By Phil Huff
June 11 2006

Jenson Button retired from the British Grand Prix in a cloud of smoke after an oil leak signalled the end of his challenge, while team mate Rubens Barrichello dropped from a good grid position to tenth, out of the points and rounding off a weekend to forget for Honda Racing F1. Jenson, having qualified a disappointing 19th on the grid following a botched first qualifying session, climbed through the field to 12th after just 8 laps, and was looking good to scrape a point or two from the weekend, before his car sprung a leak, dropping his oil under his rear tyres, resulting in a spin into the gravel.

"It was a massive blow in terms of the race," Jenson Button told ITV on his way back to the pits. "Things were looking pretty sweet. I think I could have got past DC [Coulthard] in the next couple of laps. The car was working very well, It's just a pity really. Yesterday was tough for us, getting caught on the weighbridge, and today was even tougher. I think we could have had a good comeback drive - it was going very well."

Clearly frustrated, Button made it obvious that it wasn't all bad luck causing the recent problems, Acknowledging that things aren't really going his way, he said "You could say that, but you could say that for the last race as well. It's not all bad luck, we need to improve in certain areas and we will.

"Monday we'll have a meeting, as normal, to see where we go from here and sort out our little issues," he continued. "Qualifying was very disappointing, but today was good - the car felt great in the race. I was a little bit surprised at how good it felt, so that's positive."

Honda's Sporting Director, Gil de Ferran, described what went wrong. "It was an oil leak on Jenson's car," he explained. "We don't know exactly what happened to the engine. I think the engine is ok, but what made him spin was an oil leak onto the tyres, and that was the end of that. We don't know exactly where the oil leak came from, because we haven't had the car back yet."

"It was a shame as he certainly had a good start to the race, climbing all the way up to 12th early on," explained de Ferran. "I guess we'll never know what would have happened from there, but it was a real shame."

Team mate Rubens Barrichello suffered, too, with his drive from sixth ending in a pointless 10th place finish. "Rubens was struggling with the car balance all day and we couldn't do much to help," said de Ferran. "That was it really."

The next race, the Canadian Grand Prix, takes place in two weeks time, and there's obviously a lot of work to be done. "Winning ways is going to be difficult in the next few races," explained Button, "but Canada's a good circuit. I like Canada, we've always gone pretty well there - although I put it in the wall last year - apart from that the car works well there.

"I love the circuit. we've just got to hope that's enough because we're not as quick as the first few teams."

"I think we have some homework to do, and try to push ahead to Canada," added de Ferran. "We'll go back to base here tomorrow and put our heads together and see what we can do to improve before Canada."

The final word goes to Jenson, disappointed at performing so poorly on his home circuit. "It's a shame for the British fans, for the team, and for myself, as that was a good race," said the Englishman. "Personally, I felt like I was very quick and it's just so much fun here, especially overtaking in front of the fans - you can see them waving the flags. It's a good atmosphere.

"It's a pity we couldn't get a better result."