Jenson Button enjoys race of a lifetime
Jenson Button produced the drive
of his life last week to claim the Formula One drivers’ World
Championship with a race to spare. The 29-year-old Briton, starting back
in fourteenth place on the grid, took to the Interlagos circuit in São
Paulo like a man possessed to finish fifth in a dramatic Brazilian Grand
Prix.
 With Rubens Barrichello, his Brawn GP team-mate and main rival,
slipping from pole position to eighth place and Sebastian Vettel
finishing no better than fourth, it was enough for Button to take the
champion’s mantle from Lewis Hamilton and become the tenth British
driver to reach the pinnacle of motor sport. “This race, for me, was the
best I’ve driven in my life,”
Button said. “I know it’s because of the emotion involved with it,
but also because I knew I had to make it happen.” In a voice strained
from shouting and screaming in the cockpit and then in the garage with
his team, Button added: “It’s great to be sat here as world champion.
I’ve been the best over 16 races and that’s what world championships…”
Over ten years in Formula One, Button has faced regular criticism
from those who said he was a mere playboy who lacked the stomach for a
fight in the toughest series that motor racing offers. But yesterday,
around the classic track at Interlagos, he silenced his critics once and
for all with a series of beautifully executed passing manoeuvres. The
grand prix was won by Mark Webber for Red Bull.
 After the race, an ecstatic Button climbed out of his car and began
what can only be described as a victorious rampage around the paddock,
celebrating with his mechanics, his race engineers, his father, John,
his manager and his childhood friends from Somerset, who were there to
see his moment of triumph.
The champion was being saluted up and down the pitlane, with Hamilton
offering his own tribute but warning Button that he may not have the
title for more than one season. “I am very happy for him and his family,
but I’m definitely planning on getting it back from him at some stage,”
he said. For Ross Brawn, Button’s team principal, this marked the
culmination of an extraordinary journey in which the Honda team were put
up for sale last winter and saved by a management buyout led by Brawn
himself.
The team, based in Brackley, near Silverstone, are the first to win
both the constructors’ and drivers’ championships in their first season.
Brawn described Button’s performance as “sensational”. He said: “He was
destroyed after qualifying, but the strength of the guy is that he slept
on it and thought about it and said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to
happen.’ ”
- timesonline.co.uk
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