How to Be an F1 Driver

by Jenson Button

  Then you’ve got the circuits, which are built for safety. It’s not like it used to be with a bunch of tyres stacked on top of each other. Now they’re proper safety barriers.

  So you’re in a car that’s safe, on a circuit that’s safe, surrounded by state-of-the-art apparatus whose sole function is to keep you safe. But even so, you don’t want to crash, and not just because it’s expensive and embarrassing and messes up your team’s weekend. Firstly because, well, you know, there’s always the possibility that something bad will happen, that something will go wrong and that those safety features will fail you or be insufficient. Because crashing is scary shit.

  Secondly, because fearlessness can make you a poor driver. You’re never going to finish a race if you’re a fearless – for which read ‘reckless’ – driver. ‘Mad’ Max Verstappen, for example, has gone through his period of being fearless, crashed a lot, learnt to exercise caution and come out the other side a better driver because of it. Think about Niki Lauda, who in 1976 showed unbelievable courage to return to racing just three races after the fiery accident that almost claimed his life. Reaching the last race of the season in Japan it was raining, horrific weather, and Lauda withdrew, refusing to race and in doing so handing the World Championship to James Hunt. Even someone as fearless as him understood the danger, and knew when to step back and say, ‘I’m not a superhero.’

  In brief: There’s a difference between being brave and being foolhardy, and a lot of it comes down to age and experience.

  THE TOO-LONG-DIDN’T-READ VERSION

  •Love your racing

  •Love to learn

  •Keep yourself in physical and mental shape

  •Don’t be a dick.

  DRIVING LIKE A PRO

  EVEN WHEN YOU’RE A BEGINNER

  Something I’ve realised: we’re not F1 drivers, we’re racing drivers. We love racing things. And the advantage of leaving F1 is that I have the freedom to drive other things, and that is properly awesome.

  Is it a speed thing? A boys’ toys thing? No. Don’t think so. I flew a Learjet once; the pilot let me have a go while I was renting it. The weird thing is, you turn and if you don’t pull back, the nose dips. Also when you’re turning, you’re turning from the rear, so you have oversteer the whole time, which I hate – I hate oversteer – so I was turning and the rear was turning, not the front, and it was the weirdest feeling. Ugh.

  I’ve also flown a propeller plane. I even lined it up for the runway at Guernsey, which was pretty awesome, especially as Guernsey was the intended destination. Generously, I let the pilot take the controls when we got too low.

  Other than that, no, I don’t have the urge to race planes, or boats. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got to have tyres on the road. And four of them at that. I drove a three-wheeler car once and didn’t get on with it, because I just didn’t get the right feeling from it. I drive with my bum a lot more than with my feet or hands. I feel the car with my arse, and I need two tyres on the road at the back to do that.

  All of which is a roundabout way of saying that even though I’ve left F1 – at least as a driver – I very much have not left racing. For a start, I’ve been doing a lot of karting here in LA. Will I ever be as good as I was when I was 17? No, is the answer. But I can have a laugh trying, and it’s great fun to mess with people’s expectations. After all, I’m an old geezer (I’m not really an old geezer, I’m 39, but in karting terms I’m ancient) and people don’t expect me to be quick in a kart because I’m from Formula One and the two worlds are so far apart. You don’t expect the winner of Wimbledon to be ace at ping-pong just because they both involve a ball, a net and the potential for a backhand smash.

  The bigger question for me is whether I’d really want to aim that high. To which the answer, again, is probably no. I just want to continue enjoying it and the best way for me to stop enjoying something is to start putting myself under pressure. What’s the point of escaping the intense environment of F1 just to be in another pressure cooker?

  So no, I’d like to do some club races here in America. It’ll be cool, turning up in a transit van to karting – just like the old days with Dad. I’m even getting my old Rocket colour scheme sorted for the Karts.

  Mainly, though, my actual racing job these days is Super GT.

  I’ve dropped the G-bomb a few times. ‘GT’. And if you’ve been wondering what it’s all about, read on, because in my opinion, GT Racing is the best in the world. And I’m not just saying that because in 2019 I won the Super GT Championships with my Japanese team, Team Kunimitsu. Or maybe I am. I dunno. I’ll have to give that one a bit more thought.

