'I want to win. It's all about me winning'

Dismissed as a playboy who lacked the killer instinct, Jenson Button looked set to remain a formula one also-ran, but he always knew he was fastWe're on the main road in Monte Carlo just before it is closed to the public and turned into Monaco's famous grand prix track. Jenson Button is driving frustratingly slowly in his adopted home. The pace, or lack of it, is making me twitch. Get a move on, Jenson, this is pathetic. "Traffic. It's not normally this bad," he says apologetically. Whatever. I feel safe - possibly too safe. It could be an elderly uncle driving. Put your foot down, son, go for it. He's looking in the rear-view mirror, tutting at the opposition on the road. "People are very relaxed when they drive - they don't concentrate enough. You can see they're not paying attention and their peripheral vision is not there. It is scary. Driving on the road is probably more dangerous than driving on a circuit."What! No, really, he means it. Formula one is so much safer than it used to be, he insists. On the weekend that Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed at the 1994 San Marino grand prix, Button was a 14-year-old boy go-karting in Italy. "The race just stopped. Everybody was glued to the television. It was horrible." Didn't it put him off racing? "No. But a lot's changed since then. The accident Ayrton had was not really a big impact accident. If you had that these days you'd be fine." Maybe.Button has had one bad crash - as he came out of the tunnel here in Monaco in 2003. People marvelled that it was possible to crash at such speed and survive virtually unscathed. Did he think he was a goner? "I didn't have time to think. I could hear tyres screeching when I hit the first wall, then I was unconscious. I woke up and saw all the people in orange around me. I thought, where am I? Why is everyone wearing orange? They started cutting off my suit and sticking needles in me. The main doctor came over and said, 'Jenson, are you OK?' and I said, 'Well, not really, my legs hurt.' Which one? I go, the left one, then I go, no, the right one, then I say, no, everything. Then I start laughing. It was the most surreal feeling, it must have been what they were pumping into me. It was good because you realise you can walk away after an accident at 180 miles per hour."We've come to a stop - traffic jam. There is just one car moving behind us, determined to get into a right-hand lane that doesn't exist. Button looks in the mirror disapprovingly, then grins. "That's my dad behind us." He points to the Honda doing a risky jig. "Or is it? Yeah it is. He's going to get into trouble if there's a policeman here."At 20 years old, Button was the envy of formula one. He had everything - talent, youth (he was F1's youngest driver), looks, easy charm and a name fit for an action hero. There was one problem. He couldn't win a race. He made a promising start, finishing eighth in his first season in 2000, and rising up the ranks to third by 2004. It only seemed a matter of time. But still he couldn't clinch that victory. It wasn't until 2006, 113 races on, that he managed one. This was expected to be the turning point. But it wasn't. For three more years he toiled without triumph. His car became more and more uncompetitive, he appeared to lose confidence, nobody even talked about him any more once Lewis Hamilton, the new British uber-racer, emerged fully formed. Who cared about Jenson Button? He was just another also-ran - the perennial underachiever with the aspirational name. The former boy wonder finished 15th in 2007, and 18th last year as Hamilton won the world championship.In December 2008, things reached a nadir when his cash-strapped Honda team announced it was quitting formula one. If nobody bought Honda, he would be left without a team. And why would any other team be keen to sign up a serial loser? Fast-forward five months. Button is now not only racing, he is destroying the opposition. A few days after we meet he wins his fifth race in six outings this season - a record equalled by only a handful of drivers. Formula one's Nearly Man became the Nowhere Man. Now he's simply The Man. It's a remarkable turnaround. He's 29 now, six foot tall, casually dressed, with unpruned facial hair which never quite makes the full beard. There is not an ounce of fat on him, and he's smiling. Button has always smiled. The experts and cod-psychologists suggested that was his flaw - too easy-going, lacked the killer instinct."It would make an amazing film, wouldn't it?" he says of his recent success. "You wouldn't need to add the Hollywood bits in. They are already there." There is something so boyish, so guileless about Button. I've barely met him, and I'm already