- Winning time with Jenson
It’s not everyday that you bump into a Formula 1 world champion down the shops.
But if lucky Alison Barclay’s encounter with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Jenson Button was more the result of skill and judgment than mere coincidence, it’s still true that she met the reigning world champion at TAG Heuer’s stunning boutique in west London’s trendy Westfield shopping centre on Thursday evening.
Alison was the winner of a recent TAG Heuer competition, seeking a budding journalist to put Jenson on the spot during his visit to Westfield last night.
To see Alison’s winning questions, and Jenson’s equally insightful answers, read on…
You’re a big collector of watches, in particular TAG Heuer. Imagine you are cast away on a desert island; which watch would you take with you and why?
I would take the one I am actually wearing, the TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 1887 with home-made movement, because it is the only watch in the world that I have seen being made. I have seen the intricate detail within the watch, and how it has been put together. I know this one will tell the correct time. I think it is beautiful; quite simple looking, but stylish and classic. Just beautiful.
You’re at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes now. They’ve got a really illustrious history in Formula 1. If you could pick a car from their history and race against another driver, which car would you pick, which driver would you pick and why?
The car I would love to drive but I know I never could because I am too tall, is the 1988 McLaren which was an MP4/4. It won fifteen out of sixteen grands prix that season – Ayrton Senna won that season. It’s a beautiful car; very simple, very mechanical, just stunning. It’s a work of art. I was lucky enough to sit in the car in the factory in one of our warehouses and I could just about get in. My shoulders were against the sides so I couldn’t actually turn the steering wheel! That was a little bit disappointing.
I am actually driving the 1986 McLaren, the MP4/2C, which is one of Alain Prost’s cars at Goodwood. I am very excited because I am a huge fan of Alain Prost- he’s my hero, you could say. I used to watch him in the eighties when I started racing and I just remember loving his style; how smooth and precise he was. He was a professor.
I’d like to race against Alain or Lewis. Lewis is one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1 so for me to be racing alongside him is very exciting. We have a lot of respect for each other and he is a great team mate.
You have a lot of experience in Formula 1. If you could take one piece of that experience and share it with younger drivers just starting out in Formula 1, what would it be?
I think it would be from 2001. I had a pretty awful year in Formula 1 then; that was back with Benetton. I came out of a great year with Williams where the car worked well. I really gelled with the car and the team and it was all going really well, so I didn’t really do much set-up work. The engineering side of things for me was not the most important thing, just because I didn’t have much experience with it and I didn’t know how important it was. Then I got to Benetton and it was a really difficult car to drive and I struggled. I struggled against my team mate, I struggled with my car, and I never felt comfortable.
So for me, the most important thing is to really listen to what experienced people have to say. You need to take in as much information as you can, stay relaxed, and also understand that it is not all about the driving. Driving is a very small percentage of being a Formula 1 driver. The important parts are the engineering, understanding the car and what you are driving and what happens when you change something on the car. You also need to understand your engineers. They don’t drive Formula 1 cars, they don’t know how it feels, so in order for us to relay the information to them, we need to put it in- it sounds silly- simple terms sometimes.
In your career, you really have focused on Formula 1 so far. If there were another series out there that you could try, for example Le Mans, NASCAR, Superbikes, which one would it be?
In motorsport, I have always said that I would like to race in NASCAR but it’s something so different to what I do. There has only ever been one Formula 1 driver that has actually done well racing NASCARs and that is Juan Pablo Montoya. That would take me a few years to get used to. Also, racing V8 supercars in Australia would be a lot of fun. For one, I love Australia, but I also love how mechanical the cars are. There are no aerodynamics, no electronics; it’s just simple and a bit of a brute really. I think that would be quite exciting to do. But also I would like to do something like DTM. It’s a spectacular formula, a bit like an F1 car but scaled down. There are some great drivers in there and one of them is our test driver, Gary Paffett. I would like to go and race against him.
After Formula 1 it would be a very different type of racing, because this is my life at the moment. It’s my hobby, it’s my job, and it’s my profession. Whereas, when Formula 1 finishes my life will change. I want my own life and then I want the racing on the side to be fun, something I go and have fun doing. It’s very intense and I am enjoying it at the moment, but in ten years it will all be too much and I will just want to relax.