Formula One News » Button warns Hamilton: I’m gonna nail you! Posted on 01/09/2010
Jenson Button may have claimed that his championship dream was fading after being taken out of the Belgian Grand Prix by Red Bull rival Sebastian Vettel but, with time to reflect, the Briton insists that he may have been a little hasty.
Already talking more positively about his chances, especially with the McLaren-friendly Monza next on the schedule, Button has apparently warned team-mate Lewis Hamilton that he will be gunning for him over the remaining six races.
The pair remain on good terms, despite critics suggesting otherwise and unlike Red Bull rivals Vettel and Mark Webber, and team boss Martin Whitmarsh insists that there are no plans to force Button to play second fiddle to Hamilton over the run-in to Abu Dhabi.
“I was with them [after the race] and Jenson was saying to Lewis ‘I may be 35 points behind you, but I am still going to nail you’,” Whitmarsh revealed, “And that’s the way it should be.
“Fortunes fluctuate, [and] Jenson was very unlucky [in Belgium]. He should have scored good points in Spa and been right up there [in the championship], but things can change very quickly.”
Button’s mood was no doubt enhanced by what he saw from the two Red Bulls during the qualifying and race phases of the Spa weekend. Along with Ferrari, the Milton Keynes team had been under scrutiny amid suspicions that its front wing was flexing more than allowed by the rules, but it took tougher scrutineering to suggest that anything was really amiss.
Having been dominant in Hungary before the summer break, however, both Red Bull and Ferrari struggled to exert their superiority over McLaren in Belgium, and Button believes that McLaren’s biggest rivals are being a little coy about the true effect of the new wing tests.
“I think the circuit characteristics suited us at Spa, but that Red Bull’s pace was also affected by the new tests,” the reigning world champion claimed, “Watching the car here on the track, [the wing] was not flexing as much, and I hope the new, even more stringent, tests for Monza will have even more of an effect.
“[Red Bull] say they won’t have to change anything [for Italy], but they said that here.”
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