F1: Button to pay big thanks to Brawn team

Published on Tuesday 20 October 2009 09:40

JENSON BUTTON will issue a personal vote of thanks to the entire Brawn GP workforce tomorrow after being crowned Formula One world champion.

Button is to visit the team's factory in Brackley when the mood will be in stark contrast to the one he experienced just over ten months ago.

On that occasion it was the day after Honda had announced they were pulling out of the sport, and so Button opted to pay a visit in an effort to rally the troops.

In truth, it was the 29-year-old who was in need of a tonic as he believed at the time he would not be competing this season.

The rest, as they say, is history, with Button and Brawn completing one of the most stunning transformations, certainly in F1 history. It is why his gratitude will know no bounds tomorrow after his fifth place in Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix was enough to give him the title. "I saw pretty much everyone at the party we held that night," said Button.

"It was nice to see them, but I couldn't congratulate them in the way I wanted to. It's always difficult in a nightclub to speak to people because it's so loud. Everyone's celebrating but you can't feel the emotion together.

"So I'm at the factory tomorrow and I'm so excited about it. I'm doing some work in the simulator ahead of the race in Abu Dhabi.

"But mostly it is to see everyone that made this happen, that put this together, spending the day with those people and that will be the special time for me."

In reflecting on his championship triumph, Button was able to assess just how his life had turned around from earlier in his career. Then he was renowned as a playboy, and he readily concedes now that, at the age of 20, he arrived in the sport too soon.

Now, he still has friends and family around him at grands prix, but he has become totally focused on his career over the years, and that has proved defining.

"For the last four or five years I've been training I've been thinking about how it would feel to cross the finishing line and to take the chequered flag in a race knowing you are world champion.

"That's what has spurred me on with my fitness and with racing, and making racing my life because you can't win unless it does become your life. That's something I didn't realise when I started in the sport."