John Button 1943 – 2014

It is with great sadness that I must report the death of John Button, Jenson’s father, at the age of 70. He is believed to have suffered a heart attack at his home in Cap d’Ail, on the French Riviera on Sunday.

John was a former rallycross driver who was well-known for campaigning Volkswagen products in the British Rallycross Championship in the 1970s, finishing second in 1976. At the time he owned a VW-Audi dealership in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. He eventually gave up his own career to help support the efforts of Jenson, who was hyperactive as a child and was quickly bored. He loved to watch racing on TV and so, when Jenson was seven years of age, John decided to buy him a miniature motorcycle. This was quickly replaced by a 60cc kart and Jenson drove this to victory in his first race at the Clay Pigeon circuit in Dorset. John coached Jenson and paid for his racing by preparing kart engines for others. It is often overlooked that he helped many other young kart racers, notably Lewis Hamilton, providing them with engines which he had tuned, sometimes without asking for money.

By the time Jenson was in his teens he had become a professional kart racer and at 17 became the youngest driver to win the European Formula Super A championship.

“Without Dad I probably would never have got into motorsport,” Jenson wrote in 2002. “He was the one who got me my first kart, and the one who took me to Clay Pigeon when I demanded to have a go at a place where I could really open it up. Through those early years he was the one standing out there in the rain while I was in the track having all the fun, he was the one paying for it, he was the one who gave me the space in which to develop and the encouragement when things were rough, who helped to focus my energies when I decided that F1 was where I wanted to be. He never laughed at me when I said that, even though I was only a child. He just did everything he could to help set me on the course that brought me to BMW Williams in 2000. There were times when we ran out of money, but he never told me, never made me feel guilty for the expense he was put to or the sacrifices he had to make in his own life. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about him is that he was never a typical karting dad. Sure he’d get into it if someone was having a go at me but he was always quite happy to keep himself in the background, just like he does now.”

John was a charismatic and entertaining character, always full of great stories and willing to chat. He also knew exactly when not to get involved in his son’s career, a skill that other racing fathers could learn from.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said that John was “not only a great dad, but also a lovely man”.

“In my long Formula One career, 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,” Whitmarsh said. “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. As Jenson grew older, and continued to win in cars, still John was always there, his most steadfast helper and supporter. And, even now, in recent years, during which Jenson has become the consummate Formula 1 world champion that he is, the most experienced driver on the Formula 1 grid in fact, still John has been ever-present, as loyal and as loving as ever, a benign and popular member of Jenson’s small and intimate entourage. This coming season will be Jenson’s fifth as a McLaren driver. I believe John has attended every grand prix over the past four seasons, and over that period he’s become a unique and, I think it’s fair to say, irreplaceable part of the McLaren ‘family’. He’ll be enormously missed by Jenson, of course, by all at McLaren, and indeed by the Formula 1 community at large.”

My thoughts are with Jenson and his sisters Natasha, Samantha and Tanya.