Lucky Strike B·A·R Honda's race ended with disappointment on Sunday afternoon, as both Jenson Button and Takuma Sato were amongst the casualties of a dramatic comeback for the Belgian Grand Prix.
It was a race that reminded the fans just what they had been missing in the two years since Spa last featured on the calendar, but it was brought to a premature conclusion for B·A·R as Webber hit Takuma and punted him off at Eau Rouge and Jenson's charge towards a strong points finish was cut short by a puncture and subsequent blow-out.
Starting from 12th on the grid Jenson was caught up in the melée at the notorious turn one hairpin, La Source. He was unable to avoid Fisichella and lost his front wing as he clashed with the Sauber. He pitted at the end of the first lap under the safety car, but recovered well to work his way up to 5th. With just 15 laps remaining he suffered a blow-out to his right-rear tyre and his car was propelled across the track and into the side of Baumgartner's Minardi, ending the race for both drivers.
Takuma emerged unscathed from the first corner mayhem and was on a charge as he swept down into Eau Rouge. He went around the outside of Mark Webber who had lost his front wing but the Australian hit Takuma and spun his car off the track.
"Well what can you say about a day like that?” said Dave Richards.“In fact, this has been a weekend that has thrown virtually everything at us! One has to look on the positive side, however, and with our nearest rivals also failing to score, we have preserved the status quo in terms of Championship position and there is everything to fight for in the remaining four races of the season.""This is a obviously a disappointing result with the team failing to score points for the first time this year. Takuma's race was stopped on lap one when he was hit by Webber in Eau Rouge. Jenson had to pit to replace his front wing and with good pit work by the team we were able to use the resulting safety car without losing places,” added Geoff Willis. “By keeping to our original plan and running a long first stint we had made a very good recovery from our qualifying position. Unfortunately when running in fifth place, shortly before his second stop, a sudden puncture at 200mph into Les Combs spun him into a collision with Baumgartner, but thankfully neither driver was hurt in the high-speed impact. It is a shame that we didn't finish because Jenson had a good chance of being on the podium, but fortunately the results mean that we haven't lost our relative position in the Championship and we are confident that we will be competitive in the last four races."
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