Button on top of the world

On the evening after the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, Jenson Button was celebrating in the Double Happiness Bar in downtown Melbourne. The two cars in his Button Racing F1 team had come first and second in the Australian Grand Prix and he had invited a small group of admirers to have some champagne with him in a trendy location. The team had enjoyed a perfect weekend: pole position on Saturday, first and second on Sunday and fastest lap of the Grand Prix. Surrounded by adoring female fans – each of whom his wife, Jessica, deftly kept at least an arm’s length away from Jenson – and having his team’s name shouted all over Melbourne, Jenson was deliriously happy.

On the evening after the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, Jenson Button was celebrating in the Double Happiness bar in downtown Melbourne. The two cars in his Button Racing F1 team had come first and second in the Australian Grand Prix and he had invited a small group of admirers to have some champagne with him in a trendy location. The team had enjoyed a perfect weekend: pole position on Saturday, first and second on Sunday and fastest lap of the Grand Prix. Surrounded by adoring female fans – each of whom his wife, Jessica, deftly kept at least an arm’s length away from Jenson – and having his team’s name being shouted all over Melbourne, Jenson was deliriously happy.

As he ordered another Jeroboam of vintage Veuve Clicquot, Jenson’s mind went back to the beginning of his run of good fortune: March 2012. After two seasons of embarrassing inferiority to the Red Bull team, in the MP4-27 McLaren had produced their best car since the championship winning one of 2008. So superior was the MP4-27 that Jenson and his team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, were at least a second faster than anybody else. Hamilton had qualified a fraction of a second ahead of Button and placed his car on pole position, but on race day he had surprisingly lost his nerve and been beaten to the first corner in an adroit overtaking manoeuvre by Button. The imperiousness of Button’s performance throughout the remainder of the race had underlined his mental superiority over Hamilton. As he took the chequered flag to win the 2012 Australian Grand Prix – a performance which he knew was easily his greatest triumph since first being granted a super licence to drive Formula One cars – Button knew in his heart of hearts that he would be unbeatable to the driver’s world championship at the end of that year.

A third world championship followed for Button at the end of 2014 and he chose to take that as his cue to retire from driving. That was also the year in which he made an honest woman of Jessica Michibata in Tokyo followed by a grand reception at the Four Seasons Marunouchi hotel. A son and a daughter, John and Juliet, had followed soon thereafter.

The decision to set up a new Formula One team in 2016 had been met by some criticism but Jenson was quick to remind any doubters that his first world championship in 2009 had been made achieved in the Brawn GP Racing team; a team set up a fortnight before the start of that year’s F1 season. Button GP Racing had arrived on the scene at the beginning of the decline of Ferrari and McLaren and been a monumental force to reckon. Along with being the proud owner of several constructors’ championship trophies, Jenson Button was now also a fabulously wealthy man.

Hamilton had looked quite put out at the end of the 2012 Australian Grand Prix, and there was no mistaking his sullen look, but nobody could have predicted at the time that being so convincingly defeated by his team-mate in that race would so discombobulate Lewis Hamilton that his career was ruined. Whereas Button went on to spend two further happy years at McLaren, 2012 was Hamilton’s last year in Formula One.

Jenson sometimes bumped into his old team-mate in the streets of Monte Carlo but whatever conversations that took place between them were rushed and awkward. Hamilton would often be in the company of his corpulent wife, Nicole, who could not hide her envy of Jenson or, worse, Jessica. Once after one such strained occurrence, Jenson overheard Nicole speaking to Lewis with greater volume than required by discretion and heard the words “they think they are so f***ing special. They make me sick!” Jenson felt sorry for his old friend and had even offered to help if required (“Lewis, if you ever need anything, you know you only have to say the word, mate”) but this had been ignored. Hamilton was too proud.

Over at Ferrari, Stefano Domenicali seemed to have received a visit from the Succubus. As if from nowhere, his enthusiasm for the racing team and his ability to give it direction had escaped him. Directionless and uncertain of what it was they were trying to achieve, the Ferrari mechanics in Maranello had produced such a dog of a car that the prancing horse logo could well have been depicting as a decapitated beast.

Fernando Alonso had started the 2012 season hoping to win a third world championship and his first for Ferrari but the car was just too awful for words.

Ferrari never recovered after that. Now the team had only its good memories to look back upon. But all had not been lost for fans of motor racing; the waning of Ferrari coincided with the waxing of Button Racing.

More good times lay ahead, but on the 13 March 2022 it was all smiles for Jenson Button and his admirers in the Double Happiness bar.

