Jenson Button: on top of the world after years of despair

They are the two words never exchanged between Jenson Button and John, his father, even as the prize gets within touching distance. They do not talk about winning races, never mind the two bogey words they fear might come to haunt them: world champion. They do not know why they have taken a family vow of silence - maybe it is because they worry that sometime soon the fairytale will come to an end.
It is a story better than a movie script, according to Button, with every ingredient for a feel-good thriller: the teenager whose career descends into the depths of despair, only to rise again. In Monaco on the eve of the most glamorous grand prix of all, everyone wants Button. His father was signing autographs through the catch-fencing around the paddock perimeter all day. A year ago you could not have given away free tickets to meet the Buttons. Jenson's press conferences before this race in 2008 were empty save for the tumbleweed blowing through the Honda motorhome.
Which makes this fable all the more heart-warming. There is no sign of the wicked witch yet, while Formula One pinches itself to make sure that this tale is true. Five grands prix into the Formula One season and Jenson Button - perennial loser, underachiever, the one they sniggered at and said should be a member of a boy band - has won four and is favourite to be that thing he cannot talk about: world champion.
Formula One may not be quite able to believe it, but Button and his father can, even after those long nights when Jenson would lie awake for hours, wondering where it had all gone wrong and why he was criticised with such glee by his detractors. He had to keep the faith in his ability, if no one else did. The lowest point came in 2007 as his career ebbed away and his stock was at its lowest since he burst into the sport as a 19-year-old prodigy.
“I know how good I am - I wouldn't have won four races if I wasn't good,” he said. “The important thing is that I didn't lose faith in myself. But I spent a lot of time thinking it just wasn't going to happen for me and I was never going to win this thing, that I was never going to have the chance to show the world what I could really do.
“It was getting to be more than frustration. The trouble was that the worse it got, I knew no other team would have me, so it was a vicious circle and I was starting to think it would just all fade away.”
Button would not say it, but watching Lewis Hamilton clamber into a super-fast McLaren Mercedes and win the world title within two years was rubbing salt into the wound. Button had also arrived in Formula One in a blaze of glory, spotted by Sir Frank Williams, who signed him to a long-term contract and plunged the teenager into the sport alongside the more experienced Ralf Schumacher.
Even though Button looked the part immediately and was hailed as Britain's new Formula One star, he was moved on by Williams to make way for Juan Pablo Montoya - one of the biggest mistakes of his career as a team owner, Williams has said.
After a forgettable experience with Flavio Briatore's Benetton-Renault team, Button's career was saved by David Richards, who took him to the young BAR Honda squad. Under Richards, he was brilliant, but Williams then wanted his protégé back and Button became embroiled in a contract dispute that cost an estimated £9million for Button to pay off Williams and pledge his loyalty to Honda.
By the end of last year, despite another dreadful season, all seemed set fair. Ross Brawn, the technical genius who turned Michael Schumacher into a seven-times world champion, was on board and the car for 2009 looked great. Then Honda pulled the plug.
“I had a great winter and I was really fit,” Button said. “I had been training in Lanzarote and arrived at Gatwick airport so I could visit the factory. I was standing at the carousel when Richard [Goddard, his manager] phoned to tell me Honda had pulled out. My friends knew something was wrong. I just couldn't take it in. I dropped the phone at one point.
“I went from being really positive to discovering there would be no 2009 in F1 for me. I just thought, 'What the hell are we going to do?' I had a couple of bad years in F1, so finding a really good drive after that was always going to be tough. The other option was to sit out for a year, but then you are forgotten.”
Button could easily have walked; he had signed a new three-year contract only weeks before Honda's announcement and they were obliged to pay him off if there was no team. That was £24 million on the table.
“I could have taken the money and run - because it was a lot of money,” Button said. “But what would be the point? What was I going to do with it? It was a no-brainer. Every day we were on to the team to help out as much as we could with ideas for sponsors. I tore up my contract and got on with it. I am completely happy with the decision because it has changed my life.”
Apart from taking a £5million-a-year pay cut, the new contract meant that Button has to pay all his expenses and, unlike Formula One's other 19 drivers, there are no bonuses for winning. But the deal paid off immediately where he wanted it to - on the track.
Cut to a dreary day at Silverstone and a handful of members of the new Brawn GP, underwritten with £100million for this season by Honda, are standing under a makeshift tent on a far corner of the famous circuit. A Mercedes engine, shoehorned at the last minute into the back of the plain white Brawn car with not a sign of a sponsor logo, is fired up.
“I didn't care about anything else - I just wanted to drive that car,” Button said. “There was no one around. The mechanics started it up and I just stood there watching it. We did 250 kilometres that first day and we knew. At the end of the day, Ross turned to me and just said, 'Wow. After what we have been through. What a start.'”
It was just the start. Victory at the first grand prix in Australia stunned the paddock and answered the critics who had had a field day at Button's expense over the years. Remarkably, though, Button is sanguine about the past. There is not a hint of bitterness or desire for revenge, even if Briatore recently called Button a concrete post.
“I never asked for people to feel sorry for me when times were tough and now times are good I am a very happy person and really grateful,” Button said. “When I win a race, I don't get out of the car to say, 'There you go. I have shown you.' Everybody likes to see people who have made a comeback. Because I have had to work for it so hard, because I have had to fight through it and people have said crap about me and I have stayed strong, I think people like that.
“I get out of the car when I have won and I am on top of the world because it is what I have dreamt about since I was eight years old. I used to dream I was Nigel Mansell or Ayrton Senna - I just wanted to be like them and now, when I am on the podium, I am like them. I am not trying to prove anything to anybody. It is for me and the team. I am where I want to be - at last.”
The road to riches
Jenson Button's market value has soared from zero to tens of millions of pounds in two months. From down and out of the sport to serial winner, there is a queue of sponsors wanting a piece of the hottest driver at the Monaco Grand Prix. This is how Button's numbers stack up.
£40m
Button's reputed worth after ten seasons in Formula One.
£24m
Value of the 29-year-old's three-year contract with Honda just weeks before the Japanese carmaker decided to pull out of Formula One.
£5m
The pay cut he took to stay with the new Brawn GP team, as well as agreeing to pay all his own expenses to grands prix that range from Australia to Brazil this season. He also pays for a publicist and physiotherapist, while John, his father, is at every grand prix. Button has no agent. He is looked after by Richard Goddard, a self-made millionaire.
£10m
Goddard is negotiating sponsor deals that some experts believe could be worth that much for this year alone.
£5m
Value of Little Missie, Button's luxury yacht, which is moored out of sight. Button prefers to use his 38-foot rigid inflatable boat. He uses it to go sea swimming, training for the Mazda London Triathlon in August.
£9,000
Value of the tiny SMART car that he uses when not driving at 200mph. His alternative is a scooter.
Source:The times