“I kind of struggled with”– Jenson Button talks about his initial struggles after retiring from Formula 1 as he lost his sense of purpose.
Jenson Button had a decorated career in Formula 1, winning the championship with Brawn in 2009 and getting multiple wins with McLaren before retiring at the end of 2016.
Button reappeared in F1 for the Monaco GP to replace McLaren’s unavailable Fernando Alonso and soon raced in the Super GT series in Japan, winning the championship, but in the following year, he saw a rough patch leading to an end to his racing career.
“When I stopped racing in F1, I raced in Japan for a couple of years, which is great,” said Button on the High-Performance Podcast. “Then I stopped racing in Japan, and for six months, it’s nice, relaxing, and we have children.
“But I kind of struggled with, ‘What am I going to do next?’ Something that was going to give me that adrenaline, that excitement to build something real and I struggled.”
“I was working with sponsors, which was great, and obviously working with Sky Sports, but I didn’t have that thing to sink my teeth into that I could really make a big change.”
The new innings have worked wonders
Button, after racing, then switched to other projects related to broadcast and also has a team in the Extreme E racing, which he apparently enjoys a lot.
“I spoke to a good friend and Ant Anstead and Mark Stubbs, who’s a car designer, and we came up with the idea to take over Radford coachbuilding,” continued Button.
“That’s what I’ve been doing over the last year or so, working with those guys working on a TV series, but also working on developing these wonderful coach-built cars.”
“I’m basically the driver part of it, I’m the test driver. So I’m building something that I would love to drive every day. I think if I can do that if I can develop something that works for me, I think it works for everyone.”
“That was my big strength in motor racing, developing a car that would really work for me. So I’m loving it. It’s such a fun project and we’re working with Lotus on the first car.”
“They’ve been fantastic working with our engineers and using their chassis to develop our coach-built body for it and the interior. So it’s awesome and we’re announcing our first car later this year, which should be fun.”
“But along with that, there is a lot going on. Working with Lotus, also with cycle brands last year and building bikes together. Extreme E with Lotus Engineering, learning a lot about electric vehicles and how we can develop them for the future.”
“The Extreme E team is doing very well, much better when I’m not driving!”
