THE MOTOR SPORT INTERVIEW

The 2009 F1 champion rarely ducks a challenge, which is why his CV includes rallycross, car development and punditr y. As he tells us, there are still some invitations he’d find hard to turn down

Jenson Button MBE, or ‘JB’ as he’s known on Planet F1, did not have a job in the winter of 2008. A year later he was world champion, having won six of the first seven races of the 2009 season. His team, Brawn GP, won the constructors’ title in its first and only year in the sport. You simply could not make this up, a momentous and unique achievement that’s a chapter of its own in motor racing history.

GRAND PRIX PHOTO

The boy from Frome, who began as a kart racer for fun, is now ‘retired’, living in Los Angeles and busier than he’s ever been. A quick summary of what keeps this man busy includes JBXE, his Extreme E team, Nitro Rallycross in the USA, the renaissance of Radford cars, Team Rocket with ambitions of a Le Mans car, Sky TV punditry and a newly discovered love of racing historic cars. He’s a hard man to pin down but Motor Sport caught up with him between transatlantic flights, ‘Button International Inc’ business meetings and grands prix on Sky. The topics, as you might expect, are many and varied.

Motor Sport: Like so many F1 drivers you honed your skills in karting and your father spent a lot of time developing your talent.

JB: “Yes, he did. He was such a great ‘racing dad’ because he was never pushy, not forceful at all. I felt lucky that I was going kart racing in the first place. I mean I was just this kid from Frome in Somerset and I never thought I’d have this opportunity. I always enjoyed it but then as a teenager I was changing a lot mentally, going through all the stuff you do at that time. I really didn’t have my eye on the ball, and I was struggling to focus on the racing. There were a lot of other things going on. I was missing out at school, I was missing my mates. So, you know, my performances just weren’t happening.

“I heard Dad tell my mum, ‘I don’t think he’s got what it takes’“

“One day, on the way home in our van, Dad thought I was asleep and I heard him tell my mum, ‘I don’t think he’s got what it takes, the extra bit that’s needed.’ I didn’t tell him I’d heard that until I won the world championship in Brazil in 2009. He was devastated, cried his eyes out, but what he’d said definitely helped me in my career. To my face, Dad had always said, ‘You know what, if karting isn’t what you want to do right now we can take a break from it or stop.’