Steve Cooper: On the Limit

Away from the track, there's little on the surface to suggest that the Honda team is suffering a season from hell. Media attention has drifted away from last year's tabloid darling, Jenson Button, and the disaster that is the RA107 has been so impossible to disguise that it's fruitless to attempt to stick the knife in any further.

So even though the proud Honda Motor Corporation's two F1 cars sit ignominiously on the back row of the Turkish Grand Prix grid, there are no outward signs of disquiet as we sit in the team's motorhome at lunchtime on Sunday. On the wall, the TV monitors pick up coverage of the F1 drivers' parade and everyone's interest slowly gathers focus as the truck's interviewer, moving from one driver to the next, eventually alights on Jenson Button.

Jenson smiles and cheerily goes through the motions - not surprising for a driver armed with a dog of a car that's been relegated to the back row by a post-qualifying engine change. The camera pans away from Jenson to rest on the neighbouring Anthony Davidson.

The Super Aguri driver tackles the interviewer's questions, but everyone's attention is drawn to an off-screen hand adopting a cheeky 'rabbit ears' gesture behind Davo's head. The hand reappears, prodding Davidson in the shoulder.

Ant pretends to ignore the distraction, but the wandering hand returns - this time punching him playfully in the stomach - and Davidson collapses into a fit of giggles. Watching the events unfold on one of Honda's motorhome TVs, father John Button lets out a hearty guffaw at his son's antics.

You could easily forgive Jenson Button for adopting a more sober approach to the fast-approaching Turkish Grand Prix. After all, he'd qualified a somewhat unremarkable 15th, been pushed back to 21st following that engine change, and seemed unlikely to trouble anybody other than the tail-end stragglers for the remainder of the afternoon. If anybody was due a punch in the gut in Turkey, it was Button.

The TV screens follow the drivers' parade to its conclusion and we watch the truck's precious load dismount and filter back into the paddock. A minute later, Button bounds back into the motorhome wearing shorts, trainers and a cheesy grin.

He's introduced to a handful of visiting Turkish dignitaries, one of whom hands Jenson a pendant to ward off 'the evil eye' of bad luck. "I could have done with this yesterday!" he says, smiling, referring to that engine change. Everybody laughs.

Later that afternoon, Jenson drives a revved-up race and pulls off a handful of ballsy passes, overtaking 10 cars to finish an unheralded 13th. Of course, it would be easy to overlook the performance - the TV cameras caught a few of his moves but were more focused on the chase at the front.

Only an analysis of the lapchart shows his progress - the inexorable rise of the number-seven car through the ranks. And it was impressive; reminded you of the Nurburgring, too - a race where Button had performed similar giant-killing feats to run in the top four before falling victim to the river that claimed a small army of cars in the opening laps. That drive, too, had gone largely unnoticed.

But both clearly prove a point: Button is driving better than ever during this character-building season. And his cheery indefatigability is emblematic of the whole Honda team, which is still rising to the task despite almost insurmountable odds.

It prompts bigger questions, too: what could Button achieve in genuine frontrunning machinery; when will Honda finally produce a car that measures up to his considerable - but, thus far, wasted - talent; and can Honda hang on to its talisman before one of the big teams inevitably comes knocking?