Latest / Rusty's Garage / Jenson Button - Part 1

Transcript

Jenson Button - Part 1 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:12
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:26
  For this episode, I'm at home and my guest is in LA.
• 0:30
  It's a timely chat with the 2023 F1 cars being unveiled around the time we recorded and testing for the new season about to start.
• 0:39
  And we're counting down to the Australian Grand Prix, which looks like being epic, perhaps the biggest ever.
• 0:46
  Albert Park is where Jenson Button made his Formula One debut and he would go on to win in Melbourne several times.
• 0:53
  Button's driven for legendary teams like Williams, McLaren and Benetton.
• 0:59
  His breakthrough victory came after more than 100 starts in the sport and is something most who love the game remember very fondly.
• 1:07
  He would ultimately be crowned world champion in 2009, driving a car built from the remnants of the Honda team.
• 1:16
  It was a season that began with a string of wins and then seemed to slip from his grasp before an almost fairytale finish.
• 1:24
  That story is now the subject of a documentary movie that's in production with Keanu Reeves.
• 1:29
  Button still enjoys racing, having spent post-F1 life in Super GT, even done some off-roading, and he's about to embark on a new project that will take him to Le Mans, a bucket list moment.
• 1:43
  Button's also taken to broadcasting.
• 1:46
  His easygoing nature, connection with and respect for the drivers oozes through the mic, and that comes through in our discussion, and so does a proper love of cars.
• 1:58
  Jensen, thanks for coming on.
• 1:59
  Can we start with, if you're cool with it, just recollections of cars when you were growing up?
• 2:05
  Your late dad, John, was into Rallycross, for example.
• 2:07
  What was, you know, on the driveway or in the garage when you were a little tacker and how powerful was that as a motivator?
• 2:15
  That's actually a great question.
• 2:16
  And to be fair, that's the first time I've been asked.
• 2:19
  Really?
• 2:20
  Yeah.
• 2:21
  I've always been asked what was my first car and what have you.
• 2:23
  But...
• 2:24
  In terms of the family wagon, my dad had a Jaguar, an XJ...
• 2:32
  It was an XJS.
• 2:33
  Yeah, white with a vinyl roof.
• 2:36
  Fantastic.
• 2:37
  And this was like...
• 2:39
  for him, was his baby.
• 2:41
  And I remember we went as a family to Longley, which is a safari park in the UK.
• 2:48
  And we went into where the monkeys were and they ripped the vinyl roof off the car.
• 2:56
  Oh, no!
• 2:56
  Yeah, I know.
• 2:58
  That's one of my first memories of cars.
• 3:00
  And also...
• 3:01
  We lived in a four-bed house in a town called Froome.
• 3:08
  And we were on a slight hill which ran down to a main road.
• 3:12
  So the road that you take into Froome from Bath.
• 3:16
  And his car was parked in the driveway.
• 3:18
  And I ran outside as a kid and jumped in it and released the handbrake.
• 3:24
  And it obviously rolled backwards.
• 3:27
  And my sister, who's 10 years older than me, Samantha, was running behind the car trying to hold the car back.
• 3:34
  I mean, she must have been 15, 16.
• 3:36
  Obviously moved out of the way, and I reversed it across the road and into a wall.
• 3:41
  That was my first driving experience.
• 3:45
  What else did I used to do there with his car?
• 3:48
  Another one was because he was racing in rallycross.
• 3:51
  He used to have his big rallycross tires, beautiful split rims, BVS split rims.
• 3:57
  And I got hold of one and went outside the house and just pushed it.
• 4:02
  Pushed it down the road and it bounced across the main road.
• 4:05
  Oh.
• 4:07
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:07
  Crossed the main road.
• 4:08
  Nobody hit it, thankfully.
• 4:11
  So, yeah, I was a bit of, to be fair, I think I was a really good kid.
• 4:15
  It's just I had moments of just, oh, I wonder what this is going to do.
• 4:19
  Yeah.
• 4:19
  These are great moments of sort of rite of passage almost, mate, which, you know, you're probably, you know, almost experiencing a bit as a dad now.
• 4:27
  Did you learn little things about, because Armoural have been great partners in making this happen, were you learning things about looking after the car, keeping it clean and so on with him?
• 4:37
  Well, I've just given you all the bits that wasn't looking after the car.
• 4:42
  Well, for me, it was a big thing because when I was seven years,
• 4:47
  years old, my dad bought me a go-car for Christmas.
• 4:51
  It's birthday came around in January.
• 4:54
  And we used to go testing.
