When Fortec Motorsport bowed out of Worldwide Method 3000 on the finish of 2000, it did so with a single podium courtesy of Jamie Davies ending second in Monaco. One other provisionally taken by Andreas Scheld on the Nurburgring was chalked off for essentially the most minor of technical infractions, a stray piece of tape on the entrance wing endplate following a change of nostril robbing the German of a real shock end in blended situations.
However it’s conceivable that the crew’s tally would possibly properly have been far increased had a promising check with a future world champion resulted in a race deal. The small matter of a path to Method 1 unexpectedly opening up for Jenson Button finally took care of that.
Button’s meteoric rise from British Method 3 to F1 with Williams for 2000, after beating Bruno Junqueira within the race to exchange Alex Zanardi, is well-known. However much less remembered is his look at a three-day end-of-year F3000 check at Jerez 25 years in the past, as he evaluated the following stage of a profession that might a matter of days later soak up a maiden F1 check as his prize for profitable the earlier yr’s McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.
Button made his F3000 bow with Tremendous Nova earlier than shifting on to Fortec, a crew new to the class for 1999 that had peaked with two fifth locations for ex-F1 racer Norberto Fontana. After setting the sixth-fastest time, he made an impression on crew boss Richard Dutton.
“Should you’d requested me every week in the past whether or not he was prepared for F3000, I might have mentioned not,” he informed Autosport on the time. “After what I’ve seen, nonetheless, I might say he is prepared now.”
It turned out that Button was prepared for excess of F3000 – a degree that was rapidly obvious to Fortec crew supervisor and Button’s engineer on the check, David Hayle.
“He was positively a kind of drivers that was mature past his years by way of potential,” remembers Hayle. “Nothing fazed him. You could not put him off his stride, he was completely within the zone when he was within the automotive. It was a extremely, eye-opening expertise to get anyone so younger, so mature and so good all collectively.”
Button impressed Fortec along with his maturity when he stepped up from F3 in November 1999
Photograph by: Russell Batchelor / Motorsport Photos
Button had graduated from Method Ford to the F3 ranks for 1999 with the Renault-powered Promatecme crew, ending up better of the remaining behind title protagonists Marc Hynes (Manor Motorsport) and Luciano Burti (Paul Stewart Racing). His performances had attracted consideration from the Prost F1 crew, who would give him a trial at Barcelona in December and ignite hypothesis that he may race for its F3000 arm – a race winner with Stephane Sarrazin in 1999 – if he didn’t return to F3 with Promatecme.
Fortec had run Kristian Kolby and Matt Davies to fourth and fifth within the 1999 British F3 standings, and so bought a detailed have a look at the upstart Button. Hayle says the “large PR marketing campaign” behind Button had intensified its need to beat him and admits to turning into saturated by the hype, nevertheless it bred in him a curiosity that this would possibly simply be a really particular driver who Fortec couldn’t afford to not check out on the subsequent degree.
Hayle remembers making a pitch to a reluctant Dutton earlier than continuing anyway to organise a gathering at Towcester’s Little Chef with Button’s supervisor David Robertson. “We agreed a really beneficial deal for him to do it,” he says, clarifying that this was initially just for at some point of the check because of the proximity of Button’s run within the 1998 world championship-winning McLaren MP4-14.
“We bought within the automotive and I used to be like, ‘that is wonderful’. The place was nice, low, it was like ‘what’s happening?’” Jenson Button
Chatting with Autosport in 2020, Button revealed he didn’t take to each other with Tremendous Nova’s Lola B99/50. “I hated the check, was actually sluggish on the primary day,” he mentioned.
However when he headed to Fortec, it was a revelation for each events. Button recalled: “The following day and we bought within the automotive and I used to be like, ‘that is wonderful’. The place was nice, low, it was like ‘what’s happening?’”
Hayle was assigned to be his engineer and, as he bought to know the driving force that might develop into a 15-time Grand Prix winner, found that he was “actually pleasantly shocked by what I noticed as the true Jenson Button, versus the Jenson Button that we might been competing towards all season”.