telling him to make sure he doesn't screw up from this position. "I know! I know!"But there is an intensity beneath the smile. Button is aware that six months ago it was more likely he'd be heading for the jobcentre than the chequered flag. We're now sitting on the terrace cafe of a salubrious Monaco hotel looking over the mountains. Every few seconds the latest Porsche or Ferrari whizzes past. Monaco is the home of fast cars, playboys and pretty girls. It smells of petrol, perfume and privilege. It's where grand prix drivers come to chill out and avoid tax. Despite another disastrous season (in the final race the car caught fire), Button was feeling optimistic at the end of last year. After producing increasingly useless racing cars, in 2007 Honda hired the legendary designer Ross Brawn, who helped Michael Schumacher to five successive F1 world titles. Brawn was already uniting a divided team, and Honda was finally building a car that could compete. In the close season Button got himself fitter than ever, bonded with his colleagues and talked up the future. Then he got the phone call. "I'd just got off a plane and it was my manager saying, 'Just to let you know, Jenson, we've got a bit of bad news - Honda have pulled out of formula one.' I didn't believe him at first. Then you get that tingle down your spine. I was just silent on the other end of the phone. He said, 'Sorry, I didn't know another way of telling you.' I was sat at Gatwick, waiting for my bags for about an hour, and I thought, what am I going to do?" Did he think that was the end of his career? "Yeah, I did," he says baldly. Button wasn't the only one facing the dole. There were 700 workers on the Honda F1 team. He decided that the most important thing was to get to the factory, show solidarity and boost morale. "So I started speaking to the engineers in the room and I got a bit emotional ... A bit embarrassing in front of 100 men. And the voice goes ... And they're looking at me, and I'm saying, I came here to try to keep everyone positive but I'm finding it difficult myself. And they said, well, Jenson, obviously it's an emotional time, but we're staying positive, and as soon as you leave this room we're going to get back to work, and we know that nobody will be interested in buying this team or putting money into it unless we can prove to them that we're working our arses off. And it was like, I came here to help you guys out and you've helped me out more than I've helped you." He looks embarrassed even thinking about it. In a bid to save Honda, Button insisted on a 50% wage cut (you needn't feel sorry for him - even now he is paid £4m a year). Still no bidders.On 5 March 2009, only three weeks before the season started and with Button and team-mate Rubens Barrichello resigned to a spell on the sidelines at best, Ross Brawn announced he had raised the capital to buy out Honda F1. The team was reborn as Brawn GP, backed by Richard Branson. On 29 March, Button won the first grand prix of the season in Australia, and Barrichello finished second, in the new Brawn GP cars. World champion Hamilton qualified only in 18th and was eventually disqualified, and it was apparent that the McLaren car, which had seen off all comers a few months before, was now a no-hoper. Within a single race, formula one had been turned on its head.After all the criticism, Button must have felt vindicated. He sips his tea and shakes his head. No, he always knew he was fast. But so many people had written him off. I start to throw some of the insults in his face. In 2007 former formula one champion Nigel Mansell said he lacked the hunger and partied too much. "Jenson had the opportunity and didn't take it; there won't be any more," he concluded. I'm trying to goad Button, but he's still smiling. "I don't need to say anything, do I?" When he won his fourth race of the season in Barcelona, Button raised four triumphant fingers, almost in disbelief. Will he raise another digit for every race he wins? "Hopefully. That's the plan." What if he runs out of fingers? "Well, I've got an 11th finger, haven't I?" He grins suggestively and you remember how phallocentric the world of formula one is. But laddishness doesn't come naturally to him. He sounds more like a teenager who knows he's pushed the boundaries.Button, who grew up in Frome, Somerset, was named after the Jensen car. His father, John, was a successful rallycross driver and secondhand car salesman, his mother, Simone, a housewife. His parents divorced when he was seven, and for him it was a blessing. For one thing, he was no longer caught in the crossfire of their arguments, and secondly it meant two sets of Christmas presents. Who bought the better presents? "Well, Dad bought me a go-kart," he replies instantly. Was he a spoilt boy? He thinks about it. Well, yes, his three older sisters spoiled him, but he wasn't really spoilt. It was more that he was easily bored. He tells me the story of the go-kart by way of example. "My dad bought me the kart just before my eighth birthday and I drove it out of his place down the road and into a pub car park - and I drove round the pub car park in a few circles. Nobody was there because it was Christmas Day, and I got out and said, 'Dad, this is lovely, I'm bored, can we go somewhere else?' So we jumped in the car and shot down to an old disused runway half an hour from the house and I drove round there for a while." How fast? "As fast as the thing would go ... 