Jenson Button was standing at an airport baggage claim in late 2008 when he got a call that the F1 team he drove for was shutting down, and he’d lost his ride. He soon signed with Brawn GP, a team that only existed for one year, 2009 — then drove to his first and only championship in a season many call an F1 fairytale. Does he ever step back and go: “That was me — I won the fairytale season”?
“No,” Button told Motorsport. “Because it wasn’t a fairytale season. It was one of the toughest years of my life.”
Button won six of the first seven F1 races in 2009, accounting for more than a third of the 17-race season. He didn’t win another race that year, but held onto the points lead to take the title. Button said the season was “great at the start,” but quickly, anything less than perfection became a disappointment.
“You always want to do better,” Button said. “So even after winning three races, not being quickest in a practice session was a failure. Not being on pole in qualifying was a failure.
“I got to the point where I put so much pressure on myself after those seven races, [if] I got to a race where the car didn’t work, I couldn’t get the best out of it. My head was in the wrong place already. Everything was a failure apart from a win, whereas I should have been at the point where: ‘Well, we’re not quickest, but I got to get the best out of the car, and finishing on the podium is still a win because people aren’t really taking many points off of us.’”
Button, 44, is 15 years older now, and more than a decade clear of his full-time F1 career. (We spoke during the debut of a special Mobil1 livery for his Hertz Team Jota LMDh car, his recent years having taken him to WEC.) But when Button looks back at his Formula 1 era, he thinks he’d handle that pressure “a hundred times better” today, and sees similar patterns in this new era of young drivers.
“I feel that a lot of drivers that have gone into F1 expecting great things,” Button told Motorsport. “If it hasn’t happened immediately, their head drops.
“I think trying to control your emotions and get your head in the right space is very difficult for youngsters in motorsport, and it’s very easy for them to do a year in the sport and get thrown out. That’s it, game over. Where do you go from there? It’s very difficult to pick yourself back up from that point.”
To hear Button dig deeper into the perils of getting a seat too young, the downside of being a “smooth” driver, the real story behind his harrowing helmet malfunction during the 2004 German Grand Prix, and more, watch the full episode of Behind the Visor below or on YouTube.
Watch: Jenson Button Breaks Down His Biggest Racing Moments