► A look back at Jenson Button’s career
► From Williams to McLaren
► Where does he fit in?
When Hamilton went on to enjoy his epoch-making spell at Mercedes, Button’s achievements were perhaps overshadowed, but as the 45-year-old from Frome in Somerset has now retired from professional racing, it’s time to reflect on his career. As sports presenter Alan Partridge would say, it’s a game of three halves.
I actually met Jenson a few times, back in his BAR days, interviewing him at Formula 1 events. Off-camera I found him exactly like his public persona – always courteous, often smiling, a sense of humour breaking through a guarded, media-savvy shell. I remember talking to him about the Porsche Carrera GT road car he’d just bought, fulfilling that racy, playboy image – an image that nearly sunk him in his early years.
As a kid, Button was quick in the junior categories and the boss of his Formula 3 team, Serge Saulnier, was a good friend of F1 veteran Alain Prost, at that point running his own team. That introduction led to an unexpected test of the Prost F1 car in December 1999, when Button was still a teenager. He later described it as ‘one of the craziest experiences of my career’ – this 19-year-old rocked up and lapped 0.6 seconds faster than the team’s regular driver, Jean Alesi. Not surprisingly, Prost tried to sign him but word got out, and the wily Frank Williams swooped in. Button made his F1 debut in a Williams in Melbourne in 2000, having just turned 20.
These days we’re used to spotty teenagers entering F1 – Max Verstappen, Oliver Bearman, Kimi Antonelli – but Button broke new ground in his day. He was the youngest Brit in a Grand Prix ever, and lots of commentators (and some drivers) suggested he was too young. He proved them all wrong by running as high as sixth in Australia, before retiring with engine failure.
If that was a high point, the lows followed quickly. In early 2000 Button was talked about as a future world champion, but by the end of that season he’d been dropped by Williams and his next two years with Renault were dismal. Then came the famous Flavio Briatore fall-out, when Renault’s F1 boss called Button a ‘lazy playboy’ after he finished seventh the 2001 Monaco GP. Button later remembered, ‘Flavio gave an interview without talking to me. He said, “I think he was looking for a new apartment or a new yacht to buy, that’s why he finished seventh.”’ The press lapped it up.
With hindsight Briatore’s criticism was unfair, and three-time F1 champion Jackie Stewart certainly put the blame on the people around Button, rather than the inexperienced kid himself: ‘Jenson’s had a series of managers who have been too ambitious for him and demanded too much from a boy who’s yet to really develop.’
It led to what I think of as The Mediocre Years. After he joined the underperforming BAR team in 2003, the seasons blurred, BAR became Honda and Button’s career went nowhere. The results weren’t terrible – he scored points and even a win – but drivers need momentum and Button lost his.
‘We all have very short memory spans in F1,’ Button admitted at the time. ‘People will remember the last race and if you do that in my case, then it’s not great.’
Yet throughout this period, when he was slogging away to finish 11th every weekend, Button still had his gift. From the beginning, Button had an incredible feel for the car – a sensitivity to grip that was extraordinary even by F1 standards. And whenever the weather was changeable and other drivers were cautious, Button would rise through the field.
We’re not talking about a Biblical flood – in torrential rain, Hamilton or Michael Schumacher were usually the masters – but when conditions were uncertain, when the track was damp and grip changed from one corner to the next, Button could beat anyone – seven-time F1 champions included.
Take Hockenheim in 2000. With 10 laps to go it rained on the stadium section but was dry everywhere else. Button (in the Williams) called it right, pitted early and, as all hell broke loose, used that fingertip sensitivity to move up from ninth to fourth.
Or China in 2006, hit by heavy rain at the start. A dry line emerged but then a last-lap shower turned Shanghai into what Button described as an ‘ice rink’. You can watch the final lap on YouTube, and see everyone else slithering around as Button finds the grip and moves from sixth place to fourth.
And of course there’s his first win, Hungary in 2006. Again, rain at the start, a drying line, everyone O panicking about when to go to slicks. Button nursed his intermediates, overtook Schumacher and won his 113th Grand Prix start. In these conditions, he was always the driver to watch.
Then came 2009. The story of how the Honda team became Brawn has been told many times, but it’s important to stress Ross Brawn understood Button’s talents and was determined to keep him.
Button took a 60 per cent pay cut to help the team. I remember the race that clinched it, in Brazil – under huge title pressure, Button drove with uncharacteristic aggression to move up from 14th to fifth by the finish and take the title. It was a fairytale season and he deserved it.
If that moment marked peak Button, his F1 career was far from over. He moved to McLaren in 2010 and stayed for seven seasons (plus a single outing as a guest driver in 2017), winning eight more times. Importantly, he was measured head to head with Hamilton and absolutely showed his class.
Over three seasons, Button scored 672 points to Hamilton’s 657, and he finished runner-up in the championship behind Sebastian Vettel in 2011.
Then Hamilton moved to Mercedes, McLaren lost its mojo and Button called it a day.
He’s been busy since leaving F1. He did Super GT in Japan, winning the title in 2018; he tried British GT, Daytona, Baja, rallycross and NASCAR. He became a Sky pundit and an adviser to Williams, and revived the British coachbuilder Radford with TV presenter Ant Anstead. He joined the World Endurance Championship, first in a Porsche then Jota’s works Cadillac team. He ran a team in Extreme E. He raced his Jaguar C-Type at the Goodwood Revival, winning the Freddie March trophy in 2025.
It all proved beyond doubt that Button is a true enthusiast, and it added to his likeability; but as far as the history books are concerned? It’s a legitimate question to ask if Jenson Button will be forgotten. In one sense he won the title, so of course not… but then alongside Schumacher, Vettel and Hamilton, Button’s championship is a bit like Denny Hulme’s success in 1967. Hulme was sandwiched between the Jim Clark years and the Jackie Stewart era, and few people really remember him today.
Then again, not many babies were called Denny in 1967. And Button’s legacy has one more thing going for it – the 2011 Canadian GP, recently voted the greatest race ever on F1’s official website. Go online and watch it – it’s pure chaos, with rain, safety cars and crashes. By half distance, Button has already pitted five times and is running dead last; but then, on a drying track, he reels in Vettel, taking the lead on the very last lap. It’s epic – and it tells you everything you need to know about Jenson Button. For that race alone, he’ll be remembered.
One of CAR magazine's key tale tellers, explorers and leftfield thinkers. As happy bossing a Giant Test of the latest supercars as penning a column on the merits of old Subarus. Always entertaining, rarely follows convention, usually right.
By Mark Walton
Contributing editor, humorist, incurable enthusiast
