Button Ahead

Button is the son of former rallycross driver John Button and grew up in Vobster, near Frome. He received a go-kart as a Christmas present in 1987 and began racing at Clay Pigeon Raceway in May 1988 at age eight. His early development was shaped by mechanic Dave Spencer, who coached him in the transition from Cadet to Junior karts. Button won all 34 races of the 1991 British Cadet Kart Championship and later became the youngest driver and first Briton to claim the European Super A Championship. He won the Ayrton Senna Memorial Cup at the 1997 Japanese World Cup.

Button moved into single-seater car racing aged eighteen after winning the 1998 British Formula Ford Championship with Haywood Racing, taking nine victories and winning the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. He also finished runner-up in the European Formula Ford Championship. At the end of 1998 he won the Autosport BRDC Award. In 1999 he drove in the British Formula 3 International Series, winning three times to finish third overall and claim rookie honours. He also won the 2000 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Newcomer Award.

Button made his F1 debut with Williams in 2000, becoming Britain's youngest-ever F1 driver, beating the previous record held by Stirling Moss. He scored a point on debut at the second race in Brazil, becoming the youngest driver in history to do so at that time. His best qualifying result that season was third at Spa-Francorchamps and his best race finish was fourth at the German Grand Prix. He finished eighth in the championship with twelve points.

Button joined Benetton for 2001 alongside Giancarlo Fisichella. The car lacked power steering and horsepower and he scored just two points, finishing seventeenth in the championship. When Benetton was rebranded as Renault in 2002, Button drove alongside Jarno Trulli and improved considerably, finishing seventh with fourteen points, though he was replaced by Fernando Alonso for 2003.

Button signed with British American Racing for 2003 and gradually rebuilt his reputation despite early hostility from teammate Jacques Villeneuve. He finished ninth in the championship. In 2004, driving for BAR alongside Takuma Sato after Villeneuve's mid-season exit, Button took ten podiums in eighteen races and finished third in the Drivers' Championship. A contract dispute that year saw him briefly sign with Williams before the F1 Contract Recognition Board ruled in BAR's favour, forcing him to remain. In 2005 the car lost competitiveness and he fell to ninth.

BAR was renamed Honda for 2006 with Button partnering Rubens Barrichello. After 113 race starts, Button took his first Grand Prix victory at the rain-affected Hungarian Grand Prix from fourteenth on the grid. He scored 35 points in the last six races of the season, more than any other driver over that stretch. The 2007 and 2008 seasons were difficult as the Honda RA107 and RA108 proved uncompetitive; Button scored just six points in 2007 and three in 2008 after Honda's works engine programme lacked pace. Honda withdrew from F1 in December 2008.

Following Honda's exit, Ross Brawn led a buyout of the team and renamed it Brawn GP. Button signed to drive despite bookmakers listing him as a 100-to-1 outsider for the championship. The Brawn BGP 001 incorporated a double diffuser that proved significantly faster than rival designs. Button won six of the first seven races with four pole positions, accumulating 61 points in that opening stretch. Once rivals introduced their own diffuser configurations his dominance receded, but he had enough in hand to clinch the Drivers' Championship at the Brazilian Grand Prix, finishing fifth in the race while his closest rival Rubens Barrichello started on pole. Brawn GP also won the Constructors' Championship. It remains one of the most unexpected championship campaigns in the sport's history.

Button joined McLaren for 2010 alongside Lewis Hamilton, signing a three-year deal. He won the Australian and Chinese Grands Prix that year to briefly lead the championship before finishing fifth overall. In 2011 he delivered one of his most celebrated drives, winning the Canadian Grand Prix after two collisions dropped him to last place, recovering through the field to overtake Sebastian Vettel on the final lap on a wet-drying track. He also won in Hungary and Japan that year, finishing runner-up in the championship with 270 points. In 2012 he won in Belgium and Brazil and finished fifth overall.

The 2013 and subsequent seasons at McLaren were difficult as the team struggled, initially without a works engine partnership and later with an underpowered Honda unit from 2015. Button scored no wins after 2012 and finished no higher than fifth in the championship. He retired at the end of 2016 and made one final start at the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix, deputising for the Indianapolis 500-bound Fernando Alonso; he retired from that race after a collision with Pascal Wehrlein.

In 306 career starts, Button scored 15 wins, 8 pole positions, 50 podiums, and 1,235 points.

Button had long been interested in Japan's Super GT series. He raced the full 2018 Super GT season for Team Kunimitsu alongside Naoki Yamamoto in a Honda NSX-GT. The pair won at Sportsland Sugo and entered the season finale at Twin Ring Motegi level on points with the Toyota duo of Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy. Button held off Hirakawa to win the GT500 title by three points, becoming the first rookie champion since Toranosuke Takagi in 2005. He remained with Team Kunimitsu for 2019 but the pair fell to eighth in the championship.

Button made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut in 2018 with SMP Racing in the LMP1 class, retiring with an engine failure. He competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2024 with Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, finishing third overall. For the 2024 and 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship seasons he raced with Team Jota, switching from Porsche to Cadillac machinery for 2025. He recorded a WEC career-best second place at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo in 2025 before retiring from professional racing after the 8 Hours of Bahrain, citing the time demands of raising a family.

Button's defining characteristic was a smooth, precise driving style with minimal steering and throttle inputs. Journalist Mark Hughes wrote in 2009 that Button had "a fantastic feel for how much momentum can be taken into a corner," which allowed him to be especially effective on wet or slippery tracks where others struggled. His style was well-suited to preserving tyres over race distance but sometimes prevented him generating sufficient tyre temperature in cold conditions during a single qualifying lap. He has used left-foot braking since 2000.

Button served as a senior advisor at Williams from January 2021 and joined Aston Martin F1 Team as a brand ambassador ahead of the 2026 season. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 New Year Honours. His 2009 championship season and Brawn GP's rise from near-closure to title winners is the subject of the 2023 Disney+ documentary miniseries Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story.

Button was voted the Autosport Rookie of the Year in 2000, the International Racing Driver Award in 2004 and 2009, and the British Competition Driver of the Year in 2003, 2009, 2011 and 2012. He won the Hawthorn Memorial Trophy as the most successful British or Commonwealth driver five times: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011. He won the BRDC Gold Star in 2004 and 2009 and was inducted into the FIA Hall of Fame in 2017.