He has been described as “Britain's brightest motor racing hope for more than a decade” and the pressure has not been easy to handle for Jenson Button as he spent most of his career so far struggling to make a good impression. Even a third place finish in 2004 with BAR Honda was not sustainable.

Button began racing and with some astounding results. At age 11, when he participated in his first British Cadet Kart championship, he won all 34 races and from then on, it was a highway ride to Formula 1! Along the way, he also accumulated wins in the British Formula Ford Championship and the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. His last stop before hitting F1 was the Formula 3 Championship where he finished as the top rookie of 1999. He won three races and was placed third in the overall championship.

At the end of 1999, Button was testing with McLaren and Prost but he earned his race seat at Williams! Thanks to Alessandro Zanardi quitting, Button was in a position to ‘shoot out’ against Bruno Junqueira for the vacant seat and Button was the better of the two.

His debut season, 2000, wasn’t spectacular rather it was steady. Constantly living under the shadow of the more experienced Ralf Schumacher, Button could not quite live up to expectations, but that had more to do with inexperience at this level. Still, he managed 8 points and a fourth place finish.

In 2001, Button was still under contract with Williams but raced for Benetton! An under-development car meant that he was constantly out of contention and as a result, could only manage a 17th place in the overall championship.

2002 was another strange season for Button and although team-mate Jarno Trulli was the better of the two in testing and qualifying, he Button was the better under race conditions. In the end, though, he managed a 7th place in the overall standings including two fourth place finishes. He would have also had a podium in Malaysia, but the suspension failure held him back. Despite some good performances, Button lost his 2003 seat to Fernando Alonso. This switch caused a huge controversy, but team Principal Flavio Briatore would prove prophetic in his announcement “time will tell”.

From 2003 to 2005, Button was with the BAR team alongside Jacques Villeneuve and despite some mishaps and miscommunication, Button was largely the more successful of the two drivers. He finished the season in 9th place with his best result being 4th in Austria. The same year, Button also led a lap for the first time ever in the US GP!

Of his seven years in Formula 1, 2004 was by far the best season Button enjoyed on the race track. Starting with his first ever pole position, he also had an unprecedented 10 podium finishes pushing him way ahead of his team-mate. He would finish the year in third place with 85 points.

Button has often found himself in the middle of contractual controversies and 2004 was the worst of all. He announced midway through the season that he would be leaving for Williams for the next two seasons exploiting a loophole in his contract with BAR. Things went so far as to the FIA CRB board who ruled in favour of BAR-Honda. Through all this, Frank Williams maintained that the switch was totally legal, but BAR won.

Things got worse when Button got off to a poor start to the 2005 season managing to get disqualified in San Marino. Some more mishaps including a crash at Montreal where he had started from pole made things a little wobbly, but he got a grip and things improved in the latter half of the season. A couple of podium finishes including points in the last 10 races pushed his position to 9th in the overall standings. And before another contract controversy reared its head, BAR bought out his contract from Williams and ensured he was with them for 2006!

With most of his contractual issues out of the way, Jenson Button was part of the newly formed Honda Racing F1 Team (formed with the purchase of the BAR team) and hopes were high. Honda was touted to have one of the best cars on the circuit. Unfortunately, none of these hopes were realised. After a brisk start that saw Button finish 4th in Bahrain and third in Malaysia, everything pointed to a great season ahead. But lack of reliability on the part of the car forced four retirements in seven races in the middle of the season putting a major spanner in the works! Despite picking up his maiden F1 win in Hungary and some strong finishes towards the end of the season, the damage was found to be irreparable. Button managed to climb up to 6th in the overall standings with 56 points.

With the economic meltdown in 2008, Honda F1 announced the end of its Formula 1 program. This effectively meant that F1 was a non-starter for Button in 2009, but enter Brawn GP and Button’s fledgling career has been handed a fresh lease of life -- for a year at least.

Perhaps it is the familiarity with the car and team that kept Button back, but he did nothing of note to warrant such a move from Ross Brawn. A lowly 18th with just 3 points, he did better than only the Force India and retired Super Aguri cars. If he intends to continue in F1 beyond 2009, he will need to do far better.