  Not to be confused with GT3, which is basically the supercars that you see on the road stripped out, strengthened, and with a roll cage put in, a Super GT car has a carbon-fibre monocoque, like a Formula One car, but is big enough for two people, with a shell that sits on top of it. This thing has 650 horsepower, lots of downforce – not as much as in an F1 car, but still a lot – and they weigh about 1,000kg, 350kg more than an F1 car, which from a driving point of view may well be the biggest difference between the two, and is definitely what makes them about 15 seconds a lap slower than an F1 car. Racing only in Japan, at Suzuka, which just happens to be my second-favourite-ever circuit, and the old F1 track in Fuji, it’s called Super GT, because it’s… um, super.

  I first drove one in 2016 when I was still racing in F1. Honda, who were supplying engines for McLaren, have a Honda Thanks Day every year, where fans can see the cars driving around in Motegi: F1 cars, Indy cars, Super GT, loads of different motorbikes. I used the opportunity to bag myself a test on the Super GT car, had so much fun in it and said to the guys, ‘Is there any possibility of me racing that car in 2018?’

  And they said, ‘We’d love you to race! Why don’t you do the Suzuka 1000K?’

  This was a one-off race that I ended up driving in 2017 (the only two races I did in 2017 were the Monaco GP in F1 and that) with the Mugen Motorsports team. So I drove for them and had a great time. I mean, it wasn’t a good race, we had a couple of punctures and a drive-through penalty, so we didn’t finish very high up but, I had a blast doing it, so when they said, ‘Do you want to do 2018?’ I was like, Bring it on.

  Honda has five cars in the Super GT all run by different teams, but there was one team in particular that I wanted to drive for, Team Kunimitsu, because I’d watched them for years, appreciated their history and admired their driver, Naoki Yamamoto, who is now my teammate.

  It’s a challenge. Though there is downforce in Super GT it’s more mechanical-grip driven, and because I’m an aerodynamic guy, and I’ve spent years honing my skills of working with aerodynamics and not mechanical grip, which is tyres and suspension, I’m still not there. It’s a very different way of driving. But I like a challenge. I like to learn.

  All of the debriefs are in Japanese, and my Japanese pretty much stops and starts at ‘sushi’ and ‘sake’. And since there’s very little raw fish talk in a racing debrief, I just stand there like a lemon waiting for them to finish so we can try and speak English together.

  I must admit, I thought I’d arrive in Japan, enjoy the great racing then get out of the car and be chilled enough to let them do the work. But no, it turns out that I can’t quite switch off. I want to be involved. I want to help make the car quicker, which can be difficult when you’re English speaking and, the inexperienced one in the team. All the time when we test, it’s my teammate they test first. He’s the number one, which is so surreal and not something I’ve ever had in in Formula One before, where it’s virtually unheard of for teams to play favourites (despite the suspicions and accusations that constantly arise)

  It’s a slightly hermetic life, different from what I was used to in Formula One. Not only are there are eight races a year and I travel to Japan probably another eight or nine times for testing as well – which is a whole heap of long-haul flights – but there’s a lot of waiting around, and I spend plenty of time sitting
around looking at my phone and eating cold bento boxes. Some days I get to the circuit at 9.30am and don’t strap into the car until 2.30pm.

  What makes it worthwhile is the racing, which is properly awesome. Naoki and I won the Championship in 2018 and there was great fighting over each of the eight races, right to the very end of the season. It was brilliant, especially when you consider that it was my debut season.

  At the time of writing, I’m still racing, but we’ll have to see what happens in 2020. What I would love to do in the future – and it might be as early as next year – is race in America. NASCAR would be great and, as you’ll soon discover, I’ve got plans to do something with off-road trucks, although that’s more for shits and giggles.

