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Monday October 5, 2009

Put your foot down, Damon tells Jenson

Damon Hill told Jenson Button to put his foot down, in every sense, on Sunday after the Formula One leader inched towards the title with another meagre point in Japan.

With two races remaining, Button is 14 points clear of Brawn team-mate Rubens Barrichello but the Briton is making heavy weather of a championship that he might have wrapped up weeks ago.

“This is dragging on a bit and it’s a bit like the Open with Tom Watson,” 1996 world champion Hill told BBC radio after his compatriot finished eighth in a race won by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.

“It’s getting towards the last few holes and it does look like it’s all won and it should be in the bag but they don’t have play-offs in Formula One,” he said.

“He really does have to lift his game, to put his stamp of authority on this one and make sure it happens.”

Watson, at the age of 59, fell agonisingly short of a record-equalling sixth British Open golf title this year after losing a four-hole play-off.

While a fired-up Vettel charged to the chequered flag and 10 points at Suzuka, Button toiled and sweated his way to the last scoring position. Doing nothing for the fraying nerves of his supporters, he was 11th after the first lap.

After winning six of the opening seven races, the 29-year-old has scored just 24 points from his last eight starts.

No wonder that Vettel, 16 points adrift, reminded reporters of how Button’s compatriot Lewis Hamilton allowed Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen to beat all the odds and eat up the McLaren driver’s 17-point lead in 2007.

Button refused to be unsettled, however.

“We are doing the best job we can in a difficult situation,“ he said. “I got a five-place penalty yesterday and so did (team mate) Rubens (Barrichello). But I went back three places and he went back one.

“We are getting ourselves into these tricky situations and we are getting ourselves out of them in the race,” added the Briton.

“Hopefully in Brazil we won’t have to fight back from a bad grid slot and we can start at the front and finish near the front.”

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