40/50mph."Did it feel dangerous? He looks at me as if I'm batty. "Eight years old - no, I don't think so! So I drive round this runway for a while and get bored and I say to Dad, 'I need some more excitement', so he took me to a circuit called Clay Pigeon in Yeovil. And I drove round there and I was like, 'Dad, this is great fun and everything, but there's something missing.' And he's like [he does an impression of his father exhaling with resignation], 'I'll have to put him into a race' and he did a couple of weeks later. I crossed the line first and it was like, 'Dad, this is amazing, I'm not bored now, this is what I love. This is the bit that was missing - the competitiveness.' "After that he didn't have much time for school. He took one GCSE, in French, because he was too busy karting to bother with the rest. At 11, he won all 34 races in the 1991 British Open Kart Championship. At 17, he became the youngest winner of the European Super A Championship. By 18, he had moved into cars and won the British Formula Ford Championship. After one season in formula three, in which he finished third, he progressed to formula one, the highest form of auto racing with speeds of up to 220mph and engines revving up to 18,000rpm.John Button followed Jenson out to Monaco to keep him company. He's close to all his family, and says they've kept him sane in a stressful business. He looks at me. "Nobody believes me when I say it's stressful." He reckons outsiders think that the life of an F1 driver is dossing, nightclubs and the occasional drive, but he's out there training most of the time. "Do you know why we have to be so fit?" He doesn't let me answer. "So we can get the ladies." Button grins, enjoying his little joke. His resting heart rate is in the 40s (the average is 70bpm) and rises to 140-150bpm when he's driving. No other sport puts such stress on the heart - many top drivers average 180bpm through a race and can hit 200bpm when coming into a heavy-braking corner - and it would kill most of us. "I'm a little more relaxed than some drivers." Driving also places enormous stress on the neck muscles because of the gravitational pull when turning corners. Today, he looks perfectly proportioned except for a neck that could belong to the Incredible Hulk. "It's a bit of a freaky neck. I have to buy bigger shirts in the season."Of all the stressful times, the worst was probably karting as a child. It wasn't the boys he was racing against who caused the problems, it was their fathers. "Karting dads were a nightmare because they think their kids are the new superstar, and if another kid beats them they're obviously cheating. Ach, it's unbelievable." Fights would often break out mid-race on the sidelines. So what was your father like? "My dad was pretty calm, actually. He wasn't pushy ... " He pauses. "I was winning." And if you hadn't been? "I don't know. He is quite a calm person. He never pushed me, which is good."A couple of years ago Button took up the triathlon - a hugely demanding endurance event featuring swimming, cycling and running races. He had begun to doubt whether he really was a sportsman. "I went into triathlons when things weren't going very well. It was tough at the weekends, not achieving on the circuit. So doing the training and racing in triathlons was something to enjoy and to know it was all down to me, it's not down to the bike or the goggles."It can't have helped that Lewis Hamilton became the formula one poster boy. He looks me in the eye. But it did, he says, you wouldn't believe how much it helped. At last people didn't care about him. "It was a great relief because we didn't get any media. Everybody concentrated on Lewis. We didn't have to deal with the press saying bad things because they weren't interested." But you must have been jealous? He nods. "You would be of any world champion. If I had a brother and he was winning, I would hate it because I want to win. It's all about me winning." Perhaps the past few years have been toughest on his father. While Jenson found a new way of