Button beats the odds in home GP

The BAR-Honda star was forced to quit his flying lap in qualifying on Saturday after breaking the suspension of his car, but pulled off a number of spectacular passing moves to climb to eighth position by the finish.

"That was a lot of fun!" he exclaimed. "It was always going to be hard from the back but I don't think we could have done any better than that - it was one of the best performances of my career. I had nothing to lose so I went for it from the start.

"I made up five places on the first lap so I knew I had a car I could fight with. I was starting to work my way through the field when we had to pit under the safety car after the spectator ran on to the track, and I had to queue for a short time behind Jacques. I dropped back down to 18th and had to start all over again which was massively frustrating...

"I had a lot of fun carving my way through the field and it was a great feeling for Jacques and I to be fighting with Michael [Schumacher]," he added. "I got a good second stop to get back on track ahead of Jacques. I was able to start chasing da Matta but in the end we just ran out of laps. It was a really special race for me today and I'm pleased that we have a point at the end of it because the team have worked really hard to get the car back up there."