Bernie apologises to Button for underrating him

[Senna 0]

From Planetf1.com:

Bernie apologises to Button for underrating him

27/04/04

More often than not Bernie Ecclestone is a good judge of who will and who won't make it in F1, but he's not been so accurate of late.

The first mistake the F1 supremo made in his fortune telling was to say that Kimi Raikkonen would be Michael Schumacher's strongest challenger for the 2004 World title. So far Schumacher has four victories from four races while Raikkonen has a paltry one point.

Ecclestone's second gaffe was to envisage the total opposite for Jenson Button, who Bernie believed wouldn't have the ability to do well in F1. In fact at the end of 2002 he went as far as to urge BAR team boss Dave Richards to "think again" before signing Button from Renault.

While Ecclestone's Raikkonen prediction may yet come true, Button has proven in the past three races that Bernie was far off the mark when foretelling his fellow Brit's future. But the F1 supremo admits he is delighted that he was proven wrong and has apologised to the San Marino GP runner-up.

"I apologised to Jenson," Ecclestone told Autosport after Button clinched his third successive podium finish at Imola on Sunday."I didn't think he was going to get the job there, so I apologised afterwards.

"Now I'm more happy for him than his father, to be honest!"

[nojvnof1 0]

I don't think Bernie was the only one to underestimate Button. He proved a lot of people wrong, and I'll admit I was one of them.

[Senna 0]

I could see from his debut season against Ralf that he had potential but now he’s better than ever – he’s fairly experienced and yet still young, he also has a good work ethic – those bad years at Renault helped him to mature as a driver.