6 and a half years of dreaming, and now it's reality. Jenson Button... Formula One World Champion. You can't even start to imagine how fantastic that is to now say as a fact!
And to top it off, it truly is the greatest comeback story of all time. Just 11 months ago, Jens was out of Formula One. Nowhere to go, and possibly to the shadows of all the F1 drivers who never got their chance to shine. Yet here he is today, standing amongst 30 other drivers as a legend. And I'm not exaggerating.
Many, for some reason, claim Jenson Button is an unworthy, or undeserving, Champion. If there's any word to describe his championship win that begins with "un", it's "underappreciated". No one - not evenI - can even begin to comprehend the past 12 months for the man and how difficult it has been for him, apart from his team and his family.
The story begins with Frank Williams:
"The name of our new driver who will join Ralf in the BMW-Williams team this year is Jenson Button"
2000: BMW-Williams - 8th in Drivers Championship, 12 points (Best Result: 4th, Germany)
A debut season to remember. A strong debut race in Australia cut short by a mechanical failure, but made up for it by scoring his first point in Brazil the following round after Coulthard was disqualified. He would become the youngest driver to score a World Championship point until Sebastian Vettel topped him at the 2007 United States GP in his one race appearance for the BMW-Sauber team.
He stunned again by finishing 5th in his home race - only his 4th GP start. To this date, Button has only topped that finish once - in 2004.
His love of the Hockenheim circuit became rather apparent in his debut year when he finished 4th, which would end up being his highest finish for the season.
The only main notable error for Jenson Button in this year was a silly crash at Monza under the safety car, when the grid in front of him closed up and he failed to slow down. He ended up hitting the barriers on the side avoiding the cars in front, and later retiring.
Despite such a strong start to his Formula One career, Button would be replaced at Williams by Juan Pablo Montoya.
2001: Benneton - 17th in Drivers Championship, 2 points (Best Result: 5th, Germany)
Jenson Button, the guy loving life and "just driving the car on a weekend basis", got a massive shock when he joined Benneton in 2001.
It suddenly hit him that this was more than just driving the car - the package he was given was a complete disaster. Rather than numerous point-scoring races, Button would only finish one race in the points - and surprise surprise, it was Hockenheim again. Beside this, it was a rather forgetful season for the Brit.
Juan Pablo Montoya, who was Button's replacement at Williams, would win in his debut season.
2002: Renault - 7th in Drivers Championship, 14 points (Best Result: 4th, Malaysia & Brazil)
With Benneton being re-branded as Renault for the 2002 season, Button had his third different teammate in as many seasons as Giancarlo Fisichella did a straight swap with Jarno Trulli from Jordan. Numerous points finishes, including a back-to-back 4th place in Malaysia and Brazil, meant Jenson Button was right back to where he'd started in 200, but with a lot more maturity. In Malaysia though, the Brit was cruely denied a podium finish when a suspension failure allowed Michael Schumacher to pass him on the final lap of the race. Trulli was the better qualifier, but Button took the race finishes.
Again, despite a good season, Button was dropped for Fernando Alonso, who had driven for Minardi in 2001 before becoming a test driver for Renault in '02.
2003: B.A.R. Honda - 9th in Drivers Championship, 17 points (Best Result: 4th, Austria & Japan)
Another season, another teammate - this time, former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve. During the season, the Canadian described Button as a "wannabe Backstreet Boy". It was through this comment that yours truly would become a Jenson Button fan, dedicating himself to cheering on the Frome star and never changing allegiance since.
By the end of the season, Villeneuve had been eating humble pie. Button had wiped the floor with Jacques, so much so that the Candian wouldn't even participate in the final race of the season, the honour instead going to Takuma Sato, the speedy yet unreliable Japanese star, who would score points at home finishing in 6th place whilst Button equalled his best result of the season with a 4th place.
The season was marred by an injury which caused him to miss the Monaco GP after heavily crashing into the barriers coming to the Nouvelle Chicane.
Ironically again, Button's replacement at Renault - Fernando Alonso - would score his debut win in the season.
2004: B.A.R. Honda - 3rd in Drivers Championship, 85 points (Best Result: 2nd, San Marino, Monaco, Germany & China)
Up until his Championship-winning season this year, Button's 2004 campaign was by miles his greatest season of all, best of the rest behind the dominent Ferrari's of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.