• 4:57
  He didn't ever think we'd go racing.
• 4:59
  It was just something on the weekends.
• 5:00
  My parents split up when I was seven.
• 5:02
  And he had a Mazda station wagon where we used to put seats down and shove the car in the back.
• 5:09
  And I remember going to the car races and he would always want me to clean my car.
• 5:14
  He's like, you know, this is
• 5:15
  this is your car.
• 5:16
  You're lucky enough to go racing.
• 5:17
  So we used to clean the car together and also clean the car together when we got home from the races.
• 5:24
  So it was that great father-son bonding experience, but also making sure that I understood I was a lucky get to be driving a go-kart at the age of eight years old.
• 5:35
  So it was a great experience for me understanding
• 5:40
  the importance of realizing I was lucky and I was very lucky as a kid.
• 5:47
  But also, you know, looking after your equipment, you know, there's no point turning up to the start line with a dirty car because people don't think it's serious.
• 5:53
  So everything was pristine in our little garage.
• 5:58
  At what point did that passion become obsession for you?
• 6:02
  I mean, I think, you know, when you look at your CV, you were,
• 6:05
  racing at world level in karts at age 15 and so on.
• 6:09
  Was there a moment there, perhaps at some point in early high school or something where you're like, this is me, this is what I want to do?
• 6:15
  Was it as clear as that?
• 6:16
  And can you remember where you were?
• 6:19
  Yes, this is kind of, it's going to be a long answer, but I raced from eight years old in karting until I was 17, so a long time racing karts.
• 6:31
  And
• 6:32
  In the British Championship, I won the British Championships in cadets, which is like the smallest category, when I was 11.
• 6:38
  And then I moved up to junior category, and I won that in my first year.
• 6:43
  And then we moved to another junior category, which was a lot more difficult.
• 6:46
  And I was also going through that point in my life where I was a teenager.
• 6:50
  I started looking at girls in a very different way previously.
• 6:55
  And I did definitely take my eye off the ball.
• 6:58
  I remember doing a race in Scotland, which is a long drive for us.
• 7:01
  We live south of the UK.
• 7:03
  Sort of, well, it's not long in your terms, but it was like a five, six-hour drive.
• 7:09
  And on the way home, my dad thought I was asleep in the back.
• 7:14
  He was there with my stepmom, and he looked across at her and said, I just don't think he's got it.
• 7:19
  Wow.
• 7:20
  Like, oh, yeah.
• 7:21
  Even for a kid, a teenager, that stuck with me forever.
• 7:26
  And that made me realize, you know what, he's given me such a great opportunity to race at such a high level.
• 7:33
  And I could be throwing it away, but he was always very...
• 7:39
  very relaxed with me in terms of if I didn't want to race, he was like, you know what?
• 7:44
  That's not race.
• 7:45
  You know, it's not an issue.
• 7:46
  He said, I don't want to push you into it.
• 7:48
  Maybe we'll take a break and then we'll come back.
• 7:50
  But that really stuck with me.
• 7:52
  And that was really probably the turning point that I realized if I'm actually going to do this properly,
• 7:57
  I've got to put in the effort.
• 7:59
  Natural ability, never enough.
• 8:01
  And I carried it all through my racing career.
• 8:03
  And I didn't tell my father that I heard him until I won the world championship.
• 8:09
  Wow.
• 8:10
  Yeah, I gave him a hug after the race in Brazil in 2009.
• 8:14
  He was crying, I was crying, and then went away separate ways because I was doing interviews regularly.
• 8:19
  And then thanking the team, big celebrations.
• 8:22
  And then afterwards, I pulled him to one side.
• 8:24
  And I told him that I heard what he said when I was 13.
• 8:28
  And he just burst his tears.
• 8:30
  But I said, Dad, it's...
• 8:32
  it's made this career, you know, because I realized how lucky I was to be racing in karts and how much effort you put in because he wasn't wealthy.
• 8:41
  You know, he was scraping to make this work because he had the passion as well.
• 8:48
  So, yeah, 13 was a big moment for me.
• 8:51
  But then when I started racing in Europe sort of at 15, 16, that's when I was like, hang on a second, is this...
• 8:59
  If this goes well, good things could happen.
• 9:02
  And I have the smallest chance of getting to Formula One, but that's enough.
• 9:08
  I'm going to give it my all.
• 9:10
  I was lucky enough to get sponsors and a manager who paid for it because otherwise I wouldn't be sat here right now as an F1 champion.
• 9:17
  What followed was success in Formula Ford and some of the kind of junior categories.
