By Phil Huff
April 25 2006

Jenson Button's race at San Marino certainly provided excitement, but for perhaps the wrong reasons. Despite having a quick car for the day, problems in the pits meant that the Briton couldn't get onto the podium as planned. At the first stop, Button suffered a small problem with the right-rear wheel nut. With the professional crew at Honda Racing F1 acting swiftly, Jenson only lost around three seconds, but things got far worse at the second stop.

Watching on TV, it was clear to most people what happened, with the lollipop rising before the stop had finished. Jenson saw it in much the same way.

"Alistair, who's on the lollipop, lifted the lollipop when he thought that he saw the nozzle coming off," explained Button straight after the race. "He must have seen the nozzle moving, so I immediately reacted, as you should do as soon as the lollipop moves. I went and everyone was still connected. When the fuel pipe's connected, it just takes all the mechanics with it, because you can't get out of the way from it that quickly - these things get from 0 to 60mph in just over two seconds!

"The problem is when you've realised, you're gone and everyone's on the deck," he continued. "It was a big issue, and then I sat in the pit lane waiting for someone to come and take the nozzle off.

"It lost us a fight for a podium. The car was working well today, and we did a great job with the strategy. It's disappointing but I know that Alistair, the way he works, he'll never do that again. He'll work his hardest to make sure that doesn't happen."

The trailing fuel pipe and falling bodies also caused another problem, with the right side barge board being damaged in the incident, hindering Jenson's pace for the remainder of the race.

"That certainly didn't help the stability of the car, which made the second half of the race quite hard," he told his own website. "I gave 100% throughout the race, driving every lap like a qualifying lap, and seventh was the maximum I could achieve in the end.

"We know the pace is there, it's not good enough to say it'll come, we need it now. We need to start scoring some points and some podiums."