Jenson Button says he sees no reason to be down despite yet another disappointing result at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The championship leader, starting from 14th on the grid, retired from the Spa race and has now failed to finish on the podium for five consecutive events.

His team boss Ross Brawn also admitted during the weekend that the outfit was again suffering from the tyre warm-up problems that has hindered Button lately.

But despite his poor run of results, and the prospect of struggling again at the Italian Grand Prix, Button is staying positive for the upcoming races.

“We’ve got to look forward to Monza, which is a circuit with low downforce, like here, but less. The car did work here. We’ve just got to make sure we get the right balance with the car,” Button told reporters.

“We’ve already talked about the ideas for Monza, the certain things you need to have a quick lap there, and also how we go about the weekend.

“I’m positive. There’s no reason to be down. I lost two points of my championship lead, which is not good. We’ve just got to hope it goes the other way at the next race.”

Button’s team-mate Rubens Barrichello finished in seventh position to reduce the gap in the championship to 16 points.

The Brazilian could have done better, but was hampered by a problem at the start and had to charge from the back.

“It can always be worse,” Button said. “Also it could have been a lot better. Rubens got a bad start, had a problem and I was up in 12th or 11th, and it could have been a good race for me until I got hit at turn five.”

He added: “After the accident now it’s a relief, but having Rubens behind at the start was a good position to be in, and just behind the Red Bulls as well. So it was very disappointing when I actually crashed, but then to watch the race after…

“Rubens obviously got a couple of points, then Red Bull made a mistake in the pit stop and he wasn’t able to score any points, which is good for the championship.

“This is a race we expected the Red Bulls to easily win, so it shows that a lot of teams are strong now.

“And when your weekend doesn’t go perfectly, like it didn’t for the Red Bulls because they had a bad position after qualifying, it’s very difficult to win from that far back.”

The Briton made contact with Renault’s Romain Grosjean on the first lap, and the Frenchman said Button had taken him out of the race.

But the Brawn driver saw things differently.

“I can’t believe he’s blaming me. He hit me, but to be fair I don’t really care. It’s not really important. I didn’t score any points, and that’s what’s important.”

In an interview with the BBC, Zanarini again denied that Ferrari had contacted him about the 36-year-old’s services, but added that his phone was on ’24/7′.

“I repeat that, nobody has been in touch,” he said. “And to tell you the truth, we find ourselves in a fantastic team with a great car for Monza because if the car is good here it is good here, it is going to be good in Monza.

“We get to Monza with a lot of Italian tifosi, of course there is Ferrari, but I have the feeling that we will have a lot of people cheering for Giancarlo in Monza.”

When asked if that would be because Fisichella was driving a red car he replied: “No, no, no. Because he is Giancarlo Fisichella and because of what he did today.

“I have never honestly got so many messages and so many phone calls after the victory in Australia or after the win in Malaysia. Today was amazing.

“A great, great day for everyone.”

Zanarini added that he believed that Fisichella and Force India were capable of more giant-killing acts before the season is out: “You’ve seen it also for other drivers, not just Giancarlo, when you get the car that is working well, and let’s not forget that he is driving a Force India.

“You must appreciate that it is a small team with a small budget, coming up and just in Valencia we knew that we got a good car for the rest of the year and now we are taking maximum advantage. Only now we can do it.”

Source: Autosport.com

The stewards were investigating two separate incidents involving Romain Grosjean and Jenson Button, and Lewis Hamilton and Jaimie Alguersuari.

All of them retired on the first lap after crashing out at the Les Combes corner.

The incidents were deemed to be just racing accidents and no action was taken.

Ross Brawn says Jenson Button is coping well with the pressures associated with being the world championship leader, but added that he must get used to how intense things are likely to get as the season reaches its climax.

Button was forced to retire from the Belgian Grand Prix through an accident not of his making, and the Briton has seen his points lead dwindle to just 16 ahead of team-mate Rubens Barrichello with five races to go.

“There is a lot of pressure on drivers, this is pressure we have never had before and he has got to get used to it,” Brawn told the BBC. “But he is handling it very well.”

Brawn added that he has reminded his driver that prior to the season Button and the team were not even in the world championship, let alone contenders to win it.

“I keep saying to guy just look back six months and we didn’t have a team,” he said. “Whatever we get will be a huge bonus.

“It will be frustrating if we don’t get where we want to, but what we get will be huge.”

Button admitted afterwards that his first retirement of the season stemmed from his poor qualifying form, having caught up in a midfield pile-up with Romain Grosjean.

“I got a very good start, I got past Lewis [Hamilton] and obviously Rubens [Barrichello] had his problem,” he told the BBC. “I got pushed a bit wide at Turn 1 but I think I made up about four places at the start.

“As we were going up the straight to Turn five, I went to the outside of Heikki [Kovalainen], braked, turned in and I was still on the outside, and Grosjean out-braked himself and hit my back wheel. I don’t think he was even trying to overtake me.

“So it was frustrating to be taken out like that, especially when I had made up quite a few places at the start and that Rubens had had his problem, which was obviously good for me.

“It’s the first time I haven’t finished a race by this year and basically it was because I was back in 14th on the grid.”

“Today I missed an opportunity to be on the podium,” said Alonso, who was fighting in third place before his pitstop, when a problem with the left front tyre made him lose a lot of time.

“I had a good start, making up a few positions and the strategy looked good.

“The car was better than we expected and I was in third position when I came in for my pitstop and it became clear that something was wrong on my left front tyre and the team asked me to retire.

“We now think it was damaged at the first corner at the beginning of the race. Anyway, Monza is in two weeks and I look forward to making up for the disappointment of today,” added the Spaniard.

Team-mate Romain Grosjean also retired from the race after he was involved in the first lap crash.

Grosjean, who made contact with championship leader Jenson Button, blamed the Briton for the accident.

“I made a very good start, moving up to thirteenth place and I was keeping a good pace but then Button took me out at turn five and it was the end for me,” the Frenchman said.

“It’s frustrating because I would have loved to finish the race and learn more about the car on this very special track. Hopefully I can do better in Monza.”

Jarno Trulli was extremely disappointed with his exit from the Belgian Grand Prix after failing to turn his strong qualifying into a good result.

Trulli, starting from second position, had to retire with a brake problem, but not before all his chances of a good race were gone when he made contact with Nick Heidfeld at the start.

“I can’t say how disappointed I am with that race,” said Trulli. “I was really expecting a strong result because we were in great shape after qualifying. But at the first corner I was right behind Heidfeld and at the exit I expected him to pull away faster than he did.

“I’m not sure if he had a problem but I just touched him slightly and that broke the front wing. It was vibrating a lot so I had no choice but to make a pitstop.

“There was nothing I could do after that and in the end the team saw a problem with brake wear and decided it was safer to stop.”

After a promising qualifying, Toyota left Belgium with nothing to show for, as Timo Glock also had problems during the race and finished in 10th.

“I made a pretty strong start and was running fourth when the safety car came out so we had a good chance of points,” Glock said. “But at my first pitstop we had trouble with the fuel rig which cost me time and positions. The crew did well to quickly change to the back-up rig but nevertheless we lost time.

“Clearly there was a problem with the fuel rig and we have to analyse what happened and prevent any similar problems in the future. I did my best and the car was quite quick but it wasn’t to be.”

Source: Autosport.com