• 9:22
  But in real terms, Jensen, that next period seems quite short because at 19, you're given an opportunity in more or less like a shootout with Williams, with I think Bruno Junquera.
• 9:36
  Huge pressure moment for you.
• 9:39
  And it wasn't just about what you did in the car either.
• 9:41
  There was kind of like an engineering test or assessment too, wasn't there?
• 9:46
  There was, and I came at it quite confident because I'd won the Formula Super A, which is the highest category in go-karts.
• 9:54
  You had to be invited to race, and it really was 53 people racing.
• 9:59
  I won that, the European Championship, and then I moved to Formula 4, and I won that.
• 10:02
  And then I moved to Formula 3, and I won races, Young Driver Award.
• 10:06
  And then I won the McLaren Young Driver Award, which meant that I got to drive an F1 car for the first time.
• 10:11
  So everything's like, oh, this is great.
• 10:14
  So I went into it with confidence in my driving ability, but then we had to do an exam and I was sat there like, I have no understanding of how a race car works.
• 10:23
  I should because I should have learned through the way, but I didn't learn enough.
• 10:29
  And that hurt me and I was worried that,
• 10:33
  I wasn't going to get the drive because of that.
• 10:35
  And it was Bruno Gianquera who had raced in Formula 3000.
• 10:39
  He was the test driver for Williams.
• 10:42
  And, you know, I was like, well, he's definitely going to get it.
• 10:45
  You know, my lap times were a little bit better.
• 10:47
  I was a couple of tenths.
• 10:48
  But he has an understanding of what the car is doing and how to make it faster.
• 10:52
  So I was a little bit nervous going into the announcement and they called me or Frank, Sir Frank called me into his office.
• 11:02
  And as I walked in, Bruno was leaving and he smiled.
• 11:04
  I was like, well, I really don't know if I've got it now.
• 11:09
  And then Frank said, I've decided to sign you.
• 11:11
  You're going to be racing alongside Ralph Schumacher.
• 11:14
  Amazing.
• 11:15
  Did they tell you in the time that followed, did they share what the thing that got you over the line was?
• 11:20
  Because I think Bruno had a bit of engineering, not just in his racing.
• 11:25
  He'd studied engineering, I think, for memory too, hadn't he?
• 11:28
  Yeah.
• 11:28
  So first of all, it was a lot to take in because 19 years old, Frank just told me I'm racing in F1, you know, childhood dream.
• 11:40
  And then I was going to be announced to the world 30 minutes later as a Williams driver.
• 11:45
  You know, this team that I watched for years, some of the greats, especially, you know, being British, following British drivers through the ranks and through Williams and winning world championships,
• 11:56
  And it was just such a weird situation for me.
• 12:01
  And then sat there on stage, people throwing questions at me, and I have no idea what I'm doing up there.
• 12:08
  But yeah, and later on, you know, speaking to Frank, Sir Frank and Sir Patrick,
• 12:17
  And they said it's because you just seem very hungry, hungry for it.
• 12:21
  We knew you were young, we knew you were inexperienced, but you put it out there the first time you drove the car and you had the pace.
• 12:27
  And we knew that we could build on that.
• 12:29
  So being British definitely helped, you know, a British team, having a British driver in the team.
• 12:35
  So, you know, sometimes things really fall your way.
• 12:38
  Sometimes it's a negative being from a country like the UK because
• 12:42
  There are lots of great British drivers, so you don't get the sponsorship and funding to help you, whereas people from other countries, Argentina or Brazil or countries that don't have so many great drivers, they get really good backing.
• 12:57
  So I found myself in a situation where there was a bit of luck involved, but I still wanted to put it on the line and get the best out of the car myself.
• 13:05
  How big were the learnings beyond the cockpit then?
• 13:08
  Because clearly, you know, things accelerate from a Fleet Street Press point of view.
• 13:13
  You know, there's a lot of pride in British drivers.
• 13:17
  You're with a legendary team and so on.
• 13:19
  I mean, that must have been a little bit overwhelming at age 19.
• 13:23
  It was and then as soon as the announcement came, suddenly we were straight into testing, testing the new car which was an issue because it wasn't reliable at all.
• 13:35
  So I didn't really get much mileage in the car.
• 13:38
  The price was fantastic initially.
• 13:43
  As a 19, 20-year-old, you just think, well, they're just going to talk about what they see and you'd think they'd be excited.
• 13:49
  And they were.
• 13:50
  The rest was fantastic and massively overhyped.
• 13:54
  I was so inexperienced.
• 13:57
  AZ to the next big thing.