The promise of a Jenson Button podium had been lingering for ages, and then in the one season alone, Jens would go on to score ten of them. His cruel luck at Malaysia 2 years prior was repaid for when he finally delivered that elisive podium position in Sepang. After that, he just couldn't stop being on the podium. In the first ever race in Bahrain he would take 3rd, and then bettered that in San Marino by finishing 2nd - and in the process, scoring his first ever pole position. The greatest race of his season happened in Monaco, where he finished less than half a second off of a race win which was taken by former teammate Jarno Trulli - who himself took his debut victory in F1 after 117 races, and ended up breaking the streak of Michael Schumacher who, until that race, had won every GP in that season. Schumacher would then go and win the next 7 races as well.
The podiums still didn't stop though - following Monaco was another duo of 3rd places (European GP at the Nurburgring and in Canada). Button would go and top his debut visit to Silverstone by finishing 4th - which to date is still his best outing at the Northamptonshire circuit - before taking a brilliant 2nd place at Hockenheim (yet again), which was most notable for two things: spending most of the race holding on to his helmet with an issue, and for his overtake of the season on Fernando Alonso.
The Belgian GP returned after a one-year hiatus, and was B.A.R.'s worst weekend of the season - it was the only one in which they scored 0 points. Sato was involed in a first-lap collision, whereas Button's tyre exploded spectacularly on the back straight, smashing in to the side of Zsolt Baumgartner's Minardi which, whilst unfortunate for the Hungarian, did save Button from suffering a large injury. This race also marked Ferrari's 700th GP start, and Michael Schumacher's last World Championship victory. Scary thought to think that was already over 5 years ago...
Button would finish the final four races of the season with three podiums - a third in Italy and Japan, and in between taking 2nd place in the inaugural Chinese GP. Strangely enough, the next time Button would finish 2nd in a race, Barrichello would win the race and Raikkonen would come third - the exact same podium as in China. This race also marked Michael Schumacher's worst ever race-finishing position in 12th.
Button's season came to an abrupt end of just three laps when his engine let go in Brazil. Nonetheless, Jenson scored in every race he finished in 2004 - a record he seems to be about to equal in 2009.
Button's year was marred however by a contract debate - the Brit wanted to move back to Williams, but David Richards was adament that Jenson was to remain at B.A.R. - to which Richards eventually won the contract to keep Jenson, and provided him with an opt-out ability: If he didn't score 70% of the Champions points by the end of the year, he could leave the team.
2005: B.A.R. Honda - 9th in Drivers Championship, 37 points (Best Result: 3rd, Germany & Belgium)
2005 was a tale of two halves. For the first time in his F1 career, Button's teammate was the same as the year before. The team simply had no clue as to what they did right in 2004, as they admitted they had no idea how the previous year's car was so good. This was evidential in their start to the campaign, with Button only managing to finish in 11th place. Retirements followed in Malaysia and Bahrain, but things looked up when Button took 3rd place in San Marino. Unfortunately, the car was found to be underweight as a result of a hidden fuel tank, and as a result the team were handed a two-race ban - meaning Button couldn't compete in Spain or Monaco, the circuit where he came so close to victory just 12 months prior. Instead, he joined Martin Brundle and James Allen for commentary of the race, where he repeatedly admitted his frustration of not being able to race.
Upon his return, the car still wasn't any better - languishing in 10th in the European GP, which he was lucky to even get as he was the car Raikkonen almost collected when the Finn had his last-lap crash. All of a sudden, an upturn in form took place when he scored pole position for the Canadian GP, and did a great job of holding off Michael Schumacher in the race until the pressure became too much as the Brit eventually crashed in to the Wall of Champions - a sign of destiny, perhaps?
The disaster weekend known as the 2005 United States GP followed, as Button was one of the 14 drivers to pull out before the race even began. After the weekend, the B.A.R. team were the only ones yet to have scored in the Constructors Championship - mainly due to the fact Minardi were assisted to a guaranteed points finish in the US race (Jordan, on the other hand, would score another point later on in the season).
Once that race finished though, Button began steaming in to the points - in fact, after the US GP, Button scored points in all of the remaining races, which included two podium finishes at - you guessed it -Germany (where Button pulled off another sweet move, this time on Michael Schumacher) and in Belgium (where he passed a Sauber around the outside of Pouhon).
