Fisichella takes centre stage

Fisichella has outqualified Button five times out of six

By BBC Sport Online's Andrew Benson in Monaco

Jenson Button always knew this Formula One season was going to be difficult, but he can never have imagined that it would prove to be as tough as it has.

The Englishman always expected that his Benetton-Renault car and its revolutionary new engine, would struggle for pace in the first half of the season.

But while the car's performance has been even worse than expected, Button's biggest headaches are coming from another, less expected, direction.

Button showed well against Ralf Schumacher at Williams-BMW last year - even if he did not out-perform him very often - so he was expected by many quickly to establish his superiority over his team-mate in the other blue car in 2001, Giancarlo Fisichella.

I have done well here in the past, and I'm quite sure I can improve my grid position here

  Giancarlo Fisichella

In fact, the opposite has happened.

Fisichella has outqualified Button five times out of six, and probably would have made it a clean sweep had he not had problems with his car at the first race of the year, the only time Button has lined up ahead of his Italian team-mate.

Those who predicted Button's supremacy may have forgotten Fisichella's first full season in F1, when he narrowly out-performed Schumacher at Jordan.

Back then, the Italian was very much the rising star - and many expected his film-star looks and cowboy-bowed legs to be on the top step of the podium before too long.

But in the three years since then, Fisichella has become something of a peripheral figure in F1, a driver who was regarded as quick and talented, but inconsistent and a bit lightweight.

Observers claimed that he was only good on certain circuits - and it was true that he tended to shine in Brazil, Monaco, Canada, Germany's Hockenheim track, and make very little impression elsewhere.

Button has been less than over the moon recently

There is, though, another explanation for that. Three of those circuits share a characteristic - they are high-speed tracks where teams run as little aerodynamic downforce as possible.

As such, they would penalise less a team whose car lacked downforce, which has been the abiding failure of the Benetton these last few years.

The exception to that rule is Monaco.

The narrow streets of the Principality are regarded as one of the supreme tests of a Grand Prix driver's ability, and Fisichella has always been stunning on them, from the time he won the Formula 3 event there in 1994.

Former world champion Damon Hill still talks in glowing terms of following Fisichella around Monaco, and marvelling at a man who seemed to know every little touch, every secret required to master this most unforgiving of tracks.

As such, Fisichella would anyway have been expected to shine in Monaco this year more than his Benetton has allowed him to elsewhere.

But Button's arrival seems to have spurred in him an extra motivation. And if the criticisms that he did not always put in 100% before were true, he has buried them this year.

Fisichella is confident of the task ahead

"Giancarlo realises this is a make-or-break season for him," says Benetton's technical director, Mike Gascoyne.

"If he is beaten by Jenson over the season, that is going to have a very bad effect on his reputation as an up-and-coming driver."

It must be soul destroying for both men to be so far off the pace - Button has now twice qualified second last, with only the Minardi of Tarso Marques behind him.

But where you might expect the older campaigner to find motivation harder to come by in difficult circumstances, it is Button who is struggling.

There have been differing explanations for that, ranging from Button spending more time concentrating on his lifestyle than his racing, to claims that Benetton is not setting up the car for him in a way that suits his driving style.

Whatever, it is Fisichella's pace that is causing Button problems, and not the other way around.

Already Fisichella is proving substantially faster than his English team-mate, and Monaco is expected to furnish him with another opportunity this weekend to rub salt into the wound.

"This is one of my favourite circuits," said Fisichella.

"I have done well here in the past, and I'm quite sure I can improve my grid position here.

"I hope to be in the middle and not at the back, like the last few races. It's going to be quite good. I've got a very good feeling for the track."

If Button passes a fitful Friday night before qualifying on Saturday, no-one would be surprised.