Jenson Button Profile
Britain's newest - and latest – Formula One World Champion, Jenson Button has in 2009 followed in the footsteps of another barometer of British motor racing sport talent, 2008 winner Lewis Hamilton to record back-to-back home victories and announce the country's comeback on the world motor sport map once and for all. After teaming up with F1 Constructor new-boys, Brawn GP in 2009, Jenson Button pulled out all the stops from the beginning of the season – with six GP wins almost on the bounce – and balanced with some assured and strategic driving performances thereafter – to take the 2009 F1 World Championship crown from outgoing champ, Hamilton.
Jenson Button Signs For McLaren, Joining Lewis Hamilton For 2010 F1 Season
Wednesday 18th November 2009 saw the newly crowned Formula One Driver's Champion, Jenson Button confirm the rumours that had been circulating for a few days beforehand, and announce his decision to sign for the McLaren Formula One team for the 2010 campaign. Button, 29 will be teaming up with fellow British F1 star – and former Formula One World Champion in 2008 – Lewis Hamilton, a move in itself that will excite all British motor racing fans ahead of the new season.
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes got their man after ex-F1 World Champion, Kimi Raikkonen declared that he was quitting Formula One with immediate effect, as the Finn opts to take his driving skill-set to rallying, with Button now preparing himself to attempt to emulate the acheievements and F1 feats of his McLaren predecessors. The likes of Emerson Fittipaldi, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen and naturally, his new team-mate, Lewis Hamilton.
With Jenson Button having agreed to a pay-cut at the start of the 2009 F1 campaign so as to secure the Brawn GP team's future, he felt by winning the World Championship that he would have done enough to re-negotiate a better deal. The offer that Brawn GP put on the table wasn't deemed acceptable by Button and when McLaren came calling the temptation proved too much for the Englishman, who along with Hamilton have become the first pairing of British F1 Champions since Jim Clark welcomed Graham Hill at Lotus back in 1968.
Button And Hamilton Provide British Formula One Dream Ticket For McLaren
It wasn't always like this for Jenson Button though, despite an amazing start to his motor sport career. Not long after signing up to the F1 bandwagon he alienated a lot of British motor racing fans by immediately taking on the persona of a man who had achieved much more than he actually had.
Avoiding tax like so many of the F1 stars by living for a sizeable chunk of the year in self-imposed Monte Carlo exile, Jenson Button immediately surrounded himself with the very visual trappings that have universally characterised (and critically, dogged) many successful Formula One driver's lifestyles previously. However Button's F1 CV at that stage was missing the one vital inclusion that sat at seeming ill-ease with the image he was portraying to people back at home; that being visible success. Accusations of his penchant for partying did little to pacify people hoping that after a bright start to his motor racing career he'd go on to emulate the F1 achievements of Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill in the foreseeable future, who instead were confronted with more damning reports of his perceived lack of progress on the track, yet well-documented hedonistic endeavours off it.
Button The Playboy Label Applied To 2009 F1 Driver's Champion For Years Before Brawn GP Breakthrough
Risking being dubbed the playboy prince of Formula One for an eternity, Britain's latest Formula One Driver's Champion has finally shaken off the unfortunate label that hitherto winning the 2009 F1 Driver's Championship, he was best known for. Button's could well have been an overnight success story on which the history of F1 could have referred to in the future had things gone more according to plan on gatecrashing the Formula One scene back in 2000. the omens had been good from the outset of his professional motor racing career, especially when aged 18-years old he contested – and went on to win - the British Formula Ford Championship in 1998. with more notable wins under his belt, Jenson Button was fast getting a name for himself within motor racing circles, and by the end of that year he added the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver Award to his haul of trophies that season. As part of his prize Button was afforded a test in a McLaren Formula One car, which he took up the following year, 1999. famously Button was quoted – when spoken to by then McLaren designer/engineer, Ross Brawn after the novice driver's tour of the McLaren site which concluded with Brawn cordially adding, “I hope to see you again soon” - as replying, “You will see me again”.
