Say what you will about the dispute between BAR and Williams over Jenson Button, but the affair sure made the dreary summer break more interesting than the average 2004 Grand Prix. But what possible ramification does the controversy hold for the main characters involved, and what does it say about Jenson Button that he wittingly put himself in the eye of the storm? Atlas F1's Roger Horton reflects on the latest events

Few stories have taken the F1 world by as much surprise as Jenson Button's decision to jump ship from his current employer BAR to his former one, Williams, for the 2005 season and beyond. At a stroke, Button has dramatically shaken up the driver market, ensured that next year Williams will have one of the strongest drivers' line-up and shattered the equilibrium of the emerging Honda powered BAR outfit just at a time when it looked like becoming a real force, finally shedding its almost perpetual also-ran status.

It shows that the world of Formula One remains a highly competitive place that ruthlessly punishes the unwary or those who mistake a handshake and a smiling face for friendship and goodwill. In the F1 paddock, the Piranhas are always primed and ready, it is just a case of where and when they will strike and whose dream will die in the process.

Button's move also buries the one question mark that was, perhaps, still lingering against the name of this fresh faced young man from Frome in Somerset: was he just too nice to succeed in the cutthroat world that is Formula One racing? Did he possess the killer instinct that all Champions need if they are to manoeuvre their way into a winning package, without which even the most talented driver will languish?

Now no one will again question whether Jenson Button has the mental strength to walk away from an employer who was no longer serving his interests. It adds, perhaps, the final part to a resume that is getting more impressive by the race and now only needs wins, and of course, a World Championship to complete.

Whilst all the talk so far has centred on the legal issues involved, two main points of this whole affair are pretty simple and clear cut. Jenson Button wants to dump BAR for Williams - the team that first gave him his F1 break; and, once he overcame his surprise in discovering that Jenson was available, the enigmatic Williams team boss Sir Frank Williams welcomed him back with open arms. As in any sale, once you have a willing seller matched with a willing buyer, a deal can be quickly done. But the devil is always in the detail - and in this case, the legal details.

Just what were the terms of the option that Button's management company Essentially Sport says BAR failed to exercise remains a mystery and it is now an issue for the Geneva based Contract Recognition Board to sort out. But despite all the legal huffing and puffing coming from a clearly embarrassed and angry David Richards, Button's current team boss at BAR, Jenson will be driving a Williams next season.

European employment law is such that no one can be forced to work for any employer against their will, and should the CRB find in BAR's favour, the only recompense Richards can expect is financial. This is a tough break for a team boss that has done an outstanding job rebuilding the BAR team, but his reputation will take a battering should it be found that his inattention over such a vital matter as his number one driver's contract ends up losing him one of his key assets. Reports that he was behind on money owed to Button for points scored, if true, won't help his case either.

As the saga has dragged on, there has also been a clear distinction in the way the two opposing team bosses have handled the situation. Richards chose at once to go public, leaking the story to a journalist and immediately casting Button as a disloyal employee that had betrayed his trust. Whilst this might appear to hold water at first glance, if Button had reasons for wanting to leave and a legal opportunity presented itself, then he had every right to exercise it and move to his preferred employer.

In the real world, this happens everyday. And how often does a company signals its intentions to fire an employee when the boot is on the other foot? In the other camp, Frank Williams has been as open and transparent as the situation allows, once his desire to settle the matter privately became impossible.

Outwardly, Button has looked happy with his lot in a season that has seen him finish on the podium in more than half the races he has started this year. Button has always looked smooth and quick, but so do others who run in the midfield. Looking smooth and quick at the front is a whole different ball game and yet Button has managed the transition with the same ease as he showed in his debut season with Williams.

In between that stellar first year and this, Button has been put through the F1 wringer by a combination of quick teammates, difficult cars, and the fact that he has had to do his growing up in the public spotlight in just about the most difficult environment imaginable. Along the way he has had to defend himself against suggestions that his millionaire lifestyle had diverted his focus. As far back as the British Grand Prix in 2001 - when he was driving for Benetton - he was forced to rebut accusations regarding his commitment.

