Button baffled by pace problems

Jenson Button fears suffering a miserable weekend unless answers are quickly found to the dramatic lack of pace sustained by his BAR.

Less than two weeks ago at the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul, Button was flying, and but for an error in qualifying the Briton may well have ended up on pole.

The 25-year-old was eventually forced to start from 13th on the grid but, such was his pace, he finished a highly respectable fifth and proclaimed afterwards the car was the strongest he had experienced all year.

Heading into tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix, and after last week’s test and especially in the wake of yesterday’s first two practice sessions, Button is unable to fathom his sudden loss of speed.

“We’ve a lot of work to do because we didn’t expect to be quite as slow as we were,” said Button, who finished a lowly 18th, almost two seconds adrift of McLaren duo Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen.

“After testing last week we knew we weren’t really on the pace with the Renaults and McLarens anyway, but after this we’re a long way off at the moment.

“We’ll have to run over the data – but I can’t believe we are so off the pace, and at this stage it’s going to be very tough to score.

“The Renaults and McLarens are as quick as ever, which is pretty normal, while the Toyotas are there and the Williams are reasonably quick.

“Looking at it, our runs aren’t too bad. It’s more about the one lap because we are really struggling to get the one lap out of the car.

“It feels reasonably slow, there’s low grip – although that is the way Monza is anyway – but we are struggling for grip overall.

“We’re not as quick as we would hope on the straight, while in the corners we seem to have low grip front and rear, with understeer on the way in and oversteer on the exit.

“It’s not a very nice car to drive at the moment, yet I don’t feel like I’m two seconds off the pace of the McLarens. It doesn’t feel that slow, but we are and it’s very strange.

“Since last week’s test we seem to be further down the field than we expected.”

Another driver with problems is Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher who yesterday crashed at 100mph into a tyre wall at Parabolica, with the back end of the car stepping out before a spin through the gravel and into the barrier.

With the 36-year-old German’s five-year reign poised to come to an end tomorrow as he trails championship leader Fernando Alonso by 40 points with just five races remaining, it was hardly the ideal start towards salvaging some pride.

“When you are not as competitive as you want to be, you try everything you can to improve, and my spin was partly the result of that,” said Schumacher.

“I made some changes to the set up, but it made the car a bit unstable which made me slide off the track. It was not a heavy impact as I was already at the corner exit.”

The McLarens of championship challenger Raikkonen and Montoya look the team to beat, with the duo third and second quickest respectively around the 3.6mile circuit behind Toyota test driver Ricardo Zonta.

Alonso and team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella seemingly have plenty to do as they were down in 10th and ninth, with Red Bull Racing’s David Coulthard also off the pace in 19th behind Button.