FORMULA ONE:JENSON BUTTON did much more than just notch up his first win as a McLaren driver in Australia on Sunday, surprising the critics who said it would be a big mistake to join the team.
In stepping up alongside the likes of Alain Prost and the late Ayrton Senna, the Formula One world champion also challenged conventional wisdom and popular perception.
“Every win is special, because you work so hard to achieve it, but Sunday was a bit different for me,” the 30-year-old said on the day after his Melbourne triumph.
“Obviously, it feels great to win for a new team, but . . . to know I’m joining a list of McLaren drivers that includes people like Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna is still something that is hard to take in. I’ve won a race for the same team as Alain Prost. It’s quite incredible.”
Button was supposedly the journeyman who lucked in last year to take the title before joining the team that fellow-British driver Lewis Hamilton had made his own – a “Lions’ Den” where he would surely end up mauled.
Former champions and leading lights warned him before the start of the season that he was making a mistake in leaving his comfort zone at Brawn, now the Mercedes team of Michael Schumacher.
The odds on him winning in Australia – 14 to 1 from Ladbrokes last week compared to 5 to 1 for 2008 world champion Hamilton – were generous.
Button made his point by using his racing brain in a move that Prost, the French “Professor” who won four titles and beat team-mate Senna to the championship at McLaren in 1989, would have been proud of.
He was first to pit for slick tyres on a still-wet surface, making the call himself, and his famed smoothness at the wheel then allowed him to complete the next 51 laps on the same set.
“I think that was probably Jenson’s finest grand prix victory as a . . . drive of great confidence, great commitment and courage,” former McLaren driver and race winner John Watson said.
The comparison, and not for the first time, to Prost is fitting. The Frenchman was a master of racecraft, a driver whose skill at saving his tyres and brakes could translate into victory over opponents in quicker machines.
Button showed on Sunday that he is Formula One’s modern epitome of a smooth operator, both on and off the track. His move does not look so unwise now, and he could ultimately prove to be more of a Daniel calmly taming the lions than a sacrificial victim.
By ensuring he and not Hamilton is McLaren’s first winner of the season, the Englishman landed a telling psychological blow that could reverberate for months to come.
While Button sprayed the champagne and embraced mechanics, Hamilton was left fuming at a team strategy decision to bring him in for a second pitstop that he had slammed over the car-to-pit radio as “a fricking terrible idea”.
That will be patched over no doubt°, but Hamilton, a special talent who drove a quite sensational race full of overtaking on Sunday, will have to face up to the fact that McLaren is no longer “his” team.
Button has won sooner than anyone expected, against rivals in quicker cars and on a level playing field with Hamilton.
He is now one of just two drivers on the starting grid to have won races for three separate teams, the other being Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
“I really think this underlines that not only are we competitive, but we’re very well integrated,” said Button to ram home the point that he feels very much at home with McLaren.
“As a team we can trust and rely on each other and we can build on those strengths.”
Meanwhile, a senior Australian transport official said Hamilton had put people’s lives in danger when police stopped him for a driving offence near the Albert Park circuit.
Hamilton, who came sixth in the Australian Grand Prix, had his Mercedes impounded by police and is expected to be charged for “improper” driving after spinning out the car’s rear wheels at an intersection in sight of police on Friday.
Tim Pallas, the roads minister for the state of Victoria, was being interviewed by a radio station yesterday about a government-backed advertising campaign to educate young people about driver safety, in which the advertisements feature the slogan: “Don’t be a dickhead”.
Pallas was asked by the radio host about Hamilton’s conduct.
“He’s certainly a very silly young man, quite frankly,”
Pallas said. “Come on, you’re the one who’s using the language. Is he a dickhead?” the host pressed.
“Well, yes okay, I’ll say it, he’s a dickhead.”
2010 Formula One Calendar
March 14th BahrainBahrain International Circuit, Sakhir
March 28th AustraliaAlbert Park Circuit, Melbourne
April 4th MalaysiaSepang Circuit, Kuala Lumpur
April 18th ChinaShanghai Circuit
May 9th SpainCircuit de Catalunya, Barcelona
May 16th MonacoCircuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo
May 30th TurkeyIstanbul Park
June 13th CanadaCircuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal
June 27th SpainValencia Street Circuit
July 11th EnglandSilverstone Circuit
July 25th GermanyHockenheimring
Aug 1st HungaryHungaroring, Budapest
Aug 29th BelgiumCircuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Spa
Sept 12th ItalyAutodromo Nazionale Monza
Sept 26th SingaporeMarina Bay Street Circuit
Oct 10th JapanSuzuka Circuit, Suzuka
Oct 24th KoreaKorean International Circuit, Yeongam
Nov 7th BrazilAutódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo
Nov 14th UAE DhabiGP Yas Marina Circuit