focusing his energy, John Button was left to brood on his son's failure. "He lives on his own here in Monaco, and he'd arrive home and get very depressed. Every second of the day it would be running through his mind, whereas I could switch off and I had other things to do."Button is having his picture taken, high in the hills at Monaco's botanical garden, Jardin Exotique. From here, we can look over the whole principality. Does he live here for tax reasons? He points to the sea and the mountains, and says who wouldn't want to live here. I'm not so sure.Do all the drivers live here? "A lot live in Switzerland now. The people I see most here are Nico [Rosberg] and Felipe [Massa], and a lot of drivers who were in F1." When they see each other down the supermarket, do they ... He finishes the sentence off for me. "Race?" He bursts out laughing. "Brrrum brrrum," and he starts revving up his invisible trolley. "If I saw another driver in the supermarket and they weren't with their girlfriend or kids - cos that would be a bit embarrassing - I probably would give it the old brrrum brrrum. Yeah, I'm going to go every day now and hopefully see someone."We're back in the car, heading for the tunnel that almost did for him. What makes him such a good driver? "I'm precise with everything, gentle with everything. The more gradual and gentle you are with a racing car, the more precise you are, so you hit the targets and look after the car much better. If you're more aggressive, you damage the tyres, you damage the engine more, you use more fuel, you tire yourself out more, you tire the brakes out more."He struggles into a space in the cleanest car park in the world. A siren warns him that he's about to hit the back wall. "Never been able to reverse," he says. Button failed his driving test first time round. "They said that I went through a gap that wasn't there. The woman coming the other way mounted the curve cos she didn't think she could fit through, but there was an inch either side of the wing mirror." He'd been driving 10 years at this point. Yes, he says, of course his friends took the mick. We pass a yellow Opal GT. He gives it an admiring glance. "Nice."Over the years, Button has taken a fair battering from his peers. His team-mate Jacques Villeneuve said he was better suited to a boyband than F1. In 2001, after he qualified 17th on the grid at Monaco, his new team boss at Renault, Flavio Briatore, asked him if it was true he was looking for a place to buy in Monte Carlo. When Button said yes, he remarked, "Well, would you mind not looking around during qualifying." It was a comment that still stings. "It might be funny and it might be clever, but for someone within your team to say that ... It doesn't do much for your confidence. And every interview after you're asked the same question. Or told the same - you're a playboy." And was he? "I don't think playboy is the right word. In 2000 I bought a boat and a Ferrari, and I think I did get excited by being an F1 driver." He looks sheepish. "I was 20 years old, you know, and the people looking after me were like, come on, you need to look like a formula one driver, you need to feel like a formula one driver." But he knows he can't just blame others. "I took my eye off the ball." There was certainly a time when his girlfriends attracted more attention than his driving. He was engaged to Fame Academy starlet Louise Griffiths, and his friendships with athlete Emma Davis and It Girl Beverley Bloom were fodder for the gossip columns. The thing is, he insists, all this was the exuberance of youth, way back when, and throughout the long years when things were going so horribly wrong, he was doing everything right. He insists nothing has changed. He is driving no better than in recent seasons, he is working no harder. Sure, he's never been fitter, but he was super fit anyway. Look, I say, baffled, I don't get it - how can Lewis Hamilton be so brilliant one year and so shit the next, and the opposite happen to you. "Shit!" He giggles. Has Hamilton become a rubbish driver overnight? "No, I think Lewis is driving well, and I actually think he has been driving better this year than some of last year." That doesn't make sense, I say. "I know - it's the situation I've been in for years." So does that mean it's all down to the car? No, he says patiently. But it's a hell of a lot to do with it, and this year's rule changes (to do with tyres, engine, aerodynamic downforce and any number of things I don't understand) meant the F1 teams had to start all over again, so the ones in the lead lost their advantage. He gives me a brief history of F1. In the days of James Hunt and Niki Lauda, then Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, there were only a few genuine