  As for paid-for racing, I feel that my future will definitely be going down the aero route, which would be racing IMSA in America. IMSA cars are similar to Le Mans cars: 650 horsepower, completely carbon monocoque – like a Formula One car but with a roof and flip-up doors. With the engineering being closer to what I’ve been used to working with in Europe, I know that getting into that car, I’d be competitive – perhaps even more competitive than I have been in Super GT – chiefly because it’s downforce-driven. Taking part you’ve got ex-F1 drivers, ex-Indy car drivers, former drivers from other categories doing it, which is great. There are some real characters in that game. To cap it all off they have the centrepiece race, the Daytona 24 Hours, which is the big one. You get a Rolex if you win, which would really impress my missus.

  In the meantime, I have a team in GT3 – it’s a full-on name, Jenson Team Rocket RJN – which races in Europe. Non-profit so far, and it doesn’t take up masses of my time, but I love the fact that we’re bringing the Rocket name back, which was my father’s karting name, and I’d love to help some young talent through the GT ranks. Maybe even my own son, eventually.

  What else? Well, endurance races are great because they’re such a team effort. Even without the best car, you can still win simply by doing a better job as a team. But, for me, it would be a Championship thing, I prefer to compete in Championships, because it’s only over a whole season that you really know whether or not you’ve done a better job than the other guys. When you win a race the emotions are very high; your adrenalin’s through the roof. Team Kunimitsu won a race last year and the guys were crying their eyes out, but we won the Championship and they were much more reserved. It’s more that little wink, like, We did it. It’s that feeling that lives with you forever. You’re a Champion, you haven’t been a Champion, you are a Champion. I know that from my World Championship in Formula One. It’s never going to go away. It’s with me forever.

  HOW NOT TO BUY A YACHT

  (AND OTHER LIFESTYLE CHOICES)

  Your flights are booked, your hotel reservation is sorted and you’re given a schedule that you don’t really need to consult because you have other people to do that for you. Everything, in short, is sorted so that you can focus on the job at hand, which is to drive a car really, really fast around a circuit. Unless you’re doing a sponsor event, of course, in which case your job is to be picked up, hang around for about half an hour, do some pictures and then more often than not be taken out to dinner to a restaurant of your choosing. And, to cap it all off, on top of that you’ve got…

  1. THE BOOZE-UPS

  Older Formula One drivers have it all their own way. They can do shit and get away with it. Like if they’re pictured drinking with their mates in St-Tropez, it’s fine. It’s them letting off steam. Go them!

  It’s the youngsters who don’t have it so easy. The ones coming into the game. For them it’s all, ‘Oh, look at that playboy, who does he think he is? It’s all gone to his head.’ Basically, if you want to avoid the wagging fingers and the pointing tongues then you’ve got to be really careful as a youngster coming through the ranks.

  Guess who wasn’t careful?

  And yes, people ask if it went to my head. Actually they just straight out tell me, ‘it went to your head, JB’, as though they can presume to know what was going on inside my brains. But the people who say that can take a long walk off a short pier, because I don’t think it did go to my head. Not really. What they interpreted as arrogance was in fact the euphoria of someone who was simply happy to be living his dream. How happy? Like a dog with two tails.

  I know now that I didn’t focus as much as I should have done. I didn’t study and learn the engineering side of things. I didn’t knuckle down and think, This is just the start, but now I need to be clever and I need to work hard. Like I say, I know that now, with the benefit of these hindsight goggles I’m currently wearing.

  But at the time? Come on. I was a Formula One driver, I was racing for Williams. I was 20 years old, which at the time made me the youngest-ever F1 driver, and I thought my talent was all I needed to get by. So what was I going to do? I was going to go out.

  So I did. And for a while, I stayed out. I mean, look, I come from Somerset where the local nightclubs were proper sticky-floor pick-up joints. Now suddenly I’m racing in Formula One and London has opened its doors and ushered me inside. I’m no longer at Oscars at Longleat or McGuinness’s in Frome. I’m at China White in the West End, Mahiki in Mayfair, the Atlantic and the Titanic. I hadn’t made new friends when I started in Formula One; I was still hanging out with my old mates from home, and together we were on the same fun, exciting journey, running around London trying to outwit the paparazzi because we needed to keep it all secret from my dad, who would have had a fit if he’d known I was living it up so much.

