Button in calendar complaint
Brackley, Wednesday: F1 championship leader Jenson Button has submitted a complaint to Formula One Management after they revised the sport’s 2010 calendar today.
Drip: Jenson Button and his boat
Teams had previously complained that having the Monaco and Turkish Grands Prix on consecutive weekends would be too difficult logistically, and therefore FOM took the step of moving the Monaco race forward to put it on the weekend after the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
The teams have accepted that this is a more sensible solution, but Button believes that it will make it very difficult for him to arrive in the Principality on time.
“I’ve been planning to sail between Barcelona and Monaco in my yacht,” the champion-in-waiting moaned. “But now, with the Spanish race on Sunday and Monaco’s Friday practice sessions on, um, Thursday, it’s going to be very difficult for me to make it between the venues. Has Bernie got any idea how difficult it is to parallel-park an 80-foot yacht in Monte Carlo harbour? It’s not the sort of thing you can do in a few minutes, you know.”
Button’s boat, the Luxury Over Talent, has been the source of controversy several times in recent years, most notably in 2001 when he spent more time on it over the Monaco weekend than he did in his Benetton, given that the water-borne vessel was probably the faster of the two vehicles he was given over the weekend.
FOM chief Bernie Ecclestone, who is responsible for the calendar, was unsympathetic: “It’s just him showboating again, isn’t it? He can just shut up and catch a private jet like everybody else.”
