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In less that two months Jenson Button will be under starter’s orders at the Australian Grand Prix for the first race of the 2007 season. Inside the cockpit of his new Honda Formula One car the tension will be palpable: the great underachiever of British motor sport will know this is his do-or-die season.
Ever since he burst onto the F1 scene in 2000, Button’s career has been plagued by rumours that he is more at home in a nightclub than on the training circuit; a potentially great driver seduced by the playboy lifestyle that is bound up with his sport.
His relationship with Louise Griffiths, a pop starlet, meant he was pictured on the gossip pages of newspapers more often than on the winner’s podium, while legal wrangles over an aborted move from BAR-Honda to Williams proved a distraction both on and off the track. To date he has won only one grand prix — at Hungary last year.
And yet, suntanned after spending part of the winter in Lanzarote recovering from a karting accident that fractured his ribs, Button says this year will be different. With a new girlfriend, a new car and new priorities, he says 2007 will finally see him fulfil his potential.
It was Flavio Briatore, the flamboyant boss of Renault, who in 2003 mocked Button for allowing himself to be slowed down by things happening off the circuit, a savaging that Button now concedes he deserved — partly.
“‘Too much baggage’ was the expression. Yeah, he was right in certain ways and in other ways he wasn’t because he didn’t know the full story,” says Button. “But I’ve changed a lot and I think that’s shown. I think some of it has come out in the press, which obviously isn’t the best way to do it, but everything’s gone from my mind now except racing.
“That’s the great thing, I can just relax and focus on my job, and that’s what you need to do. You can’t have other things going on in the back of your mind because I’m racing against the best drivers in the world and to beat them you have to 100% focused.”
So what was the full story that Briatore didn’t know? “There were lots of mistakes I’ve made with contracts in the past. Signing for teams I didn’t want to be driving for. One was with Frank Williams. I was supposed to be racing with them in 2006 but decided I didn’t want to race there. Some people would say that I was spoilt and I was being very selfish. (But) I have to further my career. That’s the most important thing to me,” says Button.
“Frank and I came to an agreement which worked for both of us. We both got what we wanted. I ended up being with Honda, where I want to be for the future, and he got something as well.” So Honda hasn’t pressured him? “Trust me, I chose to be here. It cost me a lot of money.”
To be fair to Button, his car was the main problem last season. In Melbourne his engine blew up in sight of the finishing line. At the British Grand Prix it blew up again (humiliatingly in front of the Renault grandstand).
Worse still, at Silverstone the team failed to send him out for the second qualifying lap, meaning he started from 19th on the grid. When he went on Top Gear last summer to answer his critics, Jeremy Clarkson mocked his car for having a windscreen.
It will be harder to blame the car this season: he’s coy about precisely what’s changed, but says: “Everything is better. If it weren’t we’d be doing something wrong.”
So does he dream of matching Michael Schumacher’s record of seven championship titles? “Seven world championships is phenomenal and you really do have to be in the right place at the right time. I don’t know whether I want to be around for seven more years. I’ll have to wait and see. My goal is to win the world championship and then we’ll see what happens. I’m not going to plan too much into the future. My future at the moment is this year and that’s all I’m looking at.”
Button is only 27 (his birthday was on Friday) but he has a world of experience behind him and the poise and maturity of someone older. So he wasted a few years growing up — he’s still got 10 years before he reaches Schumacher’s retirement age.
The legions of F1 fans desperate for the first British world champion since Damon Hill in 1996 have heard it all before, of course, but this time there is more reason than ever to believe that Button has finally come of age.
