Jenson Button reveals career nearly ended before taking to the wheel

Jenson Button claims his career was put into jeopardy before he even made it into the cockpit of an F1 car. 309 Grands Prix later and a World Championship, the Brit is happily retired from the formula, but it could have been so different. Apparently, his lack of engineering knowledge nearly cost him a spot. 

He was very successful in his karting and F3 days, but that was nearly put to waste as he struggled to come to grips with his F1 car. In an interview on GPfans, Button talks about the time when he nearly got booted out. 

“I really struggled because you needed to really work with the car, develop the car, and I was not very good at all, whereas my team-mate was,” Button said flashing back 18/19 years. 

“It almost ended my career being bad at engineering, and not have any understanding of a racing car. I knew how to drive a racing car quickly, but if I couldn’t adjust that racing car to put it into a competitive state before I drove it, it doesn’t matter how good you are as a driver.”

During his 17-year career in F1, Button won 15 races. He drove for Williams, Benetton, Renault, Honda, Brawn and then McLaren. He retired at the end of the 2016 season but returned for a one-off race to cover Fernando Alonso at Monaco 2017.