contenders. Many of the drivers were making up the numbers. "Some paid to be there." Nowadays Button reckons most of them could win the championship with the right car and team. "Now nobody pays to race, and you're qualifying on pole by half a tenth of a second." He thinks the rival Red Bull car this year is faster than the Brawn. But even if you did have a vastly superior car, you still have to beat your team-mate - which he has done consistently this year.Surely formula one would make more sense if all the drivers drove the same car? Then we'd really know who was best. "Well, the sport wouldn't exist," he says. Why not? "Because you wouldn't have any manufacturers involved." Ah, money - always at the heart of F1. But wouldn't he enjoy it as a sportsman if they all started on a level footing? "Yeah, I would. Yeah. It would be enjoyable. And a lot of us have been in that form of racing before. People would find it fun, but that's not what formula one is. It's not an individual sport, it is a team sport. That's why we have the constructors' championship as well as the drivers' championship." It's such a paradoxical beast, F1 - the most individualistic of sports wholly reliant on hundreds of anonymous mechanics; the ultimate form of racing where it is often impossible to overtake and the winner is predetermined on the practice laps. No wonder Button likes the simple escapism of the triathlon.I notice a tiny tattoo on his arm. Is that a wheel? He laughs. "No, it's a button." Has he got a Jensen car on the other arm? "No, I've got Jenson. That's down here in Japanese." He lifts his T-shirt to show off the elegant calligraphy on his stomach. "My girlfriend did it. She did the writing, and they transferred it on." Is it correctly spelt? "She's Japanese, mate, she pays attention to detail." He corrects himself. "Half-Japanese, half-Argentine - everything is Japanese, except the bottom which is Argentine. The attitude is Japanese. She's very calm, very respectful, but also has a stong personality." Jessica Michibata is a model (of course) and writes a monthly column on cinema in the Japanese press. They started going out in December, and he is clearly besotted with her. When he's not on the phone to her (she is poorly, and he's applying long-distance TLC in great dollops), he can't stop talking about her. "I love all things Japanese - especially my girlfriend." We're driving past Casino Square and more Porsches and Ferraris ("Nice place to park, mate. Really good! Really good!!") and he's thinking of the future. He definitely wants children. "I need kids. I need to tell my kids I won races in formula one. Who else am I going to tell?" Would he encourage them to go into racing? "Definitely not. Too stressful."After nine years of struggle, has it sunk in just what he's achieved in three short months? Well, he says, he has to win the world championship before he can regard it as an achievement, but yes. "Winning is a lot more sweet when it's been difficult before, that's for sure. When I get into that car, I smile every time I close my helmet."• Jenson Button is racing in the Turkish grand prix tomorrow.Jenson ButtonBrawnFormula oneMotor sportguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Vettel pips Button to Turkish GP pole

• Sebastian Vettel beats Jenson Button on final lap in Istanbul• Lewis Hamilton suffers oversteer and finishes a lowly 16thRed Bull's Sebastian Vettel claimed pole position for the Turkish grand Prix ahead of Brawn GP's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello in this afternoon's qualifying session at Istanbul Park.The 21-year-old German driver left it until the final lap to post his fastest time of 1min 28.316secs and denied Button a hat-trick of starts from the front of the grid.It is the third pole of the 21-year-old German's career, with both his victories to date coming from the front of the grid, in Italy last year and China this season."It's quite a surprise to be quickest in all three sessions, but finally we have made it and we are ahead of the white cars," said Vettel. "It's been quite an effort by the team because we had some parts arrive late, but they've fixed them on and we've made it."The 2008 champion, Lewis Hamilton, had another afternoon to forget as he continued to struggle with his car which former constructor Eddie Jordan described as "simply hopeless, possibly the worst McLaren have ever designed".Hamilton struggled with his steering at corner eight and spun out of qualifying on the first round. He will start tomorrow's grand prix facing an uphill battle from 16th on the grid."Welcome to my world," said Hamilton in a rare display of gallows humour. "It's the car. It has got slower and slower throughout the weekend as the track has got