JENSON Button made one mistake all weekend and thankfully for him it came after he had fulfilled a boyhood dream with victory at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Button was imperious in a Brawn GP car which has won in a park, the dry, the wet, and now around the most famous street track in the world.
It was Button’s fifth win in six races, and he joins a pantheon of F1 greats to achieve such a feat, after Alberto Ascari (1952), Juan Manuel Fangio (1954), Jim Clark (1965), Sir Jackie Stewart (1969), Nigel Mansell (1992) and Michael Schumacher (1994, 2002 and 2004).
The 29-year-old also joined another exclusive club, becoming only the sixth Briton in the 60 years of the world championship to take the chequered flag in Monaco.
Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Sir Jackie Stewart, David Coulthard and Lewis Hamilton have all emerged triumphant at the end of the world’s most famous motor race, and now Button stands alongside them.
But once the chequered flag had dropped and Button had shouted over the radio to his team ‘‘Yeah baby, we’ve got Monaco!’’ on his victory lap, he then got carried away with the magnitude of it all.
Instead of driving his car on to the start/finish straight and in front of the podium, Button instead parked up in a secure area in the pit lane.
Realising his mistake, and with all short cuts blocked, Button was forced to take a 600-metre victory jog around the final corner and on to the straight, waving to the fans as he did so.
With his helmet still on, he will almost certainly have been red-faced beneath it, and not just from the exertions of the race.
‘‘The run at the end, I don’t know. It’s a bit of a long time since I’ve been on the podium at Monaco,’’ said Button, who last finished in the top three in 2004 when he was second.
‘‘I thought they were directing me in, so I went in with all the other cars, got out and had to make a spectacle of it.
“So I ran around and down the circuit. There was no other way to go. All the other ways were full of people.
‘‘It’s amazing how much energy you’ve got when you cross the line first, but it was a bit embarrassing.’’ It failed to detract from what was an historic achievement, one he had played down earlier in the week, but only in an effort to ease the pressure.
Now he could let his true feelings spill out, adding: ‘‘Before the weekend I said this grand prix doesn’t mean anything different to any other grand prix, but we all know the truth.
‘‘To win here is fantastic because this circuit is very different to anything else, with the last two laps the most enjoyable laps of my career I would say.
‘‘I could just enjoy the moment.
I had a big enough lead and I could just enjoy winning Monaco.
‘‘It is something you always dream about as a kid. You watch it on television and you think it is an amazing spectacle.
‘‘But actually driving in it and winning it is just fantastic.
“I am very happy, and with a one-two finish as well, it is exceptional.
‘‘The performance of the team this year is definitely going to go down in history. It has been staggering.’’ With Button’s team-mate Rubens Barrichello beating Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen away from the line, that was enough to give Brawn their third one-two of the season.
Despite Button’s dominance and a 16-point lead over Barrichello, he is refusing to contemplate becoming world champion.
‘‘I have more of an advantage than others to win the championship, but it is all to play for,’’ insisted Button.
‘‘It is not mine to lose for sure. I am doing the best I can and at the moment that is good enough. We will see what happens over the next few races.’’ With Raikkonen back on the podium for the first time since Brazil last year, and Felipe Massa fourth, Ferrari are gathering a degree of momentum.
Red Bull’s Mark Webber was fifth, followed by Nico Rosberg in his Williams, the Renault of Fernando Alonso, with Sebastien Bourdais a fine eighth for Toro Rosso.
World champion Lewis Hamilton could do no better than 12th from 19th on the grid, while his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen crashed out on another day of woe for McLaren.
The same applied to Sebastian Vettel in his Red Bull, along with Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi and Renault’s Nelson Piquet.
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