There is a grace about Jenson Button, the sort of nonchalance and poise that only a world champion can exude, so it is difficult to remember that he almost quit Formula One, even though those dark days were less than three years ago. We could easily be thinking of Button with a sad shrug, as a playboy and a failed racing driver, if his career had ended, as it almost did, at the end of the 2008 season. He had just finished 18th in the championship table, his three points half as many as he had achieved with Honda the previous year, when he was 15th.
This eloquent description of 2009 World Champion Jenson Button and his long struggles with lesser teams — and premature retirement — leading to Honda’s 2008 withdrawal from the sport show that a driver’s talent is not necessarily revealed solely by statistical results in Grand Prix races themselves. For those who would reply that Button’s title with Brawn GP was due to s superior car that season, the retort is that this has always been true in Formula One. Exceptions can occur in individual races, from Moss at Monaco in 1960 to Fisichella at Spa in ’09, but they remain the exceptions. Driving talent alone is not and never has ben enough alone to win the World Championship. Even the immortal Juan Manuel Fangio moved from team-to-team to maintain an advantage over the F1 field. La plus ca change!
This article titled “Jenson Button happy to leave the dark days behind” was written by Paul Weaver, for The Observer on Saturday 2nd July 2011 18.00 America/New_YorkThere is a grace about Jenson Button, the sort of nonchalance and poise that only a world champion can exude, so it is difficult to remember that he almost quit Formula One, even though those dark days were less than three years ago.
We could easily be thinking of Button with a sad shrug, as a playboy and a failed racing driver, if his career had ended, as it almost did, at the end of the 2008 season. He had just finished 18th in the championship table, his three points half as many as he had achieved with Honda the previous year, when he was 15th.
“Those times were very tough,” he said, as he prepared for next Sunday’s British Grand Prix. “That’s why I started to do triathlons, to take my mind off racing, so I had a hobby that I could enjoy. No one enjoys finishing 18th. You are only racing your team-mate and that’s not what I want to do. I want to race the best.
“When I win a race I think back to when I was qualifying 18th. I knew I wasn’t going to score any points, unless half the field fell off. They were two really bad years, my two worst years in the sport. And suddenly I had a championship-winning car in 2009. What I went through in 2008 was horrific, thinking I wouldn’t be racing in F1 anymore, and it wasn’t my choice.”
Instead, Button goes into the race at Silverstone as one of the favourites, looking for his fourth victory as a McLaren driver, his confidence running high after his sensational win in Montreal last month.
He was not at Silverstone to watch Nigel Mansell’s victory in 1992. “My first year was 1995, when I watched Damon [Hill] crash with Michael [Schumacher]. Johnny Herbert won.”
Button is trying to convince himself that the 2011 championship is not yet over, even though, deep down he knows it is. “It is going to be bloody hard from where I am, 77 points behind. That’s three race wins, with Seb [Vettel] not finishing, and he’s still got a two-point lead.
“So it is not easy. But we’ve seen it before. Teams make mistakes and they might start thinking it’s easy in their positions. But it is going to be difficult. He has got such a lead. I don’t even have that lead over 14th place. It just shows you how big his margin is.
“At the moment I feel [Red Bull] are going to be quick all year. We have just got to improve our car. It is not about them not improving, we have to improve at a greater rate, which at the moment is very difficult.”
Last year Vettell just squeezed his first world championship ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and team-mate Mark Webber. “I think Seb’s a great driver. He has proved that this season. But I am surprised he is that much quicker than Mark, so there is obviously something that is not working for Mark.
“He hasn’t really been on the same pace as Sebastian this year, which surprises me as he is quick. He says he has got problems with the tyres. He is not getting to grips with them.”
Lewis Hamilton, too, has a new respect for Vettel, whose 16th career victory, in Valencia, pushed him ahead of Hamilton’s tally of 15. “He has taken the youngest championship title away from me too, so I hope he doesn’t pull too far away in terms of wins,” said Hamilton. “He has got lots of qualities. He is massively competitive. At the moment he seems to have a strong head on his shoulders. In 2007 [Hamilton’s debut year] it was easy to have a strong head on my shoulders because we were winning.
“Then you go through harder times when you are not quite winning and things don’t go your way. It is a lot harder to deal with. I honestly can’t tell you how Seb would deal with that. Time will tell I guess.”
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