Jenson Button made for a rather sad sight last year, trundling around in the outgunned Honda Earth Car and struggling with the reliability of the car and his pit team.
Having formerly been the new great white hope of British F1, it looked like Button would be condemned to a Johnny Herbert-style drift into unlucky irrelevance with Honda.
When the Japanese manufacturer decided it had had enough earlier this year, it looked like a final nail in the coffin. Having been pushed further down the grid, it seemed as if Button might be consigned to F1 history.
Even the Brawn buy-out didn’t seem to offer much in the way of redemption, given some of the ridicule that was heaped on the new outfit. How could Brawn compete with the likes of Ferrari, Renault and McLaren?
Well, by winning the first six races, as we know now. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but even with a new Mercedes engine and a head start in development on the 2009 BGP 001 car, a victory for Brawn and Button seemed impossible.
So, MT was wrong about Button and Brawn but is big enough to congratulate Le Bouton and Le Beardy –the former is also in the process of selling his Bugatti Veyron on Auto Trader for £900K, although apparently the car he’s selling is referred to as a ‘veryon’.
Tags: Brawn GP, bugatti veyron, f1, formula one, jenson button