Four Races and I will be History...

iSport's Brawn GP writer Maharshi Vaishnav ponders not only over Brawns lost pace but Championship leader Jenson Button's lost patience too.

buttonhungary Poor old Jensen is a tense driver these days. His undoing has come hard and fast in the last few races. After once again failing to match the leaders pace in the Hungarian Grand Prix, Jenson Button has compared his current state to that of the leader of the Tour de France getting reeled in by the chasing pack.

His concern and exasperation was evident when he mentioned:

"I've lost 15 points to Webber over the last three races and that's massive. It's 5 points a race. He'll be in front of me in 4 races time. Then I will be history. We are leading the championship but it's inevitable they are going to overtake us if we keep going like we are. It's like wearing the yellow jersey knowing that when you get to the mountains you are going to be useless. It is nice leading the championship, but it won't be the case in the next three or four races if we have the performances like we have had in the last few."

This coming from Button, who is known to be cool, self assured and pragmatic, suggests that he is getting concerned with Red Bull’s charge.

Hungary was no different. Button finished seventh at the Hungaroring on Sunday as his Brawn once again struggled with lower-than-expected track temperatures while Red Bull's Mark Webber finished third. His misery would have been compounded had Vettel not force retired. Webber was at his consistent best throughout the weekend, set the race's fastest lap and now trails Button only by 18.5 points with 7 races remaining.

Brawn's recent slump coming over diverse circuits is what worries Button, who won 6 of the first 7 races this season and looked set to sweep the title with ample to spare. Having struggled to generate heat in their cars' tyres in Britain and Germany, Brawn arrived in Hungary hoping the hotter temperatures would improve their performance.

But qualifying was a disastrous effort from Brawn. Barrichello was almost out of sorts throughout the weekend. His agony was aggravated when his car caused Massa’s horrendous shunt. So the team looked upon Button to provide the succor. But his pursuit of a front row was negated when the team decided to keep him in the pits to change a suspension component as a precautionary measure.

8th & 13th on a Hungaroring was never going to aid Button or Barrichello. To add to it the low ambient temperatures were always going to affect them. Button later admitted that when the temperatures are optimum, Brawn is the car to be in but when the temperatures drop, it’s a forgettable package. He went one step ahead and blamed the engineers for building the car that doesn’t work in all conditions.

He along with Barrichello struggled through the course of the race and managed a meager 7th and 10th. Although Button did limit his loss with 2 points, the distressing part was that Webber gained 6.

We all know that something has gone badly awry for the Brawns mid season when Red Bull, Ferrari and, in particular, McLaren have taken massive corrective actions. As they desperately try to fix their car for colder tracks, F1's two-week ban couldn’t have come at a worse time.

I know for sure that when Webber remarked in his press conference that "We are still up here, we can take our car to a lot of venues and fight and we are still very much a force to be reckoned with," it was dig at Brawn and in particular Button.

It was always Brawn’s battle to lose and it seems they are increasingly looking vulnerable.

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