• 13:58
  It's like, who knows?
• 13:59
  I've never even driven an F1 car in a race situation.
• 14:07
  When they build you up, it's very easy to knock you back down again.
• 14:10
  And I definitely went through that situation.
• 14:14
  And it put me in a really dark place because I just ended up, I didn't trust anyone after that.
• 14:22
  And it was only a few people in the media that
• 14:27
  They would come into an interview with an agenda and it wasn't just a straightforward interview.
• 14:32
  They were going to pick words and sentences out of my interview and make a headline out of it.
• 14:37
  And they did.
• 14:37
  And it really hurt because it's like, why would someone want to hurt me when they don't even know me?
• 14:43
  Suddenly when you're on a big stage, they do that.
• 14:46
  It was really tough to get my head around.
• 14:50
  It took me a long time to make friends in Fonguang, because I just didn't trust anyone.
• 14:58
  I really needed to get to know someone before I could put any trust in them.
• 15:02
  Great tip there for young racers listening mate on, on dealing with the press and so on.
• 15:08
  Can we get to your thoughts on Williams?
• 15:10
  Because I mean, they've had such an incredible success story, but not so much lately management changes over summer and so on.
• 15:18
  Do you think we'll get to a point hopefully one day where we're talking about their success again in Formula One?
• 15:24
  Yeah, there's, there's definitely no reason that they won't be fighting near the front in the future, but you know,
• 15:31
  Even with a big change in ownership and funding, it still takes time.
• 15:36
  They understand where they need to spend the money and what they need to do, but it still takes time to catch a team like Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren.
• 15:47
  It's not an overnight change.
• 15:48
  So as long as there's always progress, I think Williams will be happy.
• 15:55
  I like the changes they've been making, and I think it's positive.
• 15:58
  I think the atmosphere of the team is getting better every time I visit.
• 16:04
  So, yeah, it's moving in the right direction.
• 16:06
  And they also have a great driver lineup now.
• 16:08
  A lot of respect with the team.
• 16:12
  the choice of getting Alex in the car last year.
• 16:15
  He went through a very difficult time with his time at Red Bull, racing for the A team, and then suddenly he's dropped.
• 16:22
  So it's tricky for him mentally to come back into Formula One, but I think he's really shown strength at Williams, and I'm really happy for him.
• 16:30
  You know, he's found his feet.
• 16:31
  He's a real team player, and they need someone like that to help lead this team.
• 16:35
  Agreed.
• 16:36
  My mate Tom Clarkson says, when you are on it, when the car is right in his mind, there is no one better.
• 16:42
  How much of that, Jensen, is your natural speed?
• 16:46
  How much of it is kind of competitive mindset?
• 16:49
  And did you, you know, through some of the tougher periods in your career, did you spend time on that side learning about that competitive mindset?
• 16:57
  For me, that was a strength and a weakness.
• 17:01
  If I found a car that worked for me, or I could develop a car into a position that suited my style, I say this and I sound cocky, but I don't think there was anyone quicker.
• 17:15
  My weakness was that I couldn't drive a bad car.
• 17:19
  more often than not, you're not going to find a car that suits your style.
• 17:23
  And that's where Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, when we were teammates, would always get the better of me.
• 17:31
  So I definitely had weaknesses, but I played to my strengths, which was developing a car that worked for me and being a team player, working closely with the team.
• 17:45
  you've got to think of number one, which is yourself in this sport.
• 17:47
  And as much as your teammate is called your teammate, they're not.
• 17:53
  You work together, but he's the first person you have to beat.
• 17:56
  So, yeah, getting the team behind you and making your teammate feel like he's not as loved as you is actually important.
• 18:03
  And it is what it is.
• 18:05
  It's the same in most sport.
• 18:07
  So, you play all the games you have to, within reason, to be as competitive as you can.
• 18:13
  Yeah.
• 18:14
  But yeah, when I got that car underneath me, people always ask, well, how did it feel?
• 18:20
  For example, qualifying in Monaco in 2009, how did it feel?
• 18:23
  It's like, I don't know.
• 18:25
  I went to a different place and I've really struggled to feedback to the team how the car felt.
• 18:32
  And that happened only probably 10 times in my career that I had that moment where it was just...
• 18:38
  I just put it all out there and it just worked.
• 18:41
  And because you've put so much of your energy into that lap, I wasn't able to remember what happened on that lap, which is unusual because that was a weird strength of mine normally in a race situation.
• 18:55
  I would drive, I would feel what the car is doing, I'd be feeding it back to the team within seconds so we can improve the car.
