Jenson Button’s life in the fast lane

FORMULA One champion Jenson Button is a class act, as smooth off the track as he is on it.

Jenson Button in one of his sponsors, Hugo Boss.

IT’S the Thursday evening before the Melbourne Grand Prix and the penthouse at The Blackman, a modish boutique hotel on St Kilda Road overlooking Albert Park, is heaving. Melbourne’s well-to-do set (and the odd ne’er-do-well socialite) has gathered for the pre-race Johnnie Walker party, and the guest of honour, Jenson Button, Formula One champion and unlikely palate for a $64,000 Scottish whisky (more about that later), has arrived.

Slim and immaculately presented in a natty grey suit that has been specially tailored for him by sponsor Hugo Boss to take into account his bigger-than-average neck muscles (necessary to withstand top-speed g-forces), Button is called to the stage to be peppered with a series of questions by Seven Network journalist Nick McCallum. “Jenson,” McCallum begins. “You’ve won here three times. What’s so special about Melbourne and this track for you?” Jenson pauses a beat, then turns to the crowd. “Well, firstly, good evening, everyone.”

He’s a class act, this Jenson Button: smooth on the track, and well mannered off it. On what he could expect from new Australian F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo this season Button replies, “A big smile! I don’t know if you have noticed, [but] he’s got the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing. He’s a great guy — he really is. He’s a straightforward guy, down to earth and extremely talented. Fair play to him: I think he deserves the drive he’s got.”

According to Till Pohlmann, Hugo Boss’s Germany-based head of sports sponsorship, Button’s “nice guy” performance is no act. “I’ve known Jenson for a long time,” Pohlmann says. “And it’s true. He is really such a nice, lovely guy. Eight years ago, he was a typical F1 freak, you know, enjoying life, living the playboy lifestyle, etc. When he joined McLaren, he was already world champion and had the experience of being a world champion. But being at the very top made him … he has a lot of respect for everybody. Because he knows how it feels to be at the top, and how it feels to be very low. He’s very humble. He’s a very humble man. And he’s very stable on the inside. He goes out from time to time, but his pleasure is not partying. His pleasure is to spend time with himself to do sport every day.”

At 34 years of age, Button is the second-oldest driver in Formula One and the third most experienced in history in terms of Grand Prix races (253 and counting). Race durability, from both a physical and mental aspect, is key for the Englishman, particularly with a chasing pack of young F1 drivers, including his teammate Kevin Magnussen, aged 21. To maintain the ability to endure lap after lap, Button keeps to a ruthless fitness campaign, including regularly competing in triathlons. In between the recent Chinese and Spanish Grand Prix he took part in the Challenge Fuerteventura in Las Playitas, Spain.

By his own standards, Button’s start to the 2014 Grand Prix Championship has been underwhelming. At press time, he was sitting in eighth position on the Formula One championship after four rounds. There’s been much debate in the British motoring press about the quality of this year’s McLaren cars, and how much the new F1 rules and regulations have affected the team, but off-track Button has had to deal with a huge loss — the passing in January of his father John, aged 70. By all accounts, especially those Australians working behind the scenes at the Melbourne Grand Prix, John Button was a brilliant mentor to his son, and somewhat of a character. He was ever-present in the F1 paddock on Grand Prix race days wearing his lucky pink shirt, an encouraging, ever-constant presence by his son’s side.

“In my long Formula One career,” said McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh in January, “I’ve encountered many drivers’ fathers. But I think it’s safe to say that John was perhaps more devoted to his son than any of them. Ever since Jenson was a boy, racing go-karts, his dad has been at his side, helping him, supporting him, finding the money for the next race.”

He wouldn’t admit it but one wonders how difficult it was for Jenson Button to race at the Melbourne Grand Prix without his father at his side for the first time. Earlier, Button had told the crowd he believed he still had the will to race. “You jump in the car tomorrow, you close the visor and it’s just you and the car,” he said. “You can forget all the other … it’s peaceful. It’s the most enjoyable place to be.”

