Jenson Button’s pretty face turned a shade of green last month after the Bahrain Grand Prix as the world’s press raced past in pursuit of the latest bright young thing in the Formula One playground. These are testing times for the British driver, who will attempt to secure his first top-ten finish of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on Sunday. Not only does his bruised ego have to deal with the fêting of Lewis Hamilton, the impressive McLaren Mercedes rookie, but he has also had to endure yet another torrent of facile criticism.
Some seem to regard the 27-year-old as sport’s youngest has-been, equating his failures in the opening three grands prix with a lack of focus, a deficit of ambition and, in one pompous piece of theorising, an absence of “human endeavour”.
What the armchair detractors fail to understand is that you could stick the lovechild of Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna in the Honda RA107 and he would not win a damn thing, not even a smile from one of the Formula One glamour girls.
Some blame Button for the abject state of his car – but where do a driver’s responsibilities begin and where do they end? Is it about driving consistently, testing frequently and providing detailed feedback to the boffins as they go about their endless simulations? If so, there is little doubt that Button is doing his duty.
Nick Fry, Honda’s principal, recently described Button as “the ultimate professional”, and fellow drivers such as Anthony Davidson say that, despite the media caricature of an easily distracted playboy, Button is now totally focused.
This, however, is not enough for those who have it in for Button. They argue that he should adopt the Schumacher modus operandi, getting involved in every area of the team’s efforts to the extent of hiring and firing the backroom staff. “If Schumacher was driving for Honda,” they whisper, “the car would not be like that.” But this is Formula One’s most conspicuous red herring. Those in the know will tell you that Schumacher’s role at Ferrari was unique and that it is not possible, or even desirable, for all drivers to, in effect, lead the team. Censuring Button for failing to haul the dysfunctional Honda operation – based in two continents – into the sunlit uplands is absurd.
As James Allen, the ITV commentator, put it: “It is not Button’s fault that Honda have produced a car that he cannot do anything with. He is a hard-working professional and one of the three or four best drivers in the world. The engineers at Honda took a risk and shot for the moon, but they missed.” Mike Gascoyne, the chief technical officer at Spyker, concurs. “It is nonsense to blame Jenson for the state of his car.” he said. “Those who do so simply do not understand the nature of the relationship between drivers and technicians.”
The irony surrounding Button’s supposed lack of ambition is that he coughed up £10 million to buy himself out of a contract with Williams in 2005 because they had lost an engine deal with BMW. The youngster made the calculation (shared by many experts) that he would be better served by staying with Honda and backed that judgment with his own cash.
“I believe he can be the world champion. He has the talent to do that,” Sir Jackie Stewart, the former world champion, said. “He’s fast, strong and nothing disturbs him.” Jacques Villeneuve, formerly a critic, said: “He is at least as good as Kimi Raikkonen.” Such respected voices corroborate the evidence of one’s own eyes when witnessing Button’s feather-light touch on the wheel and elegant lines on the track.
Things looked to be hotting up midway through last season after Button won his maiden grand prix in Hungary and clocked up more points in the last few races of the season than all but three of his rivals. Many suggested that Button had done the right thing to stay with Honda and that, if they produced the right car this season, the young man from Frome, Somerset, might be on the verge of living up to the Hamilton-like hype that greeted his entry into the paddock in 2000.
Instead Button finds himself the victim of an engineering blunder and the further ignominy of being unfairly blamed for it. It is like sticking Lester Piggott on a mule and giving him a hard time.
In the circumstances it is surprising that Button is not in more of a huff. He knew as he boarded the plane for Australia for the opening grand prix in March that his early season was headed for disaster even before it had begun. And yet he has laboured with the kind of resolve that critics say was conspicuous by its absence during his early years in Formula One.
The time is ripe for Button to do something special: he has served his apprenticeship, ground out more than 120 grands prix and learnt from his rookie mistakes. But in the world of fast and erratically moving technology it is far from easy to be in the right car at the right time. Formula One has never been a meritocracy. What the young Brit needs is that little dash of luck that has so far eluded him.
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