• 19:03
  But then there were those moments where it felt great,
• 19:06
  And I drove it as hard as I could and I completely forgot what the car felt like.
• 19:13
  That's surreal, mate.
• 19:14
  To get to that sort of place, to be that kind of well-rounded athlete, you have to have your difficult days.
• 19:23
  And I know you've reflected about the time at Benetton, for example, and Flavio Brigatori being outspoken and
• 19:30
  dealing with some stuff in the press.
• 19:31
  But did Mike Gascoigne at one point more or less pull you aside and say, hey, mate, you've got to lift your game here and you've got to spend time on the engineering side if you're going to make it?
• 19:41
  He was sort of helpful at a pivotal time, wasn't he?
• 19:44
  He was.
• 19:45
  He was a tough character.
• 19:46
  I mean, to be fair...
• 19:48
  Benetton was a really tough environment if you weren't competitive.
• 19:54
  Somewhere like Williams or Honda, if you had issues, there was always help in direction and you didn't do it on your own.
• 20:02
  Whereas at Benetton, it felt like you were on your own.
• 20:05
  And I think they'd gone through this period of being so competitive with Michael.
• 20:09
  over the years that they kind of had a it felt like they kind of had a chip on their shoulder they thought they were the best and uh you know um but they weren't at that moment in time and i definitely wasn't getting the best at myself either and it just wasn't a happy place for me so the first year was really difficult
• 20:30
  and Giancarlo Fisichella, fantastic driver, and amazing at driving bad race cars.
• 20:36
  And that wasn't my strength.
• 20:38
  But you're right.
• 20:39
  Gascon was tough, but in the end, he was very helpful.
• 20:44
  I remember when we used to...
• 20:45
  The driver turned up one minute late for a meeting.
• 20:48
  He'd be like, right, you do this again, you're not driving the car.
• 20:52
  Okay, all right then.
• 20:54
  I don't know who's going to drive it, because last time you drove it, Mike, you put it in a tree.
• 20:58
  Yeah.
• 21:00
  But he was very tough, and it was difficult for me to get my head around that because I hadn't experienced that before.
• 21:07
  But it did work in the end.
• 21:10
  Rough in the beginning, but it worked out in the end.
• 21:13
  My second year at Benetton, which was now Renault, was actually competitive, and I outperformed my teammate, Yano Trulli, but I didn't have a contract at the end of that year, and he did.
• 21:23
  So Fernando took my place.
• 21:27
  But it was a big learning curve and in the moment it was horrific, but I came out of it a better driver, thicker skinned, and a much better understanding of why I needed some race car.
• 21:49
  How cool to have a Formula One world champion on the show.
• 21:52
  But, this isn't Rusty's first rodeo.
• 21:55
  For more entertaining F1 stories, check out Brazilian star, Rubens Barrichello.
• 22:01
  I hope I got that pronunciation right Ruben.
• 22:04
  Your career is remarkable.
• 22:06
  I mean, to look back now and to see more than 300 starts, more than 320 starts, when you set out on that adventure with the passion that you have, it would have been a dream to tick up that tally.
• 22:19
  Did you ever imagine you would get to that number of starts in this?
• 22:23
  No.
• 22:23
  And then I think that's what it's good about it because at the end of the day, people say, I got there because of this, I got there because of that.
• 22:31
  For me, I got there because I love it.
• 22:34
  That sure is some passion from Ruben.
• 22:36
  He loves racing as much as I love Rusty.
• 22:39
  Now, back to Jensen.
• 22:42
  Can we talk Australian Grand Prix with you, if you don't mind, because we're recording this not too far out from that round of the season.
• 22:48
  We've got pre-season testing.
• 22:49
  Obviously, everyone's very excited.
• 22:50
  They're talking about Melbourne maybe being a total sellout, about 450,000 people over four days.
• 22:57
  It's going to be crazy.
• 22:59
  From debut to the three wins there, the Aussie race must evoke some very special memories for you, does it?
• 23:06
  Yeah.
• 23:07
  Oh, so many.
• 23:09
  Absolutely love Melbourne.
• 23:11
  So many special memories.
• 23:13
  Most of them very good.
• 23:16
  I don't remember any bad memories.
• 23:17
  I'm sure there were some bad races, but oh yeah, the first year were Honda when I was four laps down.
• 23:22
  When we had to save fuel and we would lift off at the 400 meter mark, which didn't even exist.
• 23:28
  There wasn't one.
• 23:28
  There was just lift.
• 23:29
  It's like, okay.
