Button and Richards

I think we both said some things in the press that probably neither of us liked, but I think that it's good to get it out in the open. We talk things over a lot more now and are a lot more open with each other. We say what we think.
Don't you think that relationships sometimes go through ups and downs and there's no-one I know who has a strong relationship that doesn't go through the highs and lows of that and I think probably at the end of the day we've come out stronger as a result of this situation. We'll certainly be more open and frank with each other than we ever have been before.



I'm not going to lie. It's a little bit disappointing but you can't have everything in life. I think if you look at the last few months with a difficult situation in the team we've still been able to have some very good results and I think if we all stay focused for next season we can still have a very good year.



Not really. You normally just walk out when something's wrong. Don't you?
There's no getting away from the fact that the situation has a little bit of repairing to be done. There's no hiding from that. We've seen the issues and we've aired a lot of them in public between both of us. But I think the real measure is how the team has performed since this all cropped up and I think if you judge us by our performance and by the way we work as a professional team and as a professional racing driver, I don't think you can have any question about where we are going from here next year. Second for the team and third for Jenson in the drivers' championship - I don't think we could have improved much on that, do you?

What's the situation for 2006?

Oh that's well into the future...



Well, we're going to worry about next year first of all and get one thing out of the way.



We are not going to have any conjecture about after next year.



We've got to convince Jenson, quite clearly. We all go through periods in our life when we're slightly uncertain that we've picked the right horse. Jenson had a few bad races in the summer, we had the French and British GPs, they were probably the two worst races. We all have queries. I do, sometimes, and Jenson must do about his circumstances. That's reasonable and realistic. The trick now is to make sure we solidify as a team and work together and prove there is no foundation for those issues.

Can you both state categorically that this is and you will be together next year? In the past, when a driver has wanted to go and another team wants him, financial arrangements have been made.

No, this is the way it's going to be.
This is what it's going to be.
There's no financial arrangement and I made it clear from the outset that the team is committed to Jenson and no financial issue is ever going to change our mind about that. I made that very clear to Frank from an early stage.



It's been a very busy few months and it has been quite draining. I think at the circuit everyone has done a fantastic job but it's away from the circuit that, along with everything else that we do as a driver, having that to think and to worry about, either way, has been very tough. Not just for myself, but for everyone involved. But I really don't think it would have made any difference to our results this year. I was saying to David this morning that it's been a pretty interesting season, good or bad, and we can build on that for next year.



I'm not going to talk about my management at the moment. That's not something I'm here to discuss.



The only reason why I thought about moving teams is because I didn't think the contract was valid for next year and it turns out I was advised slightly incorrectly. But that's not just from one person, that's a group of people, and the contract obviously does stand.



I think I've already said enough in the press about that.
Let me just interrupt there on Jenson's part. Clearly, we're a young team. Before this season if I sat down with the press you wouldn't have dreamt what we could deliver this year. It's quite clear that the record of other teams out there is far more established than ours. It's a fact I can't get away from, so it's not unreasonable for a young driver to look at that and think, well, the track record (at Williams) is there and are BAR going to definitely be able to deliver in the long term? I say that we can but there must be question marks over that, quite clearly. But now we are committed to working together to make sure that happens next year.



We're not here to discuss that, it's more about where we go from here and the most important thing is to have a good relationship with the team and to move forward. We need to sit down and discuss our plans for next year with David and the rest of the team and with Honda.



We're not going to discuss that at the moment. We are looking to next year first, which is a very important year in my career and a very important year for the team.
Short term, we want to get the best result we can out of this weekend, take a holiday, well deserved by everybody, and then we'll start talking about how to make the best of next year.