Jenson Button reveals how he really felt about Lewis Hamilton when his rookie season drove fans ‘wild’

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Jenson Button has experienced the highs and lows of Formula 1 during his career, and none more so during the 2007 season with Honda.

The team was coming into the year off the back of a strong 2006 season, in which Button won his first race at the Hungarian Grand Prix and the team came close to challenging for the title.

The following year Honda sacked technical director Geoff Willis and installed Shuhei Nakamoto, who was inexperienced as far as Button was concerned. To make matters worse, Honda decided to revise its paint scheme for the RA107 and rather than use sponsorship and branding, they focused on the Japanese carmaker’s environmental message.

Not only was it an ill-thought-through publicity stunt, but the car proved to be dramatically uncompetitive. The team scored a total of six points all season, ending the year eighth in the Constructors’ Championship.

Button scored all of the team’s points, but there was another aspect of the 2007 season that irked him more than anything else when speaking in his book, Life on the Limit.

Jenson Button admits he was ‘sore’ when Lewis Hamilton won in 2007

The 2007 season also saw the debut of Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, who burst onto the scene with an aggressive move on defending world champion Fernando Alonso at the Australian Grand Prix.

After earning his first podium, he would eventually take back-to-back race victories at the Canadian and US Grands Prix. Button recalls how the moment was sobering for him, as he quickly became yesterday’s news.

“The rise of a rookie called Lewis Hamilton at McLaren was making waves. This was his first season in F1 and he won at Canada, my gear selector problem put me out on the grid, and then went on to win the next one in America. He would go on to notch up nine consecutive podiums that season and challenge the Drivers’ Championship. This was a real good news bad news situation for me,” wrote Button.

“The good news is that the press amused themselves by asking questions about Honda’s green policy. The bad news is they amused themselves about Lewis. How did I rate his chances or feel about him? Diplomacy won the day, but of course I was sore. Who wouldn’t be? People were going wild of a British driver and it wasn’t me.”

Jenson Button would need to wait for title success

The saying ‘good things come to those who wait’ could be applied to Button, who would only need to wait another two difficult seasons before he would become a contender.

Except it nearly never happened because Honda decided to pull out of F1 at the end of 2008, citing a change in its environmental goals and the global financial crisis.

It would come to Ross Brawn to rescue the team and form Brawn GP, and a car that had a secret weapon over the rest of the grid.

The Brawn GP 01 would be one of three cars to use a double diffuser, which gave Button and Rubens Barichello a competitive advantage at the start of 2009.

Button would win six races and after a season of consistency, would go on to win his only title, writing the Brawn GP fairytale in the process.