Jenson suffers more Melbourne misery

A year ago the 21-year-old Brit was close to tears when he had a disastrous debut with Williams after winding up on the back row of the grid. This time it was just as bad as he finished up 21st of the 22 drivers after Friday's two hour-long practice sessions.

The wheel well and truly came off his wagon - quite literally - in the second practice session when his right rear Michelin tyre just spun off the rim at one corner with half an hour remaining. Button had to limp slowly around half a lap on three wheels to make it back to the pits.

In the morning he had been only slightly faster than Fernando Alonso driving a Minardi completed just a week ago.

In the second session, after an engine change, Button was still slower than the lead Minardi - and four and half seconds slower than the fastest man on the track Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello.

Button had warned his fans he faced a slow start to the season as Benetton struggled to come to terms with the radical but unreliable new 111-degree Benetton engine, which has been plagued with problems in pre-season testing.

"I'm not expecting to be quick at the start of the season because we have had a few problems in testing, but I do want to see the car improving towards the second half of the season," he said. "But I learned a lot from that terrible day I had last year.

"I had a terrible practice in the morning last year and it ruined my whole day," continued the young Englishman. "It was probably one of the most frustrating days I have ever had. But it was also a good experience because I knew it could not get any worse!

"Well this [today] wasn't very satisfactory for me. At the end of the first session we had a problem with the engine and it had to be changed, so I lost the first half of the second session. Then I had a problem with my rear tyre, so I got very little running done."

For the full practice session 2 results click here.