06/05/2005
NEWS STORY
Jenson Button, who will miss the next two rounds of the 2005 Formula One World Championship, has admitted that any hope he had of challenging for the title this year, has gone.
Talking to reporters at Barcelona, as his team packed up its equipment and prepared to head back to its Brackley base in England, Button said: "You've got to say that our chance of winning the championship is pretty much gone.
"To come back from that is pretty much impossible," he continued, "especially with Renault being so strong in the first few races and Ferrari are going to be strong for the rest of the year."
Having been stripped of the six points, and the trophy, he won at Imola, the Englishman will next race at the Nurburgring - round 7 of the championship - with no points under his belt.
"This is the first moment I've really thought there's really no chance we can challenge for the championship," he admitted, "but the aim this year was to win races anyway and we've just got to stick to that."
Following a number of successful tests, BAR was in confident mood as it arrived at Spain, Button having posted a new unofficial lap record (1:13.552) early last month.
"This would have been a great race for us," he said. "However, for me I think Monaco was the one that I'm most disappointed about because I think that could have been a race we could have shocked a lot of people at. We would have been staggeringly quick.
"It's a circuit that I love," he added. "We did well there last year getting on the podium and I really think we could have gone one step higher this year and I don't think it would have been too hard either."