Gitau

19 March 2012

As he ordered another Jeroboam of vintage Veuve Clicquot, Jenson’s mind went back to the beginning of his run of good fortune: March 2012. After two seasons of embarrassing inferiority to the Red Bull team, in the MP4-27 McLaren had produced their best car since the championship winning one of 2008. So superior was the MP4-27 that Jenson and his team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, were at least a second faster than anybody else. Hamilton had qualified a fraction of a second ahead of Button and placed his car on pole position; but on race day he had surprisingly lost his nerve and been beaten to the first corner in an adroit overtaking manoeuvre by Button. The imperiousness of Button’s performance throughout the remainder of the race had underlined his mental superiority over Hamilton. As he took the chequered flag to win the 2012 Australian Grand Prix – a performance which he knew was easily his greatest triumph since first being granted a super licence to drive Formula One cars – Button knew in his heart of hearts that he would be unbeatable to the driver’s world championship at the end of that year.

A third world championship followed for Button at the end of 2014 and he chose to take that as his cue to retire from driving. That was also the year in which he made an honest woman of Jessica Michibata in Tokyo followed by a grand reception at the Four Seasons Marunouchi Hotel. A son and a daughter, John and Juliet, followed soon thereafter.

The decision to set up a new Formula One team in 2016 had been met by some criticism, but Jenson was quick to remind any doubters that his first world championship in 2009 had been achieved in the Brawn GP Racing team; a team set up a fortnight before the start of that year’s F1 season. Button GP Racing had arrived on the scene at the beginning of the decline of Ferrari, and McLaren and been a monumental force to reckon with. The team owed its existence to wealthy friends of John Button, Jenson's indefatigable father, who saw it as a sensible investment. The team's success was a good tribute to their faith: they were never let down.

Now, along with being the proud owner of several constructors’ championship trophies, Jenson Button was also a fabulously wealthy man.

Hamilton had looked quite put out at the end of the 2012 Australian Grand Prix, and there was no mistaking his sullen look, but nobody could have predicted at the time that being so convincingly defeated by his team-mate in that race would so discombobulate Lewis Hamilton that his career would be ruined. Whereas Button went on to spend two further happy years at McLaren, 2012 was Hamilton’s last year in Formula One.

Jenson sometimes bumped into his old team-mate in the streets of Monte Carlo, but whatever conversations that took place between them were rushed and awkward. Hamilton would often be in the company of his corpulent, irascible wife, Nicole, who could not hide her envy of Jenson or, worse, Jessica. Once, after one such strained occurrence, Jenson overheard Nicole speaking to Lewis with greater volume than was required by discretion and heard the words “they think they are so f***ing special. They make me sick!” Jenson felt sorry for his old friend and had even offered to help if required (“Lewis, if you ever need anything, you know you only have to say the word, mate”) but this had been ignored. Hamilton was too proud.

Over at Ferrari, Stefano Domenicali seemed to have received a visit from the Succubus. Events like that have been known to drive lesser men to insanity. It did the poor fellow no good at all.

As if from nowhere, Domenicali's enthusiasm for the Ferrari racing team and his ability to give it direction escaped him. He moved about the factory and observed testing at Fiorano with increasing listlessness. Directionless and uncertain of what it was they were trying to achieve, the Ferrari mechanics in Maranello produced such a dog of a car in 2012 that the prancing horse logo could just as well have been depicted as a decapitated beast. Fernando Alonso had started the 2012 season hoping to win a third world championship and his first for Ferrari, but the car was just too awful for words.

Ferrari never recovered after that. Now, the team had only its good memories to look back upon. But all had not been lost for fans of motor racing; the waning of Ferrari had coincided with the waxing of Button Racing.

More good times lay ahead, but on the 13 March 2022 it was all smiles for Jenson Button and his admirers in the Double Happiness Bar.

Gitau

19 March 2012

The Devil's Bargain

It was the morning of 13 March 2022 and as the sun rose over Monte Carlo, two Englishmen had risen from their beds many hours earlier than the rest of the population of the principality famously described by another Englishman – a distinguished writer who went by the name of W. Somerset Maugham - more than a century earlier as “a sunny place for shady people”. Many thousands of miles away in the Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia, engines were being revved up for the start of the Australian Grand Prix, one of the most beautiful motor racing circuits on earth; and one from which both men were absent.