• 23:31
  And you'd lose a lap because you used to drink fuel.
• 23:35
  But first year there, I remember going out with a cabbie, taking me around the track.
• 23:41
  As soon as I landed, jumped in a cab and then he took me around the track.
• 23:45
  Uh,
• 23:46
  And that first weekend, wow, what a whirlwind, you know, turning up as a F1 driver, totally out of my depth, and driving out on track behind Michael Schumacher, you know, a hero of mine.
• 23:59
  Watched all his world championships and glued to the TV for them.
• 24:04
  And, you know, the V10s back then sounded awesome.
• 24:06
  So we're driving out the pit lane and...
• 24:09
  the way that the diffuser works, you know, it picks up all the leaves, the fallen leaves, and it's sort of, there's a rooster tail of leaves coming up the back of the car.
• 24:16
  And it's like, wow, you know, there's a moment I'll never forget.
• 24:21
  And it was a tough weekend, but it was still a tough weekend because a lot of people were saying he shouldn't be racing.
• 24:28
  He doesn't have the experience.
• 24:30
  One was Jackie Stewart, actually.
• 24:33
  Mika Salalo, a few other drivers.
• 24:36
  He's not experienced enough.
• 24:37
  I didn't have a super license because our engine kept blowing up in practice.
• 24:40
  So I think I had like 20% of the mileage I needed.
• 24:45
  But they let me race, which is great.
• 24:48
  So I felt a lot of pressure and I spun off in practice and put it in the wall.
• 24:53
  I was like, oh, no.
• 24:56
  So I qualified right at the back, but then came through and ran as high as fourth at one point, and then I was running in sixth, which was the last points-paying position.
• 25:06
  I mean, sixth now, that's like a great result, right?
• 25:11
  Exactly.
• 25:12
  Tenth, but that was the last points-paying position.
• 25:16
  It would have been a very special first Grand Prix, but then the engine blew up.
• 25:21
  It turned three, breaking for turn three.
• 25:23
  So it was game over.
• 25:24
  But still, I took lots of positives out of that weekend.
• 25:28
  Next great weekend there was 2005 when I put it on pole position.
• 25:35
  Yeah, that meant a lot.
• 25:36
  And I wasn't really...
• 25:39
  in race trim wasn't really up with the Renaults or the McLarens, but it was still good.
• 25:45
  And then we blew the engine up coming to the start and finish line right at the end of the race.
• 25:50
  And I was told to stop.
• 25:51
  Did you have much warning that it was in trouble?
• 25:53
  And when did you get that?
• 25:54
  It was, you go around the second to last corner of the left, and then I felt there was less power.
• 25:59
  And I looked in the mirror and it was smoke and flame.
• 26:01
  It was spectacular for the wrong reasons for you, though, wasn't it?
• 26:04
  Yeah, it was like a metre of flame out the back of the car and,
• 26:07
  Giancarlo Fiscal was behind me and I saw the footage of him just sliding around on the oil.
• 26:12
  And the teams told me to stop.
• 26:14
  I remember that.
• 26:14
  They told me to stop before the start and finish line.
• 26:17
  Even though I was going to be well at the points, because it meant that I would have got a big penalty for the next race if I finished the race.
• 26:24
  So they tell me to stop, which is always tricky.
• 26:25
  You've done a whole run and you're reasonably competitive when they tell you to stop.
• 26:29
  But hey, it was what it was.
• 26:33
  And there...
• 26:34
  And the next big race for me was 2009.
• 26:40
  Coming to Australia, Melbourne, with the package we had, but also very uncertain of whether we'd get to the end of the race.
• 26:46
  Hadn't practiced pit stops, hadn't done anything like that.
• 26:50
  no sponsor on the car.
• 26:51
  It was, uh, it was a pretty epic weekend to get pole and the win one, two with my teammate Rubens, good friend of mine, uh, really meant, meant the world.
• 27:02
  Um, and then 2011 and 2012, one, one McLaren, um,
• 27:12
  It's a circuit that I always loved.
• 27:15
  I have to say it was the best way to start the F1 season.
• 27:19
  I think it meant a lot to us going there.
• 27:21
  For the first race of the year, traveling as far away from where we were from, 24 hours of travel to start the year was very special.
• 27:32
  I remember because it was a late race start.
• 27:35
  I always used to go to the beach, St. Kilda spot, and have my cappuccino before the race.
• 27:43
  I used to gather with whoever came with me, basically, my physio, my manager, my PR man, family.
• 27:49
  We'd always go to the same spot and have a cappuccino before we headed into the circuit on Sunday.
