Jenson Button goes from stardom to eclipse

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/17/sports/SRBUTTON.1-346159.php

Jenson Button goes from stardom to eclipse

Formula One special report

By Brad Spurgeon Published: October 17, 2008



When Jenson Button joined the Williams Formula One team in 2000 at age 20, he wowed fans with exciting driving and scored points all season, becoming a rookie boy wonder much as Lewis Hamilton, his fellow Briton, would do seven years later.

Unlike Hamilton, however, who became the greatest rookie in history last season, losing the drivers' title only in the final race, and who leads the current series, Button did not win a race in his first season. He then spent several seasons in eclipse, before rising again to score podiums and a race victory.

Today, at 28, Button describes himself as being "in the middle of the pack" in terms of age, and he is still optimistic that his day will come.

In 2000, Button was straight out of Formula 3 when he joined the Williams team just before the season started. He was hired to replace Alex Zanardi, a former IndyCar champion who had failed to score any points in his return to Formula One in 1999.

Button was a quick gamble by Williams, as it waited for Juan Pablo Montoya, another Champ Car champion, to join the following year. It soon paid off, as Button became the youngest man ever to score points in Formula One when he finished sixth at the Brazilian Grand Prix, the second race of the season. He finished fourth at the German Grand Prix, and fifth in four other races, including his home race in England.


It was a fantastic year, and I couldn't have wished for anything more in my first season," Button said. "But there was no pressure on me at all because I was 20 years old. The only pressure was that if I didn't put in a reasonably good performance that year, I might not have a drive the next year, because I knew I wouldn't be with Williams."

In 2001, he was signed by Benetton, which had won the title with Michael Schumacher the previous decade. But the team was in transition after being bought by the Renault car company, and Button had poor results.

"It was tough at 21 years old and after such a good year," he said. "The car was terrible. It was so bad that I couldn't choose which end to work with, but it was my inexperience that showed in the first half of the year. Then I had a different engineer and things started getting better."

In 2002, he scored more points than his teammate, Jarno Trulli. But Renault signed Fernando Alonso for 2003 and retained Trulli, so Button had to look for another team. He joined the BAR team, which had been founded in 1999.

"It was unbelievable, the reception that I had at the team," he said. "It was a lot more homely environment than the other two teams and willing to help, which was great."

Still, earning the respect of his new teammate, Jacques Villeneuve, was tricky.

"He was never going to be an easy teammate to have, and very outspoken," Button said. "But he was feeling a little bit uncomfortable, I think, with the new boy coming into a team that he had built up around him.

"That was quite an exciting year for me after having one very bad year at Benetton and then one better year at Renault," he added, "and then stepping forward again and out-qualifying and getting more points than Jacques Villeneuve who was a world champion a few years back."

In 2004, Villeneuve left the team and Button was joined by Takuma Sato. Together they scored 10 podiums - nine for Button, whose future looked golden again. But during that summer of 2004, Button announced that he would return to Williams the next year, although he was still contracted to BAR.

BAR took the case to the sport's contract recognition board and won. Button had to stay at BAR. In 2005, he signed a contract to rejoin Williams in 2006, but then suddenly decided that he wanted to stay with BAR. Another battle ensued, but this time with Williams. BAR bought him out of that contract for $30 million, and signed him to a multiple-year, multimillion-dollar contract.

There was method to Button's apparently capricious behavior. He said he had been "chasing after a car manufacturer team." When it looked like Honda was not committed to BAR, he turned to Williams, which was backed by BMW. Then he learned that BMW was leaving Williams and that Honda would buy BAR in 2006. So he turned to BAR again.

"I think certain people in the sport realize that the first person you've got to think about is yourself," he said. "What's the point of going to Williams if they weren't going to win a race again? You want to win, you have to be selfish."

Indeed, Williams has not won a race since 2004, while Button scored Honda's first victory, at the Hungarian Grand Prix, in 2006. It was a rain-soaked race, and Button drove majestically to capture his first triumph after 113 races.

"We had to start 14th on the grid, and then on Sunday we won the race - it was a great race to win and obviously difficult conditions," he said.

But the following year, in 2007, Honda fell to eighth in the championship. This season, it is second to last, and Button is 18th in the drivers' series, with 3 points.

"I think he has under-performed his potential from where he was aiming at," said Martin Brundle, a former driver and now a commentator on British television. "Let's face it, Jenson should have been in a McLaren or a Ferrari now. And he's not. He's sort of at the back of the grid. He's clearly fast, got a lot of skill."

But Brundle said it is not too late, if Button made the right choices from now on.

"I don't feel that I'm old at 28, I'm still in the middle of the pack," Button said. "I won't be around when I'm 36, but that is not because of the racing, I love the racing. It's because of some of the other stuff that goes with it. I just wish I had a competitive car to be fighting it out at the front, but that's the aim in the next couple of years."


Go Button!