Alan Jones tips Button to be champion
And asked to predict this year’s title-winner, he replied: "I’m going to stick my neck out and say Brawn could keep up the momentum.
"They have got out of the starting gate very well and have built a bit of a gap. And I reckon Jenson’s looking OK to be world champion, to be honest."
Asked if he rated Button before this year, a candid Jones replied: "Not really."
But he added: "It’s good to see him proving everyone wrong, including me. He must delight in that."
Jones also thinks Brawn have brought "a breath of fresh air" into F1.
He grinned: "It’s interesting to see fans walking round in Brawn T-shirts when the team didn’t even exist a few weeks ago."
Jones, who these days runs Australia’s team in the A1GP series, was not so sure when it came to picking a winner of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.
He said: "It depends if McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull turn up at Barcelona with double-deck diffusers.
"They’re playing catch-up to the diffuser teams – Brawn, Toyota and Williams.
"Red Bull are already pretty quick and if they get a competent diffuser on their car they’re going to be very quick indeed.
"And McLaren and Lewis Hamilton are always going to come back, aren’t they? The team has got too many good people working for them not to."
Jones, who won his title with Williams, believes his former team are still capable of running at the front, describing them as "a very determined mob".
He also reckons Ferrari could yet bounce back despite their shocking start to the season "because they’ve got the facilities and the budget to basically get on with it".
Jones dismissed Ferrari star Kimi Raikkonen’s gloomy forecast in which he appeared to rule out his chances of winning back his F1 crown.
The outspoken Aussie said: "The thing about Formula 1 is that they are always saying they are NOT going to do things – ‘my car’s not quick enough and we’ve got a lot of work in front of us’ etc. It all gets a bit boring. I’d like to hear from people who say they ARE going to do it." The Sun