  Having said all that, it wasn’t nearly as debauched as your dirty mind is imagining, and while I might not have been quite as committed as I should have been, I was still a sportsman and very much aware of my responsibilities. Sure, I was out a lot, but I didn’t let it get in the way of races. In terms of cutting things fine, probably the naughtiest thing I did was that I once partied on a Wednesday before a British Grand Prix. Oh yes, and I attended a Scream premier once, went on to the after-party and woke up a bit hung over. That was really the closest I ever got to drinking before a Grand Prix weekend.

  After the races. Ah, now that’s a different story. That was when the drinking would happen. Rapunzel had nothing on us when it came to letting our hair down. I remember after a Silverstone I partied for five days non-stop, out every night, and one of those nights consisted of me leaving the property where I was staying, wearing only Ugg boots and running around the block, which was much bigger than expected. The block was much bigger than expected, I should clarify.

  Of course, the golden rule is that it’s okay to do all this sort of stuff when things are on the up, but it’s not a good look when results aren’t going your way. Suddenly it’s, ‘Uh oh, so that’s why he’s no longer competitive. It’s because he’s out on the town every night’. That was what happened to me during my time at Benetton in 2001. True, the car wasn’t up to much, but that’s not really the barometer of your success as a driver. For that you need to look at how you perform against your teammate, who’s driving exactly the same car as you, and I was getting soundly beaten by mine, Giancarlo Fisichella. I was in a slump. I was getting flak, not only from the press but also from my own boss, Flavio Briatore, who had called me ‘a lazy playboy’ (not true – I was a highly committed and industrious playboy).

  Anyway. Like I say, the team had a word, put me straight. And during the off-season I switched up, got my shit together and focused on the engineering side of things. And after that the results started to come. Funny that.

  My change of approach didn’t stop me partying completely, of course. It just gave my work–social life the same thing I look for in my cars: balance. I’d still be up for it on Sunday night, post-race when we’d be like, ‘Where’s the party?’ Me, Daniel Ricciardo, David Coulthard, anyone else we could rope in.

  You do a bit of party-hopping, of course. This one’s good, but let’s try this one. Oh, it’s not quite as good, let’s go back to the first one, oh no, we shou
ld have stayed at this one all along, but we’d normally find out where the best parties were, and we’d do our best to play catch-up with the rest of our teams, many of whom would have been partying every night of the weekend – especially at Monaco, which is just huge for the teams, the fans, the visiting VIPs – everybody’s on it all weekend, apart from the drivers. (Was I jealous, after my night on the Evian, seeing them all with their hangovers? Not a bit of it, mate. They’d all be going, ‘Oh, we had a great night last night, so much fun,’ and I’d be thinking, Awesome, but I get to drive an F1 car today and that’s pretty damn cool as well.)

  Besides, Sunday after Monaco was – probably still is – a blast. If you go to Amber Lounge it’s, like, €600 a ticket just to get in and then you’ve got to pay for your drinks and for a table. You’re talking €6,000 and the night’s hardly even started. If you’re a punter. It’s different for drivers, of course. Everybody wants the drivers there because it attracts money, knowing that the drivers are in the party. And once you’re there you don’t get bothered. You have a VIP drivers’ area, and the security guy follows you to the toilet to make sure everything’s okay (which it would be, except for the fact that you have security guys following you to the toilet).

  After winning Monaco in 2009, things got seriously messy. We partied after the race and then the next day, Monday, as the principality began to get back to normal after the weekend’s festivities, we started drinking again, about midday this was. Sitting at a bar on the beach, we were downing bottles of rosé, texting people to join us until there was a whole crew, and between the lot of us we caned ten magnums of rosé.

  Next the call went up for a club, which opened especially for us, and there they opened a huge bottle of champagne, a balthazar, that is in fact 16 normal bottles of champagne in one (dwarfing my winner’s jeroboam, which is four bottles in one) and then we drank that, and then, just as we were winding down about to leave, they cracked open another one.