Button relieved to have escaped injury.

Jenson Button has admitted that he was lucky to have avoided a bigger accident when a tyre blew on his BAR-Honda at close to 200mph during the Belgian Grand Prix.

The Briton was running in the points after an early pit-stop to replace a damaged front wing, but saw his hopes of another top eight result end when the rear right Michelin blew as he approached Les Combes. The BAR slewed across the road, apparently headed for the retaining wall, only to collect the luckless Zsolt Baumgartner, who was being passed by Button at the time of the incident.

"We were very lucky - it could have been horrific," Button told the BBC, "The only warning I had was that it felt like there was a failure after I went over the bump on the straight.

"After [the first lap incident], the car was running reasonably well, we had a good fuel load and I felt pretty pleased with the balance of car. I am very disappointed as we were confident that we would have been on the podium with our strategy."

"I was really unlucky with the situation that developed with Button when he was right next to me and his tyre exploded, but it happened," said an equally relieved Baumgartner, who could have added to his single F1 point given the rate of attrition at Spa.