Highlights

Button can go on to become a champion, says Stewart

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-08-09 10:43

LONDON, Aug 8 - Briton Jenson Button can go on to become a multiple race winner and world champion after taking his first Formula One victory in Hungary at the weekend, according to Jackie Stewart.

"Jenson has got the keys to the door now," the Scot, three times a world champion, told the Daily Mail newspaper on Tuesday.

"Even though he may not win the next race, people cannot say that Jenson flopped again...I believe he can go and win many more times if he has got the car.

"Jenson can go on to be world champion. He has the talent to do that."

Button was the first Briton to win a grand prix since David Coulthard in 2003 and the first Englishman since Johnny Herbert in 1999.

Neither Coulthard nor Herbert went on to win the championship. Damon Hill, who took his first victory in Hungary in 1993, remains the last British world champion in 1996.

Hill warned Button that he might face a long wait for another success.

"I believe that Honda still has some more work to do before we can regard the team as having consistently winning equipment," he told the Guardian newspaper.

"Jenson's win was very much a wild-card success in unusual circumstances and it's my feeling that when it comes to the next race in Istanbul it will be back to situation normal, with the team reverting to its role as a championship pretender rather than an established front runner."