By Phil Huff
April 22 2005

Jenson Button sat in on the 'Friday Five' press conference today, answering questions about the season so far, and his hopes for the rest of 2005. Here's what he had to say.

Jenson, your impressions of the first three races?

I think I've made myself heard in the past. It's been a very tough start of the season for everyone involved in the team. Our issues have mostly been down to failures at the start of the season. Our pace has been relatively good but you just haven't been able to see it. We've had two very good tests, one in Barcelona, one in Paul Ricard since Bahrain and for me, we've made a good step forward in reliability, the reliability is much better now, and aerodynamically with the car so for me we've made a big step forward and everyone is very positive for the rest of the season.

Is that what you were looking for from those first three races?

Of course, those were the two areas we needed to work in and those are the areas in which I think we've done a very good job since Bahrain.

Obviously the performance today bears that out...

It does. It's only Friday, you can't say too much. We did all our test items and everything went very smoothly for us. The car for me is a much better car to drive, it reacts better to changes and it's more predictable which is a big thing now in Formula One for consistency.

At the start of the year you said the 007 was quite erratic to drive, particularly when you were in the slipstream, but today the car seemed really smooth. Have you just unlocked the key in the last few weeks? Can you explain what it felt like in March compared to what it feels like now?

At the start of the year the car was very twitchy and very unpredictable, especially at the end of braking when you were turning and trying to commit into a corner. Now it is very different. You have the confidence to push the car to the limit and it does make all the difference. It is not just a quicker car it also gives the drivers' more confidence, which is a big part of racing.

Is it a long-term thing, or just in the last couple of weeks that it has come good?

It was more the last couple of weeks. We improved the car in the first couple of races but it wasn't a big step forward, it was when we put the new aero package on the car in Barcelona when we noticed we had made a good step forward. We had to make a few changes to make it work but we gained a good chunk there and we are positive for a good race here. Hopefully we are back up there fighting where we should be.