Hungaroring, so what

Week commencing 31 July 05

The fact that Raikkonen won the Hangarian Grand Prix is nice but leaves him no nearer the championship than he was at the start of the month. Indeed he is further away as there are only 6 races to go in which to score 26 points more than Alonso, quite unlikely. The prospect that the Ferraris (at least the one driven by Schumacher) could slot in between Raikkonen and Alonso in future races could help as could Montoya if he became less like himself and more level headed for the final races.

The whole Button thing is a red herring. He has a contract with Williams for next year; he can race for them, buy himself out (or be bought out) of the contract, or break the contract and suffer the consequences. This sort of thing must go on all the time behind closed doors, as for being interviewed on TV saying that he doesn’t want to drive for a team; so what, half the drivers would rather be driving for someone else, I don’t believe going public will do anything for him. Perhaps if he had won a number of races and had a bit more track presence, it would be interesting. (I refer to the way he held the door open for Michael Schumacher at Imola this year; he might as well have offered to help him off with his overalls at the end of the race). To be fair, he doesn’t seem to have been well advised, he perhaps should have had a clause in his contract that obligated Williams to have an engine. Remember, he got what he wanted and Williams is not famous for molly coddling its drivers.

I would be intrigued to see what would happen if he ends up staying at Honda and is joined by Snr Barichello.