“Beneath there was a extremely simply real, easy-going boy that was bloody good in a race automotive,” he says. “We did the check and it was one of many best days at a race observe that I’ve that I’ve had. He was nice; he was calm, purchased into all the things that you simply requested him to do.”
First day in Lola B99/50 was a battle with Tremendous Nova earlier than productive check with Fortec
Photograph by: Russell Batchelor / Motorsport Photos
Dialog quickly turned to the prospect of constant for the ultimate morning of the check on 10 November. “We unexpectedly moved stuff round and bought him in,” says Hayle, earlier than the crew and Button’s entourage – which included his late father, John – went to dinner at a pizza joint close to the observe.
“I sat subsequent to Jenson and mentioned, ‘I owe you an apology’,” relates Hayle. “‘All yr lengthy, I’ve actually been providing you with a tough time. Not simply me; everybody’s providing you with a tough time due to the entire PR factor that is behind you and I joined the bandwagon. I assumed you had been made up and it wasn’t actual, however I bought it mistaken; you are bloody good in a automotive, I am actually having fun with the check. I am sorry’. And he mentioned, ‘Oh, yeah, however I am used to it, I bought it from everybody’.”
To Hayle, Button’s performances on the second day had been telling of his method. In Jerez, he explains, sometimes groups would use one set of tyres within the morning then save a set for the afternoon. Since Button was solely staying for the morning, Hayle devised a plan to make use of each units. He says minimal adjustments had been made after the primary run, which was benchmarked towards Mario Haberfeld within the sister Fortec automotive.
“It was nothing important, it was extra a case of ‘simply present me the place I want to enhance,’” explains Hayle. As soon as that was taken on board, Button went out once more, taking the remainder of the pitlane abruptly.
Hayle remembers “the entire paddock scrambling to get drivers and folks again on the vehicles, placing on one other set of tyres” to observe swimsuit, bucking conference. “He ended up P6 out of 44 vehicles, or one thing like that,” provides Hayle. “It was simply unimaginable.”
How consultant testing instances are may be up for debate. In any case, the check was topped by Haberfeld, who went on to signal for Fortec however did not rating a degree in a season blighted by an enormous qualifying accident in Barcelona. Davies was introduced in for 2 races whereas the Brazilian recovered, his Monaco exhibiting placing to relaxation recollections of a attempting 1999 with Edenbridge as he targeted subsequently on sportscars.
However different rookies in 2000 present a touch of what Button might need achieved within the class. Sportscar convert Mark Webber (European Arrows) was a winner on the second time of asking at a moist Silverstone, after a strong transfer on fellow newcomer Darren Manning (Arden). Fernando Alonso was unable to take the beginning at Silverstone as a consequence of a technical irregularity along with his Astromega automotive’s engine studs, however tracked winner Junqueira all the best way to the flag in Hungary earlier than placing collectively a dominant efficiency in Spa on his solution to F1 with Minardi.
Fortec’s solely podium of 2000 got here with stand-in driver Davies in Monaco
Photograph by: Lorenzo Bellanca / Motorsport Photos
And whereas Button himself admitted that the Apomatox/Prost Junior crew would have been the extra possible choice for 2000, if Williams had chosen Junqueira as a substitute, he believes he may have mastered the Lola B99/50.
“You get used to one thing over time,” he mentioned. “Tremendous GT after I jumped in it, didn’t take pleasure in it in any respect and I used to be nowhere. After a couple of days testing, we had been on the tempo and we gained the championship that yr [in 2018], so it simply takes time. We be taught to adapt, some vehicles take longer than others.”
However when the Williams alternative got here, F3000 would naturally fall by the wayside and his affiliation with Fortec proved fleeting. But Hayle has little question that “skipping F3000 was completely the proper factor to do for him”, as Button put collectively a good first season in F1, reaching the factors within the second race and on 5 additional events to peak with fourth at Hockenheim.
“Should you get the possibility to go to F1, with out doing [F3000], why would not you?” he says.
Button joined Williams for 2000 and the remaining was historical past
Photograph by: Motorsport Photos