The first of the two to rise was a shambling old man of no more than five feet in height, who was labouring through his ninety-first year of life. With trembling hands, he reached for his zimmer frame and edged his way to a seat conveniently positioned in the balcony outside his bedroom from which he could stare beyond the many yachts moored in the harbour, to the shimmering Mediterranean Sea beyond. He sat motionless for a very long time, lost deep in thought. At last, he sank his head into his hands.

“It was a deal with Lucifer himself,” he cried, “and what has it brought me but heartache and misery?”

Only the day before, Bernard Charles Ecclestone had sailed from Monte Carlo to Nice to visit his daughter, Tamara, at the psychiatric hospital in which she was confined. The wretchedness of his beloved daughter’s state had so moved the old man that he sank into the chair provided for him and wept without restraint as he contemplated her shrivelled, unkempt appearance. Her face was pockmarked and extraordinarily filled with premature wrinkles. Her complexion was sallow and her eyes were sunken and vacant. The once beautiful features of his treasured daughter were gone for ever. Burdened from a tender age with more money than could be spent in five lifetimes, the girl had run out of ways of dissipating her vast wealth and ultimately debased herself to insanity. There was never going to be any possibility of a normal life for her. If she was not going to be confined in a mental institution she would have to be kept under close guard on one of Ecclestone’s lavish estates. She was only 38.

A few houses away, the second of the two Englishmen was languidly stirring a cup of coffee. He had celebrated his 38^thbirthday two months previously in Los Angeles, California among people who oozed falsity from every pore. People had oohed and aahed, blown air kisses at him and declared “I love you, Lewis daaahling” and then scuttled off after only five minutes at his insufficiently glamorous party in a location where the “lovely people” did not dare to be photographed. Never aware of his own celebrity and desperately anxious to be included in the circles of those whom he considered to be really worthy, Lewis Hamilton had courted high society with a vehemence which had astounded all whom he had known.

Like a dog yearning to be loved by its master, he had attached himself to a second-grade American singer because she had been part of a world to which he desperately wished to belong. Ignoring signs dangled by young women of stunning beauty at Formula One circuits round the world declaring “Lewis, you can race me whenever you want” or “Drive me all night, Lewis, I’m yours!” Lewis Hamilton had married Nicole Scherzinger. Now, having neglected his driving career and stood by the sidelines as it disintegrated, he was holed up in a simple flat – at least by the standards of Monte Carlo – unnoticed by the many millionaires resident there.

After two stunning debut seasons in Formula One as a McLaren driver, Hamilton had gone on to become the first ever black Formula One champion in 2008. But that, sadly, had been the zenith of his driving achievement. After four successive seasons of decreasing driving performance, Hamilton had been shown the door by McLaren at the end of the 2012 season and had thenceforth left the world of motor racing for ever and a day. He had departed McLaren with a few million in the bank but this was mostly spent now and he and his American wife were reduced to living off the paltry royalties of a song called Don’t Cha which his wife had performed in 2005.

“Man, the devil must have worked on my stupid head something rotten back then,” he mused to himself out loud as he looked at the blown up photograph on the kitchen wall of him holding the F1 world championship trophy aloft at the end of 2008.

His reminiscences were interrupted. “Lewis!” came a voice from the rear of the flat, “can I have a drink, please.”

“Coming darling,” said Hamilton as, with a heavy heart, he reached into the cupboard for a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. His wife was a morbidly obese, barren and overly-demanding alcoholic, drug-addled woman; but he was stuck with her. He had made his bed.

Each of the two Englishmen had cut a Faustian deal with the devil and lived to regret it. For Ecclestone his desire was more money than Croesus. For Hamilton it was the love of a woman and acceptance into her society. With every opportunity available to do things differently, they had made the wrong choices. To paraphrase Maugham, they had sought the lost sixpence at their feet and failed to see the wondrous moon above them. They were both now at leisure to suffer the consequences of their lunacy.

The events detailed above came to me in a dream last night. As it always is before the start of the first Formula One race of the year (at least when the start of the season is in Melbourne and not that God-awful desert folly, Bahrain) my mind is filled with thoughts of the season ahead for much of the day and night. Although whimsical, there is no gainsaying – at least in my opinion – that the events I have described could well be the future of the two gentlemen.

Enough of Ecclestone and Hamilton.

The engines will be fired up in anger in Australia tomorrow for the first time since November 2011. I have grown up a lot since I started doing these commentaries and refuse to make any predictions at a point when nothing is known about any team or driver’s performance relative to the others. This is why I always feel myself tingling with excitement on the day before the first race.

All will be clear on Sunday. It behoves me to wish you an enjoyable weekend and hope that you will,

Enjoy Melbourne!

Gitau

16 March 2012