Button says sorry to Trulli

The 20-year-old Brit tapped the Italian into a spin on the exit of La Source hairpin while they were duelling for third place. Trulli stalled, but Button raced on to finish fifth, and with Ralf Schumacher third, Williams-BMW got both cars in the points for the first time since the third round of the Formula 1 World Championship at Silverstone.

"Tell Jarno I'm sorry," said Button. "It was partly my mistake. Michael got past and I tried to do the same. I thought there was a lot of room and he was going wide but he got a good lock on and we collided.

"I'm disappointed to have finished fifth having started third," he added, "but it is good to have scored some more points. Unfortunately it took me a long time to overtake Trulli. After I hit him the steering was quite heavy and in the dry the car wasn't as good as it was in the wet."

The car was on a compromise set-up for the changing conditions, but the drivers suffered because it favoured the rain that was expected to return late in the race.