There are some sport stars you meet you wish you hadn’t; others you’re glad you did. Jenson Button is the latter. This year’s “old man” of F1 is a mature, circumspect beast. “I would not want to be 21 again,” Button says firmly, in reference to questions about his age. “I’ve had some great times, but they’re great times that I wouldn’t change for the world. It’s all about experience. My life is the best life I ever could have had. I’m very lucky in that respect. But also you need great people around you that make you the person you are. I think, for me, the most important thing is friendship. You know, love for family and friends. And that keeps everything … it keeps your feet on the ground when you get too big for your boots, which some of us do. And they (friends and family) pick you up when you’re down as well. Especially in my job, it’s quite easy to get down and negative, because there is so much pressure on your shoulders.”

Travelling up to three times each week, there’s not a lot of downtime for Button these days to release the pressures of F1. The solitude and challenge of training for triathlons are probably Button’s balm. He hardly gets out on the town as often or as with as much gusto as in his youth but says he does love “dressing up”. “Oh, I love putting on a good suit,” he admits. “There are suits and there are suits, aren’t there? I mean, putting on a suit that doesn’t don’t quite fit can make you look pretty average. But when you put on a suit that fits perfectly, it gives you confidence.”

Being British, Button is a “massive fan” of the three-piece suit, and says his association with Hugo Boss’s Made to Measure program (he is the global ambassador) gives him a bit of stylistic licence. “If I was going out and buying a suit or clothes, I would always go for the same thing,” he says. “I always go one direction with it” — he stops himself. “I don’t mean the group One Direction because that wouldn’t be so cool for me. Ha. Hugo Boss have given me the opportunity to try things

I wouldn’t have tried before. So I wear things now … I put something on I never would have tried.”

Other far-out things Button never would have tried but has done so now is blending whisky for the bespoke Signature division of Johnnie Walker. Although admitting to drinking “anything I can get my hands on” to celebrate a victory on track, Button’s tipple of choice when he’s at home, he says, is Johnnie Walker Blue label. “I like the smoky finish. It’s not something I would go and drink, you know, if I was on a night out with the guys, but for when I’m relaxing it’s definitely what I drink.” Now, interestingly enough, Button has worked with Johnnie Walker master blender Jim Beveridge (perfect name for a whisky blender, no?) on a $64,000 limited-edition blend labelled John Walker & Sons Signature Blend, McLaren Mercedes Edition. The whisky is packaged in a specially built carbon fibre box that replicated the shell of a McLaren F1 car.

I ask Button whether this limited-edition McLaren blend is something he really wanted to do, or was just a cynical, clinical corporate gig. “No! It was really interesting for me to have the opportunity, because not many people do. It costs quite a lot if you want to design your own whisky ([bespoke blends start from reportedly about £100,000 for about 100 individual bottles), so it was a great experience for me. It’s pretty cool. Obviously I didn’t drive everything, but with the idea of a Formula One driver and a formula one team designing a whisky was pretty special. I think it’s great having the carbon fibre box. It’s quite unique.”

To create the blend, Button met Beveridge at the Johnnie Walker House in Shanghai a few years ago and spent the afternoon on it. Not “on it” as in he went on a bender — “I couldn’t drink it; I was driving that weekend” — but on developing the palate of the blend. “They had all the different whiskies there,” Button says, “and we went through smell, basically. What sort of smells and flavours I like from a whisky and what have you. So we went through that and I said ‘I like this, a bit of this, a bit of this’ and he (Beveridge) started mixing it. And we came up with something that was pretty special. He loved it, which is the most important thing, because he’s the one that knows about whisky.”

Independent whisky expert Ian Buxton, the England-based author of 101 Whiskies To Try Before You Die, says the McLaren Mercedes Edition blend holds up from a critical viewpoint. “Jenson Button has a great palate,” he says. “The blend is absolutely unique, so it’s hard to compare it with other whiskies in this rarefied (pricey) end of the market,” he says. “However, it was personally created for him by Dr Jim Beveridge, one of the most highly regarded blenders in the whole Scotch whisky industry. I would be surprised if it didn’t set a few lap records.” Buxton says the $64,000 price tag may “come as a shock” to some buyers, and says the price is indicative of “exclusivity, a celebrity association, bespoke nature, luxury packaging and, of course, rare and old whisky. Ultimately, it’s the taste that matters. And you should share it. Unlike wine, whisky doesn’t age or improve in bottles.”

And Button? How many bottles of this will the reportedly £63 million driver worth keep at home? Will his cabinet be stocked full? “Ah, no. I definitely won’t have a few bottles of this, I can tell you that,” he replies. Unlike whisky, it seems the prudent Button is improving with age. He’s got some bottle, that’s for sure.