It was earlier that same year that Button began his Formula Three crusade, with the Promatecme team, chalking up three wins at Thruxton, Pembrey and Silverstone and culminating his début campaign at this level by being named top F3 rookie driver for 1999. Button finished the season in third place overall in the Formula Three championship and subsequently further alerting the powers that be higher up the motor racing food chain as to his presence and talent.
Button's McLaren test prize at Silverstone took place at the tail end of that same year as we mentioned above, whilst he also tested for the Prost team. Then barely into 2000 a vacant race seat became available at the Williams team in the aftermath of Alex Zanardi's departure, so team owner Frank Williams organised a 'shoot-out' involving Jenson Button and equally promising Formula 3000 racer, Bruno Junqueira with the prize being an official seat in a Williams F1 car for that 2000 season; which Button duly went on to secure after winning the head-to-head battle Junqueira.
Jenson Button Finished Eighth In Début Formula One Season In 2000, Announcing Arrival On F1 Scene
Finishing eighth in the 2000 Driver's Championship in his début F1 season, Button accumulated 12 championship points, only 12 fewer than Williams' more established team mate, Ralf Schumacher. The following year, whilst still technically under contract with Williams, Jenson Button drove for Benetton, which had just previously been snapped up by Renault, Williams' donor manufacturer. Despite assurances that the Benetton car would be competitive the team and more importantly, Button, endured a torrid time, generally out-performed by everyone else in the field as he endured a dismal season by any F1 driver's standards. He fared better in 2002, taking seventh place in that year's Driver's Championship in Renault F1 colours, finishing comfortably ahead of his more experienced team-mate, Jarno Trulli.
In spite of this the following season Renault's controversial team principle – Flavio Briatore – elected to replace Button with Fernando Alonso, promoting the latter from test driving duties, and citing that Button had too many contract concerns and background distractions fighting for his attention, although admitting that the Englishman was a fine driver. A huge public outcry emerged after the shock decision, yet Button took it all in his stride and was head-hunted by the BAR team where he stayed from 2003 to 2005, working alongside former World Champion, Jacques Villeneuve. In his first season at British American Racing (BAR), Button amassed 17 championship points for his new employers, and found himself ninth in the Driver's Championship.
Button Celebrates First F1 Career Pole Position With BAR-Honda In 2004 San Marino GP
In 2004 Button's relationship with BAR-Honda flourished, with the manufacturer taking second spot in the Constructor's Championship, while Button claimed his first podium finish, a third in the Malaysian GP, the first of nine podium places that season. He also was instrumental in gaining both his – and BAR's – first ever pole position, ahead of the 2004 San Marino GP, which he finished second in. all this brisk work enabled Jenson Button to conclude his F1 business in third that year with 85 points to his name, behind only Ferrari's all-conquering drivers. Surprising everyone, Button announced that August that he had signed for Williams again, a contract that would see him through the next two years of Formula One competition, and a decision which inevitably sparked a fall-out with his current employers and not his first contract wrangle that would effectively rumble on.
After a series of upsets and disqualification on grounds of the car's weight, Button grabbed the second pole of his F1 career going into at Montreal. A substandard race for his part and crashing out on lap 46 ended his and his team's hopes of more crucial championship points at that stage. Decent results in the French Grand Prix and a third place in the German GP ensured a good finish for both employee and employer towards the end of the 2005 Formula One campaign, however this was soured with news that - after much legal deliberating – BAR had the right to ascertain Button's agreement that his hurried contract with Williams was unlawful, and that ultimately the British driver was therefore still obliged to drive for them in 2006. more so given that BAR had gone to the trouble to buy out his existing Williams contract for a rumoured million. Whether this was to make a point or not is open to debate, but what wasn't was the underlying fact that Jenson Button was essentially a BAR driver once more, and that in 2006 he would assume the role of partner to ex-Ferrari driver, Rubens Barichello.
