Front runners in Button's sights

Giving Ferrari a run for its money in 2003 is not a prediction many could confidently make and while the Scuderia may be out of reach, Jenson Button believes BAR can challenge front runners McLaren and Williams this season. Not knowing how much ...

Giving Ferrari a run for its money in 2003 is not a prediction many could confidently make and while the Scuderia may be out of reach, Jenson Button believes BAR can challenge front runners McLaren and Williams this season.

Not knowing how much progress other teams have made over the winter obviously makes comparison difficult but Button thinks BAR have made a lot of progress.

Jenson Button.

Photo by British American Racing.

"The car is a good basis and we have some very good people on board now," he told the team website. "Of course, you never know what progress others have made but we should be challenging teams like McLaren and Williams."

"The main thing is that we have taken a big step forward since last season -- now it's a question of finding out how big a step others have taken. We should start getting a good picture of our overall competitiveness by the time we reach Malaysia."

Button is feeling positive about his surroundings at BAR and is looking forward to the forthcoming season. One person he was happy to see in his new team was technical director Geoff Willis, with whom he worked at Williams.

"Back in 2000 we seemed to get on very well and I know he's great at getting good people round him," the Englishman said of Willis. "He's also very interested in the driver's views, so really it promises to be a good partnership between us all."

Like many other drivers, Button is looking forward to the new qualifying system: "It should be pretty exciting," he commented. "In effect it's putting all four runs we had previously into one and that's going to put a lot of pressure on everyone, especially on the engineers to get the cars ready on time. I'm really looking forward to it; it should be good fun."