So, the boy did it at last. Okay, okay, so we've bored everybody stiff with the fact that it took
Jenson Button 113 grand prix outings to get the job finally done, but the win - when it came - was splendid.
Button and the Honda team delivered a carefully choreographed display of seamless perfection, making every strategic decision work for them at every crucial moment of the race. Okay, so he got a bit of a leg-up when
Fernando Alonso hit trouble, but it was a fine effort by any standards. Jenson never put a wheel out of place all afternoon.
It was also a win which, crucially, shone out like a beacon of hope. Hope to teams like
Williams,
Toyota and
Red Bull - teams which are currently making heavy weather of things - a reminder, if you like, that if you're sufficiently methodical and determined, then, sure, it's possible to scale the top spot on the podium.
I'm not talking down to the Williams team in any way by bracketing them with these other two organisations. Williams know all about the ingredients you need for success, even if they've had trouble baking the cake this last 18 months.
Honda's success reminds us there is no magic to this business, only unremitting hard slog and dogged persistence.
Talking Williams, their decision to promote their current third driver Alex Wurz to race alongside
Nico Rosberg in 2007 will send a surge of optimism through the ranks of test drivers just as surely as
Robert Kubica's promotion to Jacques Villeneuve's former job in the
BMW Sauber squad. Yet, for Wurz, the achievement is all the more remarkable as he's spent the past
six seasons in a test driving role - first for
McLaren, then for Sir Frank - and probably wondered whether he would ever receive the call.
