Jenson Button’s F3000 test, 25 years on

When Fortec Motorsport bowed out of International Formula 3000 at the end of 2000, it did so with a single podium courtesy of Jamie Davies finishing second in Monaco. Another provisionally taken by Andreas Scheld at the Nurburgring was chalked off for the most minor of technical infractions, a stray piece of tape on the front wing endplate following a change of nose robbing the German of a true shock result in mixed conditions.

But it is conceivable that the team’s tally might well have been far higher had a promising test with a future world champion resulted in a race deal. The small matter of a route to Formula 1 unexpectedly opening up for Jenson Button ultimately took care of that.

Button’s meteoric rise from British Formula 3 to F1 with Williams for 2000, after beating Bruno Junqueira in the race to replace Alex Zanardi, is well-known. But less remembered is his appearance at a three-day end-of-year F3000 test at Jerez 25 years ago, as he evaluated the next stage of a career that would a matter of days later take in a maiden F1 test as his prize for winning the previous year’s McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.

Button made his F3000 bow with Super Nova before moving on to Fortec, a team new to the category for 1999 that had peaked with two fifth places for ex-F1 racer Norberto Fontana. After setting the sixth-fastest time, he made an impression on team boss Richard Dutton.

“If you’d asked me a week ago whether he was ready for F3000, I’d have said not,” he told Autosport at the time. “After what I’ve seen, however, I’d say he’s ready now.”

It turned out that Button was ready for far more than F3000 – a point that was quickly apparent to Fortec team manager and Button’s engineer at the test, David Hayle.

“He was definitely one of those drivers that was mature beyond his years in terms of ability,” recalls Hayle. “Nothing fazed him. You couldn’t put him off his stride, he was permanently in the zone when he was in the car. It was a really, eye-opening experience to get somebody so young, so mature and so good all together.”

Button had graduated from Formula Ford to the F3 ranks for 1999 with the Renault-powered Promatecme team, ending up best of the rest behind title protagonists Marc Hynes (Manor Motorsport) and Luciano Burti (Paul Stewart Racing). His performances…