Fernando Alonso - the man who replaced Button at Renault for the 2003 season - would go on to win the World Championship, and begin a sequence of Brazilian GP's that would determine the Drivers Champion which, to this day, has still not ended.
Button himself was once again caught up in contract controversy, this time because he wanted to stay with the B.A.R. team, whereas Frank Williams now had the legal rights to have the Brit on his team for the 2006 season. Button would eventually stay with the B.A.R. team, but had to pay off Frank Williams himself to the tune of £30 million.
2006: Honda - 6th in Drivers Championship, 56 points (Best Result: Win in Hungary)
In 2005, the Honda company bought out all of the remaining shares in the B.A.R. team to become Honda, one of 5 new teams in the 2006 season (alongside BMW-Sauber, Midland, Toro Rosso and Super Aguri). After years of frustration of being number 2 to Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello left Ferrari to become Jenson Button's teammate at the new Honda team. Takuma Sato, in the meantime, was saved when Aguri Suzuki created the Super Aguri team so that the Japanese star could continue in F1. He would team with the sport's biggest failure in Yuji Ide, who would last only 4 races after being too slow and too dangerous for the other drivers.
Honda had impressed in pre-season testing, and looked to be the nearest challengers to the new #1 team, Renault. During the season though, it was a different case. A fairly strong start saw Button finish 4th in Bahrain, in a race where the stories were stolen by the debut of GP2 Champion Nico Rosberg, who set the fastest lap and scored points in his first outing. Felipe Massa, who was Barrichello's replacement at Ferrari, spun out in the opening stages - almost collecting Champion Alonso - and ended up finishing out of the points.
In Malaysia, Button finished just a few seconds shy of Fernando Alonso to take 3rd place on the podium, but wasn't happy with the result believing he could've taken 2nd place. After the race, Button sat in his best ever Championship position to date, being joint 2nd with Michael Schumacher, 7 points off Alonso's lead.
Pole position beckoned for Jenson Button in Australia, but the race saw disaster strike again. Numerous Safety Car periods, and the inability to generate sufficient heat into his tyres, left Jenson a sitting duck once everyone re-started the race. Eventually, whilst fighting off Giancarlo Fisichella in the dying stages, Button's engine blew up, with him parking the car just 20 yards from the line.
A good result in San Marino was destroyed by a pit blunder, when Button would take the nozzle of the fuel rig down to the end of the pit lane with him, and could only finish 7th as a result. Despite retiring in the European GP, Button would make amends by finishing 6th in Spain.
Then things really took a turn for the worst. With the new qualifying regulations, Button failed to make the top 10 for the first time in Monaco, and only finishing the race 11th. The British GP fared even worse when he was called into the weighbridge during Q1, which didn't give him enough time to get back out on track and set a lap to get him out of the drop zone. Only a few laps in to the race, Button had an oil leak which ended his GP. Canada faired no better when David Coulthard passed Button in the final few laps to take the final points position off the Englishman. A crash on the opening lap of the US GP and a mechanical failure in the French GP just compounded misery even further.
As if someone just flicked a switch, the Honda then became competitive again, and so did Button. And where did the comeback begin? None other than Hockenheim. A strong performance saw him take 4th place, before the weekend of Button's 113th GP start. The one where people started to believe.
August 5th, 2006. Hungarian Practice Session 3, and Jenson Button suffers an engine failure, which would demote him ten places on the grid from where he qualifies. A good session sees Button qualify 4th, but he'll be starting from 14th instead.
August 6th, 2006. Hungarian GP Race Day. For the first time ever, the race in Hungary is wet. The race begins with a sublime start from both Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, the former jumping from 11th to 5th before the first corner. A few laps in, and Alonso begins picking through the field which involes a wonderful move around the outside of Michael Schumacher. Then, Jenson Button begins to pick his way through the feild, but it's clear as to who's taking this race by the horns - it's Kimi Raikkonen, with a nice lead over his teammate Pedro de la Rosa. And then Kimi hits Liuzzi.
