Button steers clear of confrontation with Villeneuve

The more Jenson Button's Lucky Strike BAR Honda team-mate, Jacques Villeneuve, pours coal on the fire of their argument, the less ruffled Button seems.

Regardless of the reason why Villeneuve pitted on the lap on which Button was due to stop in Australia, the effect was the same: the team lost its chance of championship points. According to Villeneuve and the party line, one of his radio ear-pieces ceased to work at a critical moment. However, Button has alleged that Villeneuve has sufficient hearing to have acknowledged the need to pit by pressing the pit confirm button on his steering wheel.

Villeneuve has launched a new offensive here at the Sepang International Circuit. He told BBC Radio Five Live: "I was just highly, highly disappointed to be blasted by my team-mate in the media when coming out of the car he was all smiley and shaking hands and everything. I found that a little bit weak, but I guess that's what I have to cope with, a weak team-mate.

"It is very important for a driver to be self-critical before he starts blaming everybody else. If you spend your career thinking about what might have been you never achieve anything, and that is a little bit what has been happening through Jenson's career."

Villeneuve did not spare his team, either, attacking the marketing side. "It is also the team's job to make sure stuff like that doesn't go on in press releases, so the marketing and media department was not up to standard by allowing that to happen." He added that "kissing and making up" with Button was unlikely, but that they "would talk".

The team principal, David Richards, has had his arguments with Villeneuve since taking control early last year from the French-Canadian's manager, Craig Pollock, and his efforts to persuade the former champion to take a cut in his $18m (£11.5m) salary have been unsuccessful.

But he calmly brushed aside the bad blood between his drivers yesterday. "These things do happen," he said of Villeneuve's radio problem. "I'm sure every team has problems with radios at some point and Jacques is certainly very sensitive on the hearing side. You have to accept that inside teams your biggest rival is going to be your team-mate, and they both now see that they have a competitive car, they've got a lot at stake and, clearly, they are both highly competitive, so these odd little eruptions are going to happen."

Button has taken it all in his stride. "Jacques is pathetic, but it doesn't faze me at all. He thinks it's the way to go racing, but it's not. My relationships with previous team-mates were fine, Ralf Schumacher, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli. I always knew Jacques was a difficult team-mate, and now he's proved it."

The spat between the two drivers provided some much-needed distraction. On-track, it looked worryingly like business as usual for Ferrari, with Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello comfortably topping the times in the qualifying hour to determine the order in which the cars go out for today's session, which will settle the starting grid.

"We had a great day today, without any mistakes, and the track was quite clean," said Schumacher. "We had a very good set-up, having made some improvements to the car in the lunch break."

BMW Williams racer Juan Pablo Montoya, who trailed Schumacher by a full second, insisted: "I'm quite happy with my car. Ferrari are still quite a bit ahead, but it is some comfort being ahead of both McLarens."

Melbourne winner David Coulthard had been fastest during the morning's practice session, but admitted he had been deliberately conservative in the afternoon as he set only fifth fastest time.

"My qualifying lap was definitely better than the one in Melbourne, but still a bit conservative as I didn't want to make a mistake. As I'm leading the championship, I was the first one out of the pits today and it's obviously a disadvantage, as the track is dirty at the beginning and tends to get cleaned up throughout the session."

He was also disappointed that his lap had been slower than his morning best, when his McLaren Mercedes had more fuel and was therefore heavier.

Coulthard's team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, finished one position higher, despite losing time in the morning after running off the track.

Button beat Villeneuve but they were only ninth and 15th respectively after battling against understeer.

Unsettled weather has characterised practice so far, with monsoons each afternoon giving rise to the possibility of rain late in tomorrow's race, which starts at 3pm local time. "I just hope there is no rain," said Schumacher, "even though I am fully aware there is always a chance of a downpour here."

The Royal Malaysian Police categorically denied stories in the German press that there had been a bomb scare at the circuit yesterday.