Why I was wrong (or perhaps why I was still right...)

Thanks a lot Jenson. Way to go and spoil my previous blog post (see 7^th November 09). And after I was so nice to you as well.

Two weeks ago this blog praised the selfless Button in reaction to his crowning as Formula 1 World Champion. The fact he’d taken an enormous pay cut and stayed loyal to his team through difficult times led to me and many others applauding his altruism and lauding his deserved success.

And of course last week he made the post look very foolish in contradicting all that was written by signing for McLaren, a rival team, for a much more lucrative salary.

There certainly seemed to be some sourness coming from his former team, Brawn GP, who have forbidden him from making any appearances for his new employer until his contract expires at the end of the year. Nick Fry, one of Button’s bosses, said in a statement: “Clearly loyalty would be nice, but in this day an age you don’t expect too much of that…we don’t see the logic of the decision.”

Evidently, then, the rose-tinted views expressed were far too optimistic and Button is the no different from all of the other multi-millionaire, greedy sporting stars.

Or is he?

Suggestions made by the press and Button himself in interviews state that he will actually earn less at McLaren than he would have done remaining at Brawn, who were understandably keen to give him a pay rise. Not only that but Brawn’s low-budget operation was last week bought out by Mercedes, so no longer are they the plucky underdogs but have potentially massive financial backing. Button stayed through the hard times and acknowledged that he was leaving the team on good terms while looking for a new challenge.

In addition, by signing for McLaren, Button pits himself against former champion Lewis Hamilton, widely regarded as the fastest man in the sport and for whom the team is organised around. Button faces a huge task in trying to beat Hamilton in ‘his’ team, whereas most were expecting him to stay put in the comfort of familiar settings. By doing so Button is leaving his comfort zone far behind him and has his reputation as one of the racing élite to uphold; failure would inevitably render him as a ‘one-season’ wonder that got lucky.

So maybe Jenson will keep proving us all wrong for a little longer yet. Just don’t necessarily believe everything that you read.

Why Jenson Button's success is a good thing for society

Say what you will about Formula 1 drivers, Jenson Button’s crowning as World Champion last month in Brazil is undoubtedly one of the good news stories of the year. I would go as far as to say it’s not just a good story for fans of British sport, it’s a great story for society as a whole.

During last winter Button received a phone call from his manager which effectively told him that he was out of a job, unemployed. His team, Honda, had pulled out of the sport, the global economic crisis rendering the running of an expensive Formula 1 team unviable. It probably additionally had an awful lot do with the fact that its cars had spent the last two years embarrassingly running at the back of the field.

From its ashes emerged the Brawn Grand Prix team, receiving last minute backing from a number of parties (including Honda themselves) headed by team manager and technical director Ross Brawn. Money was tight; one of the most poignant moments from Brazil was Brawn dedicating the success to the some 250 members of staff who had been made redundant following the downsizing of the workforce.

In my last blog I voiced my distaste for the avarice of the world’s bankers, keen to pay themselves vast amounts for achieving seemingly little. In regards to Button, it made me think back to an interview he did on BBC’s Top Gear. When speaking to Jeremy Clarkson he stated with some vehemence that he’d trade all of his millions for a World Championship in an instant, “100%”.

Yeah right, we all thought.



And yet, to some extent that is what he did. Button’s (admittedly very high) salary was slashed in order to get the new team onto the grid for the first race in Australia in March. In 2008 he was paid around £8million – a staggering amount yes, but on a par with other top sportsmen around the world. In 2009 it is believed he took a 70% pay cut, credited with being one of the biggest reductions in wages in sporting history. He could have left to join other teams but his loyalty meant he wanted to see things through.

And the rest, as goes the cliché, is history.

After dominating, completely and utterly, the first half of the season – winning six of the first seven races (a feat only matched by the all-time greats that were Alberto Ascari and Michael Schumacher), he eventually crawled over the line following an incredible drive from the near the back of the grid to finish fifth and take the title in Brazil.

There are those who discredit the sport as being boring and processional (often fairly) and unfair and unreflective of talent given the differing performances of the cars. ‘Button only won because he had the best car’. But the driver who accumulates the most points at the end of a season is always a worthy champion and in answer to the critics who allude to machine being the quantifier of success, why is it that the best drivers always end up driving the best cars? This is unquestionably no coincidence.

Though he may have been seen as a ‘playboy’ in his early twenties, Button was merely doing what any multimillionaire male icon would do in that position. It is to his credit that he matured as a person, most markedly in the years when given woeful equipment during which he did not lash out publically against his colleagues. He remained patient and was justly rewarded when he was finally given a race-winning car.

Are racing drivers overpaid? Perhaps, but they earn no more than the top football and baseball players and are far more personable and approachable than athletes in those sports. It is easy to forget too that they risk their lives on every occasion that they step into their vehicles, as we were starkly reminded by Felipe Massa’s terrifying accident in Hungary from which he was lucky to survive. Equally they are the fittest of nearly all sportsmen – you or I could only survive a few laps of the immense forces the drivers are subjected to (a fighter pilot experiences g-forces of up to 5g for 90 seconds at a time – a Formula 1 driver does likewise for up to 2 hours at a time).

He may not win Sports Personality of the Year. In all probability he won’t win another world title. But the next time we roll our eyeballs at the spoilt and greedy behaviour of a footballer, banker or even politician, we could do worse than to think of the example of Jenson Button.