F1 News
Date: 7/July/2011
There's not much Jenson Button hasn’t achieved during his F1 career, but there is still one space on his mantelpiece he is yet to fill.
That's because, despite ten race victories and winning the 2009 world championship, Button has never even stood on the podium in front of his home fans at the British Grand Prix.
Having won the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix during his title-winning season, Silverstone success is the one thing missing from the McLaren star's CV.
"Yeah, I haven’t even got on the podium here in an F1 car," confirmed Button. "That will be my first aim. And it is one you would love to win.
"We all want to fight for a World Championship, we all want to win Monaco and we would love to win our home grand prix. That is the one I haven’t achieved yet, so it is something I will be fighting for."
Button arrives at round nine of the 2011 season holding second in the championship with four podiums, including one thrilling victory, in Canada. That's the good news.
The bad news is that Red Bull's reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel has won six of the races and is a whopping 77 points - over three race wins - ahead of Button.
Button is hoping the ban on off-throttle blown diffusers that comes into force this weekend, in addition to the recent ban on special qualifying engine maps, can help reel in the Red Bulls.
But the 31-year-old also believes new parts and solid preparation are likely to be just as significant this weekend.
"We have updates for this race, which hopefully will help us and also we have the difference in the blown diffuser this race and the electronics," said the Englishman. "That might help us more than the other teams. We'll have to see when we get out on the circuit.
"But I think the important thing is that we have done a lot of preparation for this race with the new components and also running with the new blown diffuser system.
"This is a pretty tough circuit to race on with the new package, so preparation is key and I think we have prepared very well and hopefully that will show tomorrow when we get out there."
Looking further ahead, Button claimed he is yet to even start discussions about staying at McLaren for a third-year, in 2012.
"I haven’t sat down and talked to Martin [Whitmarsh, team principal] about the future yet. They have an option on me for next year, I keep reading in the press," he smiled. "It’s not the time to be discussing it I don’t think. We have more important things to be concentrating on, fighting for a victory here, so we will leave that on the back-burner and look into that later this season.
"But I am happy where I am. We have been a little bit behind the Red Bulls, but we are fighting on. I think the team are doing a great job of bringing reasonably big updates to most grands prix, and especially this one, the home grand prix, so I think we are all doing a very good job."
First free practice for the British Grand Prix takes place on Friday morning.
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