Jenson lauds his ‘best' race

The BAR-Honda driver was carrying a heavier fuel load than his rivals going into the first pitstop which allowed him to go from 13th on the grid - following his engine-change penalty from Friday - to fifth after the first round of pitstops.

After his second pitstop Renault's Fernando Alonso just pipped him to second spot, but on fresh tyres Button did all he could to try and pass the Spaniard. The Renault driver was too good though and Button had to wait until the final set of pitstops to see if he could overtake him.

However, the third stop was a carbon copy of the second with Alonso once again just edging out the Briton. This time though Button, who was struggling with his breathing because of a loose helmet strap, managed to out-manoeuvre the Spaniard and take second place.

"On the first lap I initially got a good start then I got stuck behind Taku at Turn 1 and lost a few places," he said, "I think I ended up in 13th still and then I just worked my way up a little bit and then after the first stop the team did a fantastic job and I came out in fifth or sixth."

"The car's been working great all weekend," he added. "It's difficult because I'm so happy to finish second and for me it's the best drive of my career and I had the best car underneath me and it performed fantastically and the engine too, but it's slightly disappointing because if I had started third it could have been a different story. I could have put a lot more pressure on Michael, which I would have enjoyed very much!

"But that was not to be, we've got to wait for that, but all in all it's a fantastic result and I've got to say a big thank you to the team."

Button's helmet problem meant he had to put his hand on the side of his visor while going down the straights, the Briton explained that it was because he was suffering breathing problems.

"The team thought it was the visor but it was the strap underneath the helmet that was a little bit loose and the problem is then that the helmet lifts up slightly and it was really catching on my throat and made it very difficult to breathe so I had to hold it on every straight so that I could keep it down so that I could get some air in."

Team boss David Richards agreed that Button's drive was one of his finest and wandered what could have been had his driver started from third on the grid.

"That's motor racing for you, you can never look backwards, these things happen and we got the best that we could today, but if he'd have started from third on the grid, who knows?" he said. "Jenson drove an immaculate race, I'm sure he'll say it was his best race ever. The team just dug really deep last night, they were a little despondent about Friday, but last night we sat down and talked about it and everyone said we'd capture something from this. We decided not to talk to him about his helmet as we couldn't help him so he had to get on with it.

Team-mate Takuma Sato picked up the final point on offer for the team giving Rciahrds more to smile about despite the Japanese driver making a few mistakes.

"He [Sato] got a point and had a challenging race," Richard said. "He made a couple of mistakes unfortunately and but we've got more points in the bag and we've pulled up closer to Renault in second place."