MOTOR SPORT MONACO GRAND PRIX:ON THURSDAY in Monaco, basking not just in the warm glow of the Mediterranean sunshine but also in the 14-point lead he holds in the race for the Formula One drivers' title, Jenson Button smiled when asked about how his focus has changed in recent months. "I'm probably a right boring bastard at the moment, I really am," he said. "I'm always thinking about the racing, it's always running through my mind."

It is a one-track mental state the 29-year-old Englishman probably appreciates more than any other on the grid at the moment.

Six months ago Button’s mind was in much greater turmoil. Just before Christmas camera crews followed him as he toured the factory of his Honda team, on the morning after the Japanese team had announced its withdrawal from the championship. As Button pressed the flesh of team members and offered encouraging words, it wasn’t just their jobs that were disappearing in the fog of fear from Japan, but Button’s too.

Then, the British driver was a spent force. Five fruitless seasons at the team run by Honda had seen Button’s stock plummet, from being the great white hope of British Formula One to being, in the wake of the arrival of the seemingly preternaturally gifted Lewis Hamilton, a forgotten man, exiled from the back page headlines to occasional mentions in society columns dedicated to whichever pop starlet or minor noble he was dating at the time.

Toiling fruitlessly at the back of the grid in a sequence of misfiring Hondas, Button had become that most tired of motor racing clichés, a driver seemingly more at home in the social whirl of his identikit Monaco residence than at the cutting edge of the grid on the circuits of the F1 calendar.

But Formula One’s fickle nature often extends beyond paddock opinion and into the racing regulations that govern the sport. A management buyout just weeks before the start of the new season seemed an unhappy resolution, and though Button’s immediate future was secure, the prevailing view was that Brawn GP would arrive simply to make up the numbers.

Rule change, though, is a capricious thing. With the rules cast the previous season, Honda had given up on it’s 2008 challenger, a hideous failure, early and devoted all its resources to its 2009 challenger, a car that would maximise the potential contained in the new regulations. Some interpretations would sail close to the legal wind, but come Australia and Button, forlorn, forgotten and for most a failed experiment, flew.

And coming to Monaco, Button now rules almost as champion elect, at least in the eyes of some of his rivals.

“It is true that if Jenson keeps winning maybe here or Turkey for some guys like us, like Ferrari, like McLaren maybe the championship is over,” said Renault’s double world champion Fernando Alonso.

If that is a qualification of Brawn GP’s engineering potency in interpreting the rules it is also a vindication of Button as driver.

Button has spoken eloquently of the pain he endured running at the back of the grid with a 2008 car he described as “hideous” in the wake of his first win this year in Australia. Three more wins from the first five races add to Button’s rehabilitation. Outqualifying team-mate Rubens Barrichello four times also marks the Englishman out as a talent reborn. And the Brawn driver acknowledges the rejuvenation.

“It feels good that people think I am a contender for the championship,” he said recently. “It’s always been there, but I never had anywhere near the equipment I deserved. I have been ready to deliver for many years. You do get better with age. I’m 29-years-old, but I am still young. I feel as excited as I did when I drove that Williams for the first time. The difference is, I now have the experience of nine years in F1. I’m ready.”

The anticipation could crystallise tomorrow on the streets on his adopted home town. A fifth win would move Button into a massively dominant position in the championship, with 51 points and the season already a third done. Not only that, but a Monaco win, the ultimate driver’s prize would serve as a significant waypoint on Button’s long journey back from oblivion.