• 27:53
  Awesome.
• 27:55
  So a very special place.
• 27:56
  And I'll be heading back there this year, for the first time since the start of COVID, I guess, 2020.
• 28:05
  Awesome.
• 28:05
  I mean, that kind of, we're jumping around in your career here, but you're talking about coming, as you've done so well, mate, playing a television role, a pundit role and so on.
• 28:15
  I think you reflected to a colleague of mine that maybe initially there was some nerves around that, but you seem to take to it like a duck to water.
• 28:23
  Are you enjoying that?
• 28:23
  And what's been the biggest learning of playing on the other side and offering those observations?
• 28:28
  Yeah, I was definitely nervous, more nervous than racing, because it's something I've got.
• 28:33
  I'm not skilled in terms of...
• 28:35
  I don't have the experience of asking.
• 28:37
  But you seem like such a natural.
• 28:38
  You're such a natural though.
• 28:40
  I've definitely got better.
• 28:42
  The great thing is I can have a good interview with a driver because he knows if I ask him a question, it's difficult.
• 28:48
  He knows I've been through it before.
• 28:50
  So you can't just look at me and go, how dare you ask me that question?
• 28:55
  And that's what we go through as racing drivers.
• 28:56
  Like, no, I do.
• 28:57
  I've been through it all.
• 28:59
  So, you know, when I do the post-race interviews and post-qualifying, I love it.
• 29:05
  Because the driver gets out of the car and he looks at me.
• 29:06
  And first of all, it's like, oh, no.
• 29:08
  It's going to be a tricky question, but then he respects the question, which is really important.
• 29:15
  And most of the drivers I raced with.
• 29:17
  That's the crazy thing.
• 29:18
  I haven't raced the next one since 2017, but a lot of the guys at the front I've raced with and been teammates with.
• 29:26
  So, you know, Checo, Fernando, Lewis, Kevin, they're all still there.
• 29:33
  So I'm enjoying, I'm really enjoying the role.
• 29:35
  And if I didn't, I wouldn't do it.
• 29:36
  But interviewing the drivers is always the best bit.
• 29:40
  And I must say, jumping in the commentary box is also awesome.
• 29:45
  I love that part of it.
• 29:46
  It's as close as you get to driving.
• 29:48
  The adrenaline in the commentary box is great.
• 29:51
  You know, you're...
• 29:54
  basically telling the world what's happening through your eyes.
• 29:57
  And, you know, I've been through a lot of different scenarios in motor racing.
• 30:01
  So it's always interesting watching the race and, and giving my, my input, if you like, and my view on what's, what's actually happening on track at that moment in time.
• 30:11
  You're doing a super job with it, mate, and clearly that rapport with your colleagues, your constituents there in the lane shows to us on the coverage.
• 30:18
  Well done.
• 30:18
  Before we get to a little bit of focus on the Braun chapter, which you brought up there a moment ago, can we just ask about the Honda withdrawal?
• 30:27
  Actually, my colleague at the time, Cam McConville from Channel 10, where I was working, actually was invited to go to...
• 30:34
  for I think an end of year celebration that Honda were doing.
• 30:37
  Channel 10 and Australia were making a documentary on it and they gave him the opportunity to drive the car and it was Jensen within days, maybe a week of them actually pulling the pin.
• 30:48
  Did you know or have much of an inkling that that was coming and how did you feel when you heard the news?
• 30:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:54
  Didn't know at all.
• 30:55
  You know, I went away, did my normal winter training, which was, I used to go to a place called Lanzarote.
• 31:02
  There was a big place called Club La Santa.
• 31:05
  A lot of athletes used to go there and train.
• 31:07
  And it was a lot of fun, actually.
• 31:09
  It was also great to get away and just focus on preseason.
• 31:14
  I spent two weeks there.
• 31:16
  and felt fitter than ever.
• 31:17
  You know, it was always the thing.
• 31:19
  You always try and be a little bit fitter than the previous year, a little bit lighter, a bit stronger.
• 31:24
  And I'd just arrived at Gatwick Airport, which isn't the best experience on its own.
• 31:30
  I'm in the baggage carousel waiting for my luggage and my bike to come out.
• 31:36
  And that's when I got a call from my manager, Richard Goddard, God as we call him.
• 31:40
  And he said, I'm sorry, mate, but you...
• 31:44
  Your team is no more.
• 31:45
  You know, Honda have decided to pull out and we got searched for another drive.
• 31:51
  And it was, yeah, massive shock.
• 31:54
  Massive.
