Ranking the 5 Best Moments of Jenson Button's Formula 1 Career

Jenson Button will celebrate his 300th Formula One race start in this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Sepang race is set to be the latest phase of the 2009 world champion's unofficial farewell tour, with Button already deciding to take a sabbatical in 2017 with a view to returning to the grid with McLaren-Honda in 2018.

The British driver, one of the most popular in the modern era, will become only the third driver to reach the 300-race milestone along with seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher and former Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello, who spent four seasons as Button's team-mate between 2006 and '09.

Here, we mark Button's triple-hundred by ranking the five most memorable moments of his 17-year F1 career.

Button's run of six victories in the opening seven races of 2009 will be recalled as the most glorious period of his F1 career, with three races standing out above the rest.

The first was the season-opening Australian GP, when after a dramatic winter he arrived at Albert Park and took a comfortable victory from pole position.

Three rounds later, in Bahrain, Button started as low as fourth on the grid and lost a position at the start, but he battled back up through the pack to win—passing future McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton at a crucial moment.

And, of course, there was his pole-to-flag win in Monaco—a day most remembered for Button's post-race jog down the main straight after parking his car in the wrong place.

His two victories in the opening four races of 2010, in Australia and China, were important in terms of establishing himself at McLaren so soon after his arrival from Brawn GP, while his win in the 2011 Hungarian GP—in his 200th F1 start—was typically Jenson.

Throughout his career, Button's sensitivity to a car's handling has proved to be both his biggest strength and one of his major weaknesses.

But the older he got, the more versatile he became, with his dominant dry-weather wins in Australia and Belgium—where he outqualified Hamilton by 0.8 seconds—in 2012 proving just how valuable an asset he had become for McLaren.

It is also worth mentioning the milestone moments of the first half of his career, including his first points finish (Brazil 2000), his first podium (Malaysia 2004) and his first pole position (Imola 2004).

Given the statistics of Button's F1 career—15 victories, 50 podiums and eight pole positions—it may seem strange to list a mere test session among his most memorable moments.

Yet those first few steps with the BGP 001 car encapsulated the excitement and emotion surrounding Brawn GP ahead of the 2009 season.

Having limped through 2007 and '08, it was an open secret that Honda had targeted the major 2009 regulation changes as the moment to become genuine front-runners, consistently challenging for grand prix wins and world championships.

Before they could enjoy their day in the sun, however, Honda were gone, becoming the first of several manufacturers—including Toyota, BMW and, to a lesser extent, Renault—to withdraw from F1 against the backdrop of the global financial crisis in December 2008.

Honda's late disappearing act had thrown the futures of the team, Button and Barrichello in serious jeopardy, with team principal Ross Brawn rescuing and renaming the outfit—as well as agreeing a Mercedes engine deal—just three weeks before the start of the season.

With this plain-white, almost naked racing car, Brawn GP held a shakedown at Silverstone on Friday, March 6, before joining their fellow competitors at Barcelona the following Monday, when Button and race engineer Andrew Shovlin came to truly understand just how fast the BGP 001 really was.

In his book, My Championship Year, Button wrote:

It was a magical sensation climbing into the cockpit to pit the BGP 001 against the other cars. The plan for the first run was to drive five laps. 'Obviously everything's very different,' Shov said, 'especially the engine, the driveability, so just get a feel for it.'

After two laps, I had the biggest smile on my face. The car was beautiful to drive. Wow! I thought, 'What have we done? We've built a car that is exceptional.'

I said to Shov: 'This is a great car. There are no areas that we need to improve. What a great base line!'

'Do you know how quick you are?'

'No...'

'You are six tenths quicker than anyone and they've been testing for four months,' he grinned.

It was the moment Brawn and Button knew they were the ones to beat, confirmation that the team, the car and all their futures were worth fighting for over the cold, dark winter months.

One-hundred-and-thirteen races. That's how long it took Button to claim his first grand prix victory.

One-hundred-and-thirteen races of waiting. One-hundred-and-thirteen races of wondering whether he was nothing more than a plucky Brit who would enjoy fleeting moments of semi-success but would always live in the shadows of drivers simply better than him.

One-hundred-and-thirteen races of fearing he really was the "lazy playboy" former team principal Flavio Briatore once said he was, per the Guardian's Giles Richards, a waster who had the talent to succeed but lacked the commitment and focus to realise his true potential.

It seemed 113 would become 114 in the third practice at 2006 Hungarian GP weekend, when a 10-place grid penalty following an engine failure condemned him to 14th on the grid.

Yet the rain on race day provided Button with the platform he needed to prove, beyond any doubt, his natural touch and feel for a racing car were comparable to the best in the business.

In a televised interview with Channel 4, Button explained the race was just one big "fight" as he battled his way through the field—passing Schumacher with a bold move at Turn 1 at one stage—to the point where he ran second behind Alonso after deciding to remain on track during a safety-car period.

As the track began to dry, Button soon caught Alonso, whose Renault crew—in the midst of a high-pressure championship scrap with Schumacher and Ferrari—made a decisive error during a pit stop, with a loose wheelnut causing the Spaniard to lose control and spin into the barrier at Turn 2.