"I am," he said back then in an interview with Atlas F1, "very focused on my goals in Formula One, which is to win races and be World Champion. I am never going to be not focused, because winning is what I want more than anything. When I am winning, I will remember the people who wrote stories like that, so I haven't got a problem with it at all. It doesn't affect my confidence because I am confident in what I can do, and I always will be."

On the subject of choosing a team to win with, he was equally emphatic - and now, one might say, prophetic: "I think that if Benetton were winning and at the front I would want to be with Benetton, and if Williams are winning, which I think definitely they will be, it would be a good team to race for, but if I have a possibility with any team that's winning, and that would give me a chance of winning the World Championship, I would take it, definitely. It's not just Williams, there are other teams also."

At the time some thought that the young Brit was whistling in the wind. The F1 media - so keen to embrace him as a budding superstar in his debut year - was already starting the process of casting him as a one year wonder, as he surveyed the grid in race after race from the blunt end, down at the back with the Minardis and other battlers.

Crucially, though, there was one man in the paddock who never lost his belief that Button could be a Champion, and that man was Frank Williams. Even in his worst days, Williams was always prepared to go on the record and bolster his former driver against those who were prepared to write him off.

"I have always been impressed with Jenson, since 2000," he said after Button qualified fourth on the grid alongside his own driver Juan Pablo Montoya at this season's opening race in Melbourne, earlier this year. "And now he has much better equipment to demonstrate his capabilities."

"The car needs the driver and the driver needs the car," is another constant Williams refrain, in reference to Jenson Button's roller coaster ride up and down the grid in his turbulent five year F1 career to date. Now that Williams has bolstered his driving strength by hiring Button to drive alongside his earlier signing Mark Webber, the pressure on the Grove based outfit to produce a winning car will be greater still. Button may well have burned a lot of bridges to return to the team that always appeared to be his spiritual home in F1, and only a World Championship will make the cost worthwhile.

For Webber, this news is a mixed blessing. For a while, looking at the way the driver market for next season was shaking out, it seemed likely that he would once again be partnered at Williams by a driver he could easily dominate - as has been the case since he made his F1 debut with Minardi, back in 2002. This might have looked good on his resume but would have still left unanswered questions about his true ability.

Now he will be partnered by a driver who has held his own against Ralf Schumacher, Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli and the prickly ex-World Champion Jacques Villeneuve, whose career Jenson all but ended by comprehensively out-driving him throughout their last season together. Now, if Williams can produce a winning car, the prize for winning the all important inter-team rivalry between these two drivers could be a Championship.

In the meantime, Button is going to have to see out another six races with his current team in an atmosphere that will test the maturity of all involved. There are many at BAR that will view Button's decision as a betrayal of all that they have worked for, and in purely emotional terms they have a case. But they should not forget that Button's results have ensured Richards will have little difficulty in filling his seat. The BAR of 2004 is a totally different animal than the BAR of just a few years ago, when the money flowed out the door faster than the cars ever ran at the track.

It also reinforces the fact that if BAR is to cement itself at F1's top table, then they need to operate along similar lines as rivals Williams and McLaren, who always strive to have two race winners in their cars. The "Team Schumacher" approach has been hugely successful at Ferrari (except for a brief period in 1999, when it looked as if Eddie Irvine was going to spoil the plot and take the Championship in Michael Schumacher's injury-enforced absence), but the collaboration between Ferrari and Schumacher is a special case and unlikely to be repeated any time soon. And in any case, if you are going to build your team around a single driver, then you need to ensure that your contracts are watertight and that the driver himself has no outstanding issues that can fester away and breed discontent.

This whole Jenson Button saga is yet another reminder, if one were needed, that not much in Formula One should be taken at face value. Certainly not bland comments, where drivers talk about how wonderful their team is. Not sound bites from team bosses, who promise future race wins and Championship titles. And certainly not moralistic double talk from F1 personalities who should know better. The F1 Piranhas are still very much alive and biting, and always on the lookout for their next meal. Just ask David Richards!

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