The Safety Car comes out whilst the mess is cleaned up, and through all the carnage, Button is up to 2nd behind Fernando Alonso (after making a brilliant move on Schumi earlier). Initially, Alonso has a good re-start, but Jenson continually catches Alonso but just quite can't get past him. It's Monaco 2004 all over again. Alonso then makes his one and only stop of the afternoon. The track is drying and so it's a good move to go to the dry tyres now. Alonso comes out of the pits but slides as he gets into turn one - did he catch a puddle on those dry tyres? A few seconds later, the Spaniard is in the wall at turn 2 backwards - it was a loose nut from a rear wheel. Button is out in front with a MASSIVE lead - can Jenson really be about to win his first Grand Prix?
He comes in to his stop - knowing what happened to Alonso, the dry tyres go on with extreme caution, but they're secure and he's off again. Jenson is aided by the battle going on behind him with Schumacher and de la Rosa squabbling - eventually Pedro gets through into 2nd, but with 5 laps to go and being over half a minute behind Jenson, it looks inevitable. Schuamcher then collides with Heidfeld, which puts the challenger to Alonso's crown out of the race. No Raikkonen. No Alonso. No Schumacher. This is all about Jenson Button.
"HE'S DONE IT! JENSON BUTTON WINS THE HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX, GET IN THERE!"
Jenson Button is a race winner. kipi19 was three thousands of a second off predicting the correct winning race margain, and Redders is in tears. His favourite driver - the one that truly got him passionate for the sport - has won at last. From then on, there was no stopping him. Whilst only scoring one more podium in Brazil (ironically from 14th position), Button would score more points in the final 6 races than anyone else. Bring on 2007 and the beast of a car Honda could make with that elusive win finally scored.
2007: Honda - 15th in Drivers Championship, 6 points (Best Result: 5th, China)
Jenson Who? It's a media frenzy with Britain's new star Lewis Hamilton hogging all the attention away from Jenson Button which, given the abismal car he was given for the year, was pretty much what the doctor ordered. The downfall of the Honda team really began here with the "EarthDreams" concept - the car livery was that of the image of the Earth, with no sponsors whatsoever - Honda's main aim was to make Formula One a cleaner sport for the environment, and it hurt them big time. The car was a mess, with the only highlight being every time Button finished in the top 10 (excluding Silverstone), he scored. A rain-affected Chinese GP assisted Button to an irregular 5th for the Honda car, but it was a year to forget - Button was forgotten by the majority of the UK fans as they switched their allegiance to Hamilton who narrowly missed out on the World Championship in his debut year, and Rubens Barrichello failed to score any points all season - the first time in his career that ever happened.
2008: Honda - 18th in Drivers Championship, 3 points (Best Result: 6th, Spain)
Just when you think Button's season couldn't be any worse than 2007, Jenson then tops it off by having his worst ever season statistically in 2008. Just like 2001, Button only scores in one race the entire year as Hamilton once again dominates the sport for Britain, taking the World Championship in the most dramatic fashion imaginable. Barrichello, for the first time since teaming up with Button, has the upper hand on the Brit and does wipe the floor with him - including taking a shock podium position in Britain from 17th on the grid to 3rd in the race in atrocious conditions.
The major anticipation though was that 2009's regulations were going to face a massive overhaul, and seeing that Ross Brawn, who had returned from a year's sabbatical after leaving Ferrari, decided the best thing to do was to scrap the 2008 project (considering it would end up being a failure anyway) and focus entirely on 2009 - and in the process became the first team to do so. Initial stages looked good, as Ecclestone predicted the new Honda would be "one of the top three teams of 2009" and declaring that it would be capable of a few wins.
However, all the promise and hope died within one single announcement: Honda was to withdraw from Formula One at the end of the season. Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, and the team as a whole were to be no more unless a buyer could be found. Cue Ross Brawn and Nick Fry going through the biggest discussions of their lives, JB and RB wondering if they'll even race next year and the team working on the car in the hopes a rescue package could be made.
2009: Brawn GP - World Champion, 89 points*(Best Result: Wins in Australia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Spain, Monaco & Turkey)
* Season in progress
With three weeks to go until the Australian GP, Ross Brawn announced he and Nick Fry had worked together to make a takeover of the team, which was going to be called Brawn GP. No longer a manufacturer, the small independent team would go on to run with Mercedes power - the engine that all of a sudden for the past 2 years had become bulletproof.
