F1's 2009 world champion has not forgotten the advice of BAR's Dave Richards, and says it helped make him a winner
Jenson Button has highlighted the long-term influence of the former BAR team principal David Richards, for whom he drove in 2003 and 2004. As a factor in becoming a world champion and his current success with McLaren, Button says Richards's advice helped him understand the importance of building a team and the relationships within it, as much as raw speed.
Richards, who won several drivers' and manufacturers' titles running the Subaru team in the World Rally Championship and is now chairman of Prodrive and Aston Martin ? itself very successful in GT1 and more recently prototype sports cars at Le Mans and in endurance racing ? brought Button to BAR in 2003.
It was extremely timely for the British driver, who had been unceremoniously ditched at Renault by Flavio Briatore, who had famously described him as a "lazy playboy", in favour of Fernando Alonso. The BAR drive offered him the chance to prove himself with a more supportive team principal, who strongly backed him.
Certainly Button seemed to make the most of the opportunity. He performed solidly and outdid his team-mate Jacques Villeneuve, 1997's world champion, in his first year at BAR. The second season was even better, with his first pole, his first podium finish ? of which there were 10 in the season ? and third place in the drivers' championship, behind only the utterly dominant Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.
Consistent and determined, Button had delivered in a way that all but silenced the playboy accusations. Although the same year Richards and Button fell out over the driver's proposed move to Williams and by the end of the year the team principal had been ousted by the new owner, Honda, what Button learned stayed with him.
"One thing I remember about Dave Richards in 2003," Button recalls. "He said: 'You have very good speed but there are other drivers out there that do a much better job of surrounding themselves with the right people and really working at it with the team.' That definitely did stick with me.
"That was the one thing that David used to say which is definitely something I use these days ? trying to build a team around you. I think if you look back at Formula One there are certain drivers that would always try that and I think it helped them in their career," he says.
"Certain drivers really build a team around them, like Ayrton [Senna] had and Alain [Prost] had but also, I suppose, Michael [Schumacher] was the first one of our generation to really build a team around him. I feel that's very important, I think it is in any high-profile sport."
Coming as the new driver to McLaren alongside Lewis Hamilton last year meant beginning the process again. "I did feel that they really welcomed me in but still I was the newcomer and I had to spend a lot of time with the team for them to understand me and what I wanted from a race car, especially the engineers," says Button.
"And also just spending time with the mechanics so they don't feel like you just come, drive the car, and leave again. That I'm actually part of the team, which I am."
His relationship with them has come on since then and it would be easy to assume he has been driving for McLaren for years rather than just under two seasons.
"The most important thing is they need to know you're willing to go the extra bit and give your everything to the team and you're going to do your best," he says. "They need to hear it from you as well. Especially the guys at the factory, they're the guys who really need to feel a part of it."
Button has been the pick of the field, outside Sebastian Vettel, for the second half of the season. The Briton's appreciation of the bigger picture and its importance, as pointed out by Richards, is coming to fruition, but perhaps most crucially the driver has identified the correct context. "You don't approach it saying: 'Right this is going to really work for me,'" he says. "You just do it because it's the right thing to do."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/oct/14/jenson-button-korean-grand-prix
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