Now not all details have been released on this, but from what I have read on both BAR and Williams webpages and a lot of magazines and webpages I’ll try to explain what happened and how it happened.
All happened a few days before the german GP, Buttons management team contacted Frank Williams and told him that jenson was available for next year, but you have to act now, which he did.
Ok tricky bit.
Button’s contract was dependent on two clauses:
1/ Performance Clause (which the team had met)
2/ Commitment from Honda to provide BAR with competitive F1 engines for a long-term period.
Now apparently it seems the wording used did not offer sufficient guarantee to button and so his manager took advantage and spoke to Frank Williams.
The whole dispute is appears to be about “wording” mainly about Honda’s engine commitment.
Because Honda does have the right to withdraw from the arrangement if the F1 rules change in a certain way (remembering there might be engine changes coming soon V8 talk etc.).
But its not only the contract writing that’s the problem, there is a major problem with jenson and his “bonuses”.
Apparently when he signed in 2002 he had a modest salary (comparing to other F1 drivers) BUT to offset this there was a bonus scheme of $50,000 US a point. Button made 61 points which is around $3 million US and they say BAR hasn’t paid enough to satisfy Jenson.
Now its at the F1 Contract Recognition Board to be heard and dealt with.
If your wondering who has BAR contacted just incase jenson leaves well the list goes:
David Coulthard, Olivier Panis, Mika Hakkinen, Jacques Villeneuve, Anthony Davidson, Jarno Trulli and Vitantonio Liuzzi.
As I said, I got a lot of the information from Internet and racing magazines.
Now that’s enough typing from me today.
Jason
Originally Posted by 7th Gen
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