Jenson Button is one of the remarkable F1 drivers who got the privilege of being a world champion. In one of the odd seasons entered by Brawn GP, the Briton race driver led them to the championship triumph.
After that, he joined McLaren and made an all-British lineup in a British team with Lewis Hamilton. It is rare for teams to have two world champions at their helm simultaneously.
Hamilton, who has always been at the top throughout his career, has been pitted against the best drivers in the last 15 years. However, only three of his teammates have managed to have the upper hand over him.
But only once each, never again, the same person has never managed to assert himself over him. That’s because Hamilton is ruthless and exhausting to compete against. Thus, beating him is a task, and Button has achieved that.
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How Jenson Button orchestrated a defeat for Lewis Hamilton
In three seasons together, Button finished above Hamilton in the 2011 season, with a mammoth difference of 43 points. A massive achievement considering it was for the first time that any of Hamilton’s finished above him, leave alone the massive difference.
Button himself admits that he doesn’t have the god-like talent of his compatriot. But he claims that he recognized some areas which are out of the spectrum of talent, and that’s where he decided to attack Hamilton.
“I don’t have a god-given talent like Lewis Hamilton,” said Button on the High Performace podcast. “But I can beat him because I can beat him in certain areas, whether setup with the car, the engineering, the strategy, many different areas I would perform better because I worked harder,”
He further admitted that he spent a lot of time with the team and even got the individuals backing him more in the team. He says that one can call it dirty tactics, but it’s what one can do to win within the regulations.
The dip in relations with McLaren
Next year Hamilton managed to have his redemption against Button by outscoring him in 2012. But only by two points which can only be said marginal in motorsport.
However, his ever-deteriorating camaraderie with Button also spoiled his relations with McLaren. Once Hamilton, out of frustration, even uploaded the Woking-based team’s telemetry data on Twitter, accusing them of favouring Button.
Though the data going public brought no harm to McLaren, it was certainly a breaking of trust. 2012 marked to be the last season of Hamilton in McLaren. The next season he went to Mercedes, and the rest is history.
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