• 31:54
  Cause it was so late in the day, you know, to try and find another drive was impossible.
• 31:59
  So we found one opportunity, which is Toro Rosso.
• 32:02
  Rosso.
• 32:03
  Yeah.
• 32:03
  But I, I would have, I would have to bring a sponsor.
• 32:06
  It's like, you know, I'm not going to, I, first of all, I can't bring a sponsor because it's too late to try and find a sponsor.
• 32:12
  But at this point in my career,
• 32:15
  It felt weird to be bringing a sponsor to go racing.
• 32:19
  But yeah, so it was like, well, we have one option and that's to try and keep this team alive and find someone to buy it.
• 32:26
  So Richard and myself actually searched and found two people that were interested to take the team on.
• 32:33
  And initially we were working with Ross and Nick to make that happen.
• 32:36
  And then they went quiet.
• 32:37
  I was like, hang on, why is it going quiet?
• 32:39
  You know, we've got to watch it.
• 32:41
  They said, we're going to buy the team.
• 32:44
  But to be fair, we were just happy that we were going racing at that point.
• 32:47
  And we didn't know how competitive we'd be, but all the signs said that we would be good because the wind tunnel car, the pace of the wind tunnel, or the downfalls level in the wind tunnel looked really positive.
• 32:59
  And we'd watched winter testing, and other people seemed a long way off of what we thought our car could do.
• 33:07
  Well, you're probably enthused too by some of the stuff you'd seen in the pipeline at the end of the year before.
• 33:11
  You knew that there were some good ingredients for the year ahead before Honda withdrew, didn't you?
• 33:15
  Yeah, because 2008, we kind of, we built the car, we made a couple of changes, but most of the effort was going into 2009 car.
• 33:23
  Because change of regulations, when the car isn't good in 2008, you just think, well, we'll just finish the season out.
• 33:29
  We're not going to really develop it.
• 33:30
  We're going to focus on these new regs.
• 33:32
  And that's exactly what the team did.
• 33:35
  Honda spent a lot of money and time on developing the car and we came out with something that was very special.
• 33:44
  The only issue at that point was we had a team, we had a car, we didn't have an engine to go in the back.
• 33:49
  And as far as I know, I only found this out lately actually, that the team called Ferrari to try and get engines out of them.
• 33:58
  It didn't work out.
• 34:00
  And then they went with Mercedes.
• 34:02
  But Ron Dennis had to sign it off, which is never easy.
• 34:07
  But he did.
• 34:10
  And we had an engine.
• 34:13
  Amazingly, it was, look at all the data from the power unit.
• 34:17
  It was giving us a lot of lap time compared to what we thought the Honda would.
• 34:22
  In some ways, is that a little bit of a meant-to-be scenario?
• 34:25
  I don't know how far down the track they got in the Ferrari conversation, but that final piece of the puzzle coming together was a, pardon the pun, perfect fit, wasn't it?
• 34:33
  It was, and it was quite funny because, you know, after the first race, you know, Saturday evening I went out for dinner after putting it on pole in Melbourne and went to a posh restaurant.
• 34:44
  I went to Nobu because we were staying in the Crown Towers and it was just downstairs.
• 34:49
  It was easy.
• 34:49
  Yeah.
• 34:51
  sat there with my manager and a couple of other people.
• 34:55
  And Ron Dennis was sat behind at the table.
• 34:59
  And as soon as he saw me sat down, he said, you need to thank me.
• 35:02
  I'm like, I don't know who this is.
• 35:06
  And then I look around and it's Ron.
• 35:07
  He said, yeah, you need to thank me.
• 35:09
  And he wasn't saying it with a smile.
• 35:12
  I was like, I don't know what you mean.
• 35:15
  And he said, the reason why you have the engine and the reason why you put it on power position.
• 35:20
  I'm like, I'm not sure.
• 35:21
  That's totally correct.
• 35:24
  Thank you for the engine.
• 35:26
  But yeah, thank you also to the 500 people who built the car.
• 35:30
  Excellent.
• 35:37
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button.
• 35:43
  Just awesome to get him on.
• 35:46
  But we're not done yet.
• 35:47
  Jump back to the Rusty's Garage Library when you're ready and fire up part two.
• 35:51
  It's all there for you to enjoy right now.
• 35:54
  From the early indications Braun were title contenders to a movie in the works about that storied season, plus a new project that will take him to Le Mans.
• 36:05
  We relive Bathurst in a Formula One car and how the crown in the road sure made that interesting, as well as his memories of driving a V8 supercar.