Class Act

The majority of Formula 1 discussion last week quite legitimately centred around Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and his growing list of achievements. Japan delivered another pole position, another podium finish and another world title for the man who loves to rack-up statistics. 2011 has been dominated by the formidable German, but he has shone so brightly as to distract us from an increasingly intriguing sub-plot – the evolution of McLaren’s Jenson Button.

In Japan, with an improved car, the Brit qualified second alongside champion-elect Vettel. It is said that Button can only drive a good car, that he falters badly when conditions aren’t perfect – but he rarely wastes an opportunity when it comes his way. Part of the reason why team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s season has seemed so rotten is that he is being compared to, arguably, the most consistent driver on the grid in Button.

Not for Jenson the ‘plan-A-or-bust’ scenarios, avoiding a rude chop from Vettel in the first corner of the Japanese race with composure enough to focus on longer-term strategy. Finally getting credit these days for his clinical overtaking and ability to mix it in the dry as well as the wet, Button calmly closed out the race under pressure from Alonso’s Ferrari, in the same manner for which Vettel has received such high praise.

Forget Hamilton’s ‘misfortune’ in qualifying; there is a reason that those incidents always happen to him. Forget, too, the caution of the Red Bull driver simply doing enough to win the title. Button went and made things work for him.

Having arrived at the team in 2010 as reigning champion he was nonetheless put swiftly into the role of support driver by critics and experts alike, second to the mighty Lewis Hamilton and his three whole years of experience; no longer. This year’s championship may be over, but if McLaren deliver a competitive package for 2012 we’ll see just how much higher Button’s star can rise.