Luckless Button throws in the towel
Monday 25th July 2011
Jenson Button has thrown in the towel on his Formula One world title hopes for this year after a poor German Grand Prix.
Button has suffered back-to-back retirements for the first time in three seasons.
After a wheel fell off his McLaren in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone a fortnight ago, a hydraulics issue 25 laps from home forced him to pull into his garage at the Nurburgring in Germany on Sunday.
Button also suffered a failure to the KERS power-boost system in the European Grand Prix in Valencia last month, where he finished sixth, and is a long way adrift in the title race.
With nine races remaining and 225 points up for grabs, Button is now 107 behind Sebastian Vettel, the German only finishing fourth in his Red Bull to miss out on the podium for the first time in 12 races.
"It's disappointing to have so many failures, I appear to be suffering a lot of bad luck," said Button, who celebrates his 200th grand prix in Hungary next Sunday.
"Hopefully we'll be over this soon, we can have a bit more luck on our side and we can have some good races.
"But as for the championship, I don't think we're fighting for that any more, so I'm just going to go out there and do the best at every race I'm in.
"My intention now is to be back on the podium for my 200th grand prix."
The hydraulics issue compounded Button's weekend after he was found wanting for pace in qualifying yesterday, starting from seventh.
A woeful getaway saw him drop to 10th by the end of the first lap, after which he then struggled to find a way past Vitaly Petrov in his Renault.
Button finally found some form at the midway point and was running seventh when he was told over the radio of the hydraulics problem.
"This was not a good weekend for me," he added. "But it happens, although I enjoyed fighting my way through. It was very exciting and I was having a lot of fun out there.
"Fourth was definitely possible, but then I had a hydraulics issue and we had to retire the car on safety grounds because you never know what is going to happen.
"It affects the gears and the steering, and it's not just that you can lose the power in the steering, it's that it can do whatever it wants, and that's the worry.
"But I guess it's better to happen in a race where I'm not so competitive, although it's two failures now in the last two races, which is very disappointing."
Credit: ESPN STAR (www.espnstar.com)
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