hotter. It looked great yesterday, but this morning it didn't look fantastic."I don't think we should rush anything. It's better we take our time to refine it. It's not like we can claw back 60 points [in the championship]."Vettel's Red Bull team-mate, Mark Webber, will start the race fourth on the grid, ahead of Toyota's Jarno Trulli and the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.Leading grid positions after qualifying1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1min 28.316secs, 2 Jenson Button (Gbr) Brawn GP 1:28.421, 3 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Brawn GP 1:28.579, 4 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:28.613, 5 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 1:28.666, 6 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:28.815, 7 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:28.858, 8 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 1:29.075, 9 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 1:29.191, 10 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 1:29.357, 11 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:27.521, 12 Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams 1:27.629, 13 Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota 1:27.795, 14 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren 1:28.207, 15 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:28.391, 16 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 1:28.318, 17 Nelson Piquet Jr (Bra) Renault 1:28.582, 18 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:28.708, 19 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India 1:28.717, 20 Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:28.918Formula oneMotor sportLewis HamiltonMcLarenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

McLaren turn attention to next season

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh has confirmed his team are already ploughing considerable resources into ensuring Lewis Hamilton has a car to hopefully again become a title contender next year.

Lewis Hamilton Q&A

Button ''never forgot why he was there'' The McLaren Mercedes MP4-24 did not agree with the layout of the Istanbul Park during the Turkish Grand Prix weekend...  

Hamilton to stay positive at Silverstone

Lewis Hamilton may be enduring his most wretched period behind the wheel of his McLaren, but that will not stop him from adopting an all-guns-blazing approach at Silverstone next week.

Hamilton all but concedes the F1 title

• 'We are getting better but we're just not as quick as the Brawns'• Turkey and Silverstone circuits will not suit the McLarensLewis Hamilton has virtually conceded his formula one world championship title and is putting his support – and possibly his money – behind Jenson Button. Hamilton insists he will fight for every remaining point but admits he has a near-impossible task to catch up on the Brawn driver.Hamilton currently trails Button by 42 points with six of the 17 grands prix completed. This time last year he was celebrating winning his first Monaco grand prix and taking the lead in the world title standings, but this time around it was Button who won in Monte Carlo while Hamilton crashed in practice and could only manage 12th place in the race."I doubt very much whether I can fight for the championship now, but I'll keep pushing and we'll see what happens. I won't give up. I'm ready to fight another day in Turkey because bit by bit we are getting better, but we're just not as quick as the Brawns," Hamilton said."Jenson and the Brawn team are doing a fantastic job this year. Clearly he is in the best position to win the championship. All the best to him. I'd definitely put my money on him."Although Hamilton had a strong car in Monaco due to the slow corners, the high-speed circuits of Turkey and Silverstone next month will probably find the McLaren wanting.When asked whether he was finding his pace again, Hamilton replied: "No, don't get your hopes up. It's not the case, it was just Monaco. When we get to Turkey it will be an even tougher race because it's all high-speed corners, and we don't have a good car for those. It will be a similar finish to Barcelona [where Hamilton was ninth in the Spanish grand prix], but we will push to get as high as possible. I just hope my car improves and then we can start challenging for wins or some good points."Recognising this is one of those seasons that most drivers endure at some point, even world champions, he added: "It's very tough, but we all go through it. All world champions go through tough times, and that's what we're going through."Lewis HamiltonJenson ButtonFormula oneMcLarenBrawnMotor sportguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds