a podium finish tomorrow is a “long shot“.

“It should be an exciting race. We should be quicker than the cars around us which should mean we can overtake.

“We are not challenging for a win now, but it is going to be an exciting race. I overtook two or three cars here last year so you can definitely overtake.”

Button blamed his poor time today on a mysterious handling problem which never surfaced in the three hours of practice over the last two days.

He added: “I was really surprised with how little grip there was. We were struggling with huge understeer when normally when the circuit is hotter and dirty you get a bit of oversteer.

“We didn’t have it in the practice sessions. We adjusted the car to get a good balance and we got big understeer. I was taking every corner in a lower gear just to get the car in.”

Button starts behind Scotsman David Coulthard tomorrow after the Red Bull driver also suffered with an early qualifying spot.

Coulthard took 12th position at a track which his team expected to struggle on and he found the going tough.

He said: “We are struggling a bit here but we’ll do what we can. We dropped some wing out of the car after this morning’s practice but I still had some oversteer and locked up into the hairpin.

“It’s always a compromise when you have fuel on board and such high temperatures. I don’t think we could have done any more than be in front of the two BARs.”