(McLaren Mercedes)
This weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix is a milestone for McLaren's Jenson Button as the 2009 world champion will take part in his 250th Formula One race.
Button made his Formula One debut for the Williams F1 Team back in the year 2000, the first year that the Grove based outfit had BMW power, and in only his second start for the team he scored his first Formula One point when he finished 6th at the Brazilian Grand Prix, a race which was won by Michael Schumacher.
Button ended his first season in Formula One in 8th place in the championship collecting 12 points. For 2001, he moved to the Benetton team were he partnered Giancarlo Fisichella. His first season with the Enstone based team turned out to be a disappointing one as he retired from six Grand Prix and ended the season in 17th place with 2 point's.
In 2002 the team were rebranded Renault and Button was joined by Italian Jarno Trulli. Despite a frustrating season Button finished ahead of Trulli in the championship and for the 2003 season he moved to BAR-Honda where he teamed up with 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve. the pair would finish the season in 9th and 10th in the championship respectively.
The 2004 season would prove to be Jenson's breakthrough year. Takuma Sato joined the team after spending a year as the teams test driver. At the Malaysian Grand Grand Prix, the second race of the season Jenson finally got to test the champagne as he finished the race in a fantastic 3rd place. The marked the start of a podium run as he picked up trophies in the following two race's finishing third in the inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix and then finishing second in San Marino. St that race Jenson also claimed his maiden Formula One pole position.
He went on to claim a further seven podium finishes during the season and finished 2004 in third in the championship behind the two Ferrari's showing his ability to compete at the front of Formula One.
If 2004 was a good year for Jenson, 2005 would prove to be an extremely tough season for him as he finished the season in 9th place in the championship on 37 points a far cry from the previous season.
2006 was a much better season for Button and with Honda now buying the team outright things were looking up. He picked up another podium in Malaysia following a 4th place finish in Australia. However by now all the questions were when was he going to get his first win?
The answer came at the Hungarian Grand Prix when Button carved his way through the field from 14th in the grid to claim his maiden Grand Prix victory. He went on to finish the season in 6th place in the championship on 56 points.
For 2007, Ross Brawn arrived at Brackley from Ferrari and unfortunately despite Brawn's presence at the team Jenson had an extremely disappointing season as the car was extremely uncompetitive and was not up to the job. Jenson finished the season in 15th place with 6 points.
If 2007 was bad the 2008 season would turn out to be a whole lot worse thanks to another uncompetitive car. Button finished 18th in the championship with three point's. It was a terrible season but as we all know the worst was yet to come.
On December 5, 2008 the staff at the Honda F1 Racing factory were informed that the Japanese car giant would be pulling out of Formula One with immediate affect and if a buyer could not be found the team would be shutdown and Button along with Rubens Barrichello would be left without a drive for 2009. That is when with the help of a supply of Mercedes engine's and sponsorship from Richard Branson's Virgin Group, Ross Brawn led a management buyout of the team.
Given the last minute nature of the deal no one gave the team a hope of success in 2009. However they proved to be the class of the field in 2009 completely dominating the a season which saw Jenson take 6 victories on his way to the 2009 Driver's championship with Brawn taking the Constructors championship.
For 2010, Jenson moved to his current team McLaren and into Lewis Hamilton's back yard. He did a great job in his first season at Woking and won two race's the first of which was the Australian Grand Prix and he also took victory in China.
In 2011, he took three wins and twelve podiums on his way to the runner up spot in the championship, comprehensively beating team mate Lewis Hamilton. In 2012, Button three race's on his way to 5th in the championship. This time it was Lewis Hamilton who finished ahead of him albeit by 2 point's.
The 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix was the to date the last time that Button stood on the top step of the podium as last season McLaren had a dismal year by their standards which saw them claim no silver wear for the vast trophy hall in the McLaren Technology Centre. As a result of the lacklustre season Ron Dennis returned to the role of McLaren Group chairman and immediately set about making changing by bringing in Eric Boullier from Lotus to take up the role of Racing Director. (Team Principal) while releasing Martin Whitmarsh from the team in a 'purely business decision'
So far in the opening two round's of this year's championship, McLaren have scored a double podium with Kevin Magnussen in second in Australia which Jenson Button in third. Last time out in Malaysia Button finished in 6th place while Magnussen finished in 9th place.
In the teams preview for this weekend's race Eric Boullier said:
“Clearly, we’d expected to be leaving Sepang with rather more than the 10 points we scored here this afternoon.
“Having said that, Jenson drove a faultless race, moving steadily from his P10 grid slot to P6 at flag-fall. Had qualifying gone better for him, perhaps he could have finished a little farther up, but probably not much.
“Kevin made a good start, but, as he shaped up to pass Kimi’s Ferrari, the two cars touched, causing a puncture for Kimi and a broken left-side front-wing end-plate for Kevin.
“Kevin’s first pit-stop was consequently elongated by our need to fit a replacement nose-cone assembly, which deficit was compounded by the stop-go penalty he was awarded soon after.
“Such races are a Formula 1 rookie’s rights of passage, inevitable and unsurprising, but Kevin’s reaction was impressive from two perspectives: first, he put his head down and drove his heart out for the remainder of the afternoon, recovering very well to finish ninth at the finish; and, second, he apologised to the team unreservedly on the slowing-down lap, which wasn’t strictly necessary but was good to hear all the same.
“Overall, then, despite having got both our cars to the finish in points-scoring positions, we’re far from satisfied; but we’re working tirelessly to improve things, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.
“From here we go to Bahrain, where we hope to spice things up a bit by putting on a better show in the home race of our principal shareholder, Mumtalakat.”
Paddock Eye would like to wish Jenson Button all the best for his 250th Grand Prix start at this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix at the Sakhir Circuit.
©Ben Johnston 2014
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