Jenson Button Wins First F1 GP In 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix
Having been bought outright by Honda at the start of the new season, BAR became known as Honda Racing F1 Team, and in the face of several adversities in terms of racing, Jenson Button recorded his first ever Grand Prix victory in Hungary that year. Lap collisions and engine fires has played their collective parts in stifling his progress thus far, but amid chaos at the Hungarian GP where rain wrecked havoc, Button emerged victorious in spite of starting 14th on the grid due to engine irregularities, after 113 attempts to win an F1 GP. Directly after the Hungarian GP, Button posted fourth and fifth positions in the next four races, and was accredited with taking more championship points (35) than any other driver over the last six races of the seasonIn 2007 – and after a catalogue of on track set-backs – it wasn't until the French GP that he picked up any points for either himself or Honda, whereby he bagged one for finishing eighth. Following the British GP that year, Button extended his contract with Honda for another year. But a mixture of a thoroughly unconvincing time of it in 2007 – where he was beset with bad luck and race car issues – and the rapid emergence of a new British kid on the block (in the shape of Lewis Hamilton) was a point of conjecture for Jenson Button who wrote off the year as 'a total disaster'. Having exploded onto the F1 scene back in 2000, eight years on and one of Britain's best hopes of Formula One greatness for years was forced into taking a back seat to an even newer, shinier best hope of Formula One greatness. In 2008 Lewis Hamilton was catapulted into the public eye as the new golden boy of British Formula One – and on who's shoulders the hopes of a success-starved F1 British public rested – as he rose to spectacular prominence, completing the unthinkable and winning the Driver's title in his début Formula One season. Jenson who?
After a hit and miss 2008 himself driving for Honda, both Button and his team-mate, Rubens Barichello were delivered a knock-out blow later that year as Honda announced they could no longer afford to bankroll an F1 team due largely to the global economic crisis. Essentially this left Button without a drive for the 2009 season unless the team could find a buyer who could put a rescue package in place.
Jenson Button Teams Up With Brawn GP – The Rest Is 2009 F1 History
In March 2009 – and following a buy-out by owner by ex-McLaren man Ross Brawn – Brawn GP assumed control of what was Honda, and became the newest Formula One constructors to line-up on the starting grid for the new campaign. Button and Barichello were both retained as Brawn GP drivers for the season, and the former recorded some fantastic testing times in the new race car before the season got under way in the Australian GP. Grabbing pole position in Melbourne – with Barichello sitting in second on the grid – Button lead all the way to snatch Brawn GP's first ever F1 victory in its début race, with Barichello grabbing second. Not since 1954 had a team notched up a 1-2 finish on their F1 debut.
A week later at the Malaysian GP Button repeated this astonishing feat for Brawn GP, and although the race was prematurely stopped due to inclement track conditions, half points were awarded all round and Jenson Button acknowledged his first F1 hat trick of pole, win and fastest lap in the same race; abandoned or otherwise. Additional victories at Bahrain, Spain, Monaco and Turkey (a total of six for the season) in the first half of the campaign - and a bag-full of Championship points elsewhere – ensured that Britain had another Formula One World Champion, and a second consecutive year of patriotic flag-waving for the nation's army of motor sport fans. A fifth place finish at the Brazilian GP – coupled with nearest challengers, Barichello and Sebastien Vettel finally rendered unable to topple Button's points tally mathematically – was all it took to secure the 2009 F1 Driver's Championship for Jenson Button and the Constructor's Championship for his team, Brawn GP in their inaugural year of competition. They even had the one race to spare in the Abu Dhabi GP where Button rounded an incredible season off with a third place podium finish.
Off the track, Jenson Button is a fitness fanatic, having shoe-horned in and completed the gruelling 2009 London Triathlon into his hectic F1 schedule, whilst other hobbies include mountain biking and body boarding, as well as having a budding – yet already enviable – car collection, listing a Bugatti Veyron, Honda S600 and a classic 1956 VW Campervan as key components.