Introduction
 When Honda sent an email cancelling its annual media lunch, no one could have predicted the extraordinary sequence of events that took Jenson Button from despair to elation. In October 2009, Jenson crossed the finish line in Brazil to become Formula 1 World Champion with a race to spare.
When Honda Racing announced that, in the light of the global economic downturn, it would be inappropriate to take the media for an expensive lunch, it heralded the start of an exceptional turn of events. A day later came the announcement that the team was withdrawing from Formula 1 with immediate effect, much to the despair of the team’s loyal workforce, its drivers and to the man who had spent most of 2008 working on the 2009 car: Ross Brawn.
The ace engineer and strategist was confident that the car he had been working on for 2009 would be a winner and after a winter of meetings, soul-searching and wheeler-dealing, Honda Racing became Brawn GP with Mercedes engines. When the car took pole position and won first time out in the hands of Jenson Button it was the end of the first chapter, of creating a team, a car and a budget in next to no time.
But it was the start of another chapter as Jenson Button came out of the shadows to which he had been condemned in 2008. The previous season’s Honda was, in any language, a poor car. It did Jenson no favours and after his sole win in Hungary in 2006, it seemed as though he was a forgotten man, his potential, so evident in 2000 on his debut, never to be realised.
What the Brawn did was twofold: it gave Jenson a chance to remind people how good he was and it allowed his confidence to grow once more. Instead of him being asked how he felt about wunderkind Lewis Hamilton, the media wanted to know about Jenson again.
After the win in Australia came more: Malaysia, Bahrain, Spain, Monaco and Turkey all fell to the British driver and he went to Silverstone in confident mood. Here, though, in cold weather, the Brawn refused to play ball and Jenson struggled home sixth. From then on, his season was tense: he kept scoring points but no more wins and it was a case of preserving his championship lead against the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber and his team-mate Rubens Barrichello.
A stellar career in karting projected Jenson into car racing in 1998. He spent a year in Formula Ford and a year in Formula 3 before becoming a Formula 1 driver. It was amazing progress. Since then, Jenson has endured many lows and the occasional high but nothing like the rollercoaster of 2009 as he watched his championship lead ebb and flow.
In these pages, we look at Jenson’s remarkable career, talk to the people instrumental in his progress and celebrate Jenson Button, World Champion.
Contents
4 Introduction
6 Chapter 1 – Karting
18 Chapter 2 – Formula Ford
30 Chapter 3 – Formula 3
44 Chapter 4 – Williams
58 Chapter 5 – Benetton & Renault
70 Chapter 6 – BAR & Honda
84 Chapter 7 – Honda part 2
96 Chapter 8 – Winter 08/09
108 Chapter 9 – Brawn GP
128 Jenson Button statistics
130 Parting shot
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