Alonso's demise gifted Button an extremely comfortable lead and—at that point, with a maiden win in touching distance—most drivers would have been praying for the chequered flag to come.

But Jenson? 

Unaware when his next shot at victory would arise, he "didn't want it to end," as he told Channel 4, ultimately winning by more than 30 seconds.

Finally he was a race winner and the monkey—as cartoonist Jim Bamber famously illustrated—was well and truly off his back.

Button may be unmistakably British, but his heart very much lies in Japan.

His connection to the country can be traced as far back as the BAR-Honda days and only deepened with his long-term relationship with Fukui native Jessica Michibata and the creation of his triathlon team, Ichiban, which translates as "No.1."

He was deeply affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Tohoku in March 2011, and when the Japanese GP was held that October, he was determined to ensure sport—as it so often does—could bring at least some relief to a nation in need.

And that was exactly what Button, wearing a crash helmet painted in the colours of the Japanese flag, did at Suzuka.

Starting from second, Button should have taken the lead at the first corner, but Sebastian Vettel's overly aggressive defensive manoeuvre—which saw the German squeeze him onto the grass—led to the McLaren driver being passed by team-mate Hamilton.

A puncture soon dropped Hamilton out of contention for victory, leaving no obstacle between Button and Vettel, who—knowing a mere points finish would guarantee a second consecutive world championship—retained the lead following the first round of pit stops.

But during the second pit-stop phase, Button stayed out a lap longer than Vettel to nudge into the lead, only for a safety car—a consequence of the latest tangle between Hamilton and Felipe Massa—to put him under pressure from those behind.

Having worked so hard to get into the lead, however, Button was not prepared to give it away, managing the gap to first Vettel and then Alonso—even setting the fastest lap on the penultimate tour—to win by just 1.1 seconds.

With third place, Vettel had done more than enough to become king of the world. 

But Button—who later told Reuters' Alan Baldwin how this "very emotional win" felt like a home victory—was the king of Japan.

Sometimes it doesn't matter whether or not you have the fastest car or the quickest, most consistent driver.

All that matters is that when the chequered flag is within sight, you manage to put yourself in exactly the right place at precisely the right time.

In truth, Button drove like an idiot for much of the 2011 Canadian GP, making five pit stops, colliding with Hamilton and Alonso in separate incidents and incurring a drive-through penalty for speeding behind the safety car.

Yet come the conclusion of the four-hour race, which was halted for 125 minutes due to heavy rain, he stood on the top step of the podium.

The turning point, of course, came when the track finally began to dry, allowing Button to use the skills that had served him so well in changeable conditions ever since Hungary '06.

When the safety car appeared for the final time, just three cars were ahead of Button, who began to hunt down each and every one of them.

Mark Webber's mistake at the final chicane gifted Button third, before the McLaren driver, with the assistance of DRS, passed Schumacher on the back straight a lap later.

At that point, all that stood between Button and victory was Vettel, who despite the chaos had been in a world of his own at the front.

The Red Bull driver held a lead of a second as the final lap began, but the slightest touch of a damp patch of track saw him half-spin his RB7, throwing the win away.

On a weekend Hamilton, in the midst of a mid-career crisis, made his first serious attempt to leave the team, Button's success was symbolic in the context of his stature within McLaren.

Just 18 months after strolling into a Lewis-centric environment, Button had turned the so-called lion's den into his natural habitat.

From that moment, McLaren were his team.

There comes a point in an athlete's career when they are left with no option but to come out fighting, when, to achieve their goal, they have to seize it rather than waiting for it to come to them.

For Button, that moment of realisation came shortly after qualifying for the 2009 Brazilian GP.

His six victories at the start of the season had given Button a seemingly insurmountable 26-point lead in the drivers' standings after just seven races.

But almost five months later, the world championship was still not won, Barrichello was just 14 points behind and Button's worst nightmare—missing out on his one and only shot at the title after being in such a commanding position—was in danger of becoming a reality.

The alarm bells were loudest on Saturday evening at Interlagos, where—in the wet conditions in which he had always excelled—Button was stranded in 14th, crippled by extreme understeer, while Barrichello charged to pole in front of his home crowd.

That disappointment, though, seemed to flick a switch. Button consciously decided that, instead of trying to stumble across the finish line, he would win it in style.

Various scuffles and a safety-car intervention had elevated him up to ninth on the opening lap, and when the race restarted, it was down to Button to pick them off one by one with an aggression he had only rarely employed up until that point.

First Romain Grosjean. Then Kazuki Nakajima. Then Kamui Kobayashi, a pass that was followed by a battle cry of, "Let's go! Let's go!" over team radio. 

So when Barrichello suffered a puncture in the closing laps of the race, dropping to eighth, fifth-placed Button—having overtaken Sebastien Buemi—was in a position to finish the job once and for all.

"We are the champions, my friend!" he howled over the radio after crossing the finish line, knowing that after all those worries and moments of self-doubt, he could safely, confidently utter those words at last.

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