Initial tests over the winter seemed to suggest the car would indeed be competitive, but even with the impressive times no one could've expected what would go down at the start of the season. Jenson Button would take pole position for Brawn GP's first ever race, and to boot Barrichello stuck it on 2nd - the order in which both cars would finish the race. a 1-2 finish for Brawn GP on their first ever race. One race it took for Brawn GP to eclipse Honda's 2008 tally by.
Another pole in Malaysia, but a poor start by Button and a storming start by Rosberg meant Jenson had to work for the win. After the first round of stops he'd given himself a pretty comfortable lead, but clouds were coming in - and then all of a sudden, the Grand Prix became a boat race - with red flags ending the GP early. Another Button victory.
China came around, and then it became rather clear - despite the diffuser advantage, the Brawn car was not competitive in the rain, but the diffuser still helped. Red Bull scored their maiden F1 win with Mark Webber finishing 2nd, all done without a diffuser. Button and Barrichello would finish 3rd and 4th respectively. This result also meant that Toyota would end up being the only team in the field that - under any disguise - had never won a Grand Prix.
That looked to be about to change when it was an all-Toyota front row in Bahrain. However, bad tactics left them falling down the grid, whereas Button - aided by a fantastic pass on Hamilton on the 2nd lap - would go on to win his 3rd race in 4 that year. This soon became 4 wins, then 5 and then 6 with victory in Spain, Monaco and Turkey. 61 points scored out of 65 that had currently been available - 2nd place in the Championship wouldn't even reach that amount of points until the Italian GP 6 races later!
By Silverstone, it was clear the teams with the bigger budgets had, or were about to, leapfrog Brawn GP in competitiveness. However, the media being what they are, decided instead it was the team going in to meltdown and that Button was panicking under the pressure of being Championship Leader - which was never the case at all. 6th place in Silverstone was the first time the whole season that teammate Barrichello had beaten Button to the finishing line and - to the date of writing this, Rubens has only beaten Jenson to the line another 4 times (Valencia, Belgium, Italy and Japan) -- hardly impressive when thought about in the bigger picture.
With the media pressing on Button to deliver a strong race (which he had done every race bar Valencia and Belgium), a slip-up on tyre choice meant Button would start the Brazilian GP from - guess where - 14th. By this time, only two people stood in his way from making the miracle comeback a reality - teammate Barrichello who started from pole, and Sebastian Vettel who was 15th. Needing a win or 2nd with Button low or out of the points, Vettel didn't exactly seem to have much chance of taking the fight to Abu Dhabi, but Barrichello had a good shot - apart from Lady Luck deserts him in Brazil, and it happened again. Button finished 5th, and with Barrichello behind him in 8th, it was all over - Jenson Button became the 31st FIA Formula One World Champion. Cue Redders in tears again. After 169 races, Button is now one of the all-time greats.
And do you know what? Look at his ten-year career in Formula One. Anyone who still says he's an undeserving World Champion now clearly doesn't appreciate all the hard work, pain and suffering he's gone through to reach the pinnacle of the mountain. This is one of the hardest-earned Championships in history.
Jenson Button, you deserve all of this glory. You deserve the smiles, the joy and happiness. And lastly, thank you for making a longtime fan feel the best he's ever felt.
...but there are some people (thank goodness none on this website) that believe Jenson Button is an undeserving World Champion in the waiting.
Case is, Button's been the one who has done the business, and in 9 days is likely to become F1's 31st World Champion, and the first World Champion in history to have had to wait over 100 races for their first GP win.
"Jenson only won at the start because his car was much better than anyone else's!"
Most people who state this also mention the diffuser issue. Whilst this above statement could be considered true, let's not forget something here: Williams and Toyota also started the season with the diffusers, but they hadn't designed the best car on the grid. You can't exactly blame Jenson for winning with a decent car when he's not the one designing it. Not to mention his first two wins this year weren't exactly easy either - Vettel and Kubica were closing on him in the final stages of the Australian GP until Vettel got too defensive and took the pair of them out, and in Malaysia a poor start meant he had to fight back to the front again, and once he took the lead was being caught by Glock and Webber - the weather being the culprit of stopping those two from catching him. China was a 1-2 for Red Bull, but Bahrain was a mastercIass in how to beat the field. In Spain Rubens just wasn't fast enough when he needed to be, and in Monaco Jenson just did the job great. Turkey could've been a whole lot different if Vettel hadn't run wide at the start but alas, Button still probably would've won.
"He's doing rubbish now, he's getting awful results all the time!"
The good people of GS would not come out with a response like this, which is always a good thing to remember, but there are the critics who will say these things that aren't as well in the know about F1 as we are. Simply, Brawn does not have the funding/R&D which the likes of McLaren, Ferrari, BMW and Renault can afford. It was always inevitable even before the start of the season that Brawn would be unlikely to be the top team by the end of the season, but still people persist to say Jenson continually has bad weekends. The case is he's only had one, potentially two, awful weekends of which were his fault: Valencia, where he could only manage 7th where Rubens drove brilliantly to win, and Spa with a qualifying effort that could've been much better.
Also, Button has the most points finishes of anyone this year - in fact, you have to go back to Michael Schumacher in 2003 for the last time a World Champion won the season failing to score at only one race in the entire season, a feat Button so far currently has. The only reason he didn't score in Spa was of a crash caused by Grosjean too - given Button jumped Barrichello off the start and Barrichello made it in the points by the end, fairly safe tosay that barring any dramatics for Jenson he would still have a 100% scoring record as we speak.
"Rubens is doing way better than Jenson!"
It took Barrichello EIGHT races just to finish a race ahead of Button. By then, Brawn was no longer the top car - it was Red Bull. Brawn was the car to beat for the first 7 races - Jenson took 61 points of a possible 65 in those 7 races, Barrichello - in the exact same car - scored just 35. Jenson was on the podium all 7 of those races, Barrichello just three times. When the opportunity was there, Rubens just simply didn't take it, and now he is beating his teammate, Button is pretty much always right behind him - in the entire season, there have only been two races where Rubens has managed to take more than 2 points out of Button's lead: Silverstone (3 points) and Valencia (8 points). Of the other three races that Barrichello has finished ahead of Button, he's only managed to take either one or two points out of him. So 15 races in to the season, Button has still finished ahead of Rubens on a count of 10-5 (and even if you take retirements in to consideration, it still lands 9-4 in Button's favour). Button has been on the podium 8 times this year, Barrichello 6. Still gonna tell me Barrichello is the better of the two overall?
"Jenson's one of the worst drivers in the field..."
Sure, we have the Hamiltons, Vettels and Kubicas in F1 now, but it was only 5 years ago that Button was considered the 4th best in the entire field, behind Schumacher, Alonso and Raikkonen. Given Schumacher is now retired, and adding the three that I mentioned earlier in to the pack, that still makes Button the 6th best on the grid - ahead of 14 other drivers on the field, which includes his teammate Barrichello. The thing is Button's technique in driving a car is much more different to anyone else's - he drives with ease and elegance, and is the least likely driver in the field to lock a tyre under braking. This way of driving means he is one of the best at managing tyre degredation, as was seen in Monaco when everyone else lost grip in their tyres but Button kept on going without a problem. The only downside to this is he can't generate the heat in his tyres as the rest of the field can because of their more aggressive approach to driving a car. That has lead to some bad downfalls during this season (noting Silverstone especially given where Barrichello finished and where Button finished), but just look at how he races - when he sniffs an opportunity, he's always been on it. In Silverstone he had a chance of beating Rosberg to the line after the final stops, and he became the fastest guy in the field. Singapore, he had the chance to jump Kovalainen and Barrichello but needed to put in some scorching laps - he did justthat and passed the pair of them.
At the end of the day, it gets rather irritating seeing so many people wanting an underdog in an underdog car winning the World Title, only for them to then say the guy who's about to do it is undeserving. Vettel has proven fast but unreliable (only one of his DNF's to date is mechanical-related, the rest are all driver errors), Webber's just taken too long to get himself in the picture, and by then it was too late, and Barrichello never took the opportunity at the start of the season when the goal was wide open to storm ahead in the Championship. The end result is Button, with only one bad weekend which was his fault in Valencia, has done a better job of this year than the rest. That's why he's at the top, and that's why he's still the odds-on favourite for the World Championship.
It's going to be one of the happiest moments of my life finally seeing my favourite driver take a well-deserved World Championship, and make a new record in the process.
And one last thing: When everyone else said Button was going to have a Schumacher-like 2002/4 season, who was the only one saying Button would actually have an Alonso-like 2006 season? Me. And I was right.
