Jenson Button

He is the fourth child of the half-South African Simone Lyons and former rallycross driver John Button from London's East End, who was well known in the United Kingdom during most of the 1970s for racing his Volkswagen Type 1, which was nicknamed the Colorado Beetle.

Jenson's parents met in Newquay at a young age and were reunited after a musical concert at Longleat.

According to John, Jenson was named after his Danish friend and rallycross opponent Erling Jensen, changing the "e" to an "o" to differentiate it from Jensen Motors, while Simone recalls that she named him Jenson after noticing a Jensen sports car and thought the change of spelling would be "more mannish".

Button enjoyed racing from an early age, racing a BMX bike with friends after school, and began watching Formula One (F1) motor racing with his father around the age of five or six.

He idolised four-time world champion Alain Prost for his calm personality and intellectual approach to driving.

After his parents divorced when he was seven, he and his three elder sisters were brought up by their mother in Frome.

Button was educated at Vallis First School, Selwood Middle School and Frome Community College.

His karting career limited his studying and he left school with one GCSE.

Button failed his first driving test for driving between two cars on a narrow road.

Button's father gave him a 50cc bike for his seventh birthday; he discarded it after half an hour because it lacked speed, which would have required his father to remove its restrictor, and he disliked his father's idea of progressing to the 80cc category.

John talked to rallycross driver and Ripspeed car accessories owner Keith Ripp at an Earl's Court racing car show about his son; Kipp recommended the purchase of a Zip go-kart suited for the newly formed Cadets class for eight to twelve year-old karters for the young boy.

Jenson Alexander Lyons Button (born 19 January 1980) is a British racing driver.

Button was born on 19 January 1980 in Frome, Somerset and brought up in nearby Vobster, Mells.

Button received the kart as a Christmas present in 1987 and he began karting at the Clay Pigeon Raceway in May 1988 aged eight following repeated questions by club members to his father on when Button would start racing.

He was required to drive on slick tyres on a wet track because his father wanted him to learn car control on a sodden surface and taught him basic driving techniques by standing at a corner and pointing to where his son should brake.

In 1989, aged nine, Button won the British Super Prix.

Midway through the year, his father spoke to him about progressing to the club level since others noticed he was competitive, which Button was interested in.

He won all 34 races of the 1991 British Cadet Kart Championship and the title with team Wright Karts.

Afterwards Button told his father his objective was to compete in F1 and he was given a map to chart his progress in karting.

The two agreed to give each other more autonomy and Button was mentored by mechanic Dave Spencer in moving from the Cadets to Juniors class.

Spencer told him to be more aggressive and less smooth driving Junior karts because they have more power than a Cadet kart.

Button was also required to manage the condition of his tyres to retain grip.

Further successes followed, including three British Open Kart Championship wins.

A series of sub-par performances in 1992 gave Button doubts over his ability to win races and he told his father he wanted to continue racing after dismissing the suggestion of two months away from karting.

The family telephoned Spencer for advice; he and Button's father constructed the young boy's karts and influenced his school headteacher to change his fitness regime and had to eschew unhealthy beverages.

He first drove in F1 with Williams for the 2000 season.

The following year he switched to Benetton, which at the start of the 2002 season became the Renault team, and then for the 2003 season he moved to BAR.

He finished third in the 2004 World Drivers' Championship, before falling to ninth in the 2005 championship.

BAR was subsequently renamed and became the Honda team for the 2006 season, during which Button won his first Grand Prix at the, after 113 races.

Following the withdrawal of Honda from the sport in December 2008, Button was left without a team for the 2009 season.

He won the 2009 Formula One World Championship when he drove for the Brawn GP team.

In February 2009, Ross Brawn led a management buyout of Honda, creating Brawn GP and recruiting Button as a driver.

Button went on to win a record-equalling six of the first seven races of the 2009 season, securing the World Drivers' Championship at the, having led on points all season; his success also helped Brawn GP to secure the World Constructors' Championship.

At the start of the 2010 season, he moved to McLaren, partnering fellow British racer Lewis Hamilton.

After finishing fifth for the team in 2010, Button ended the 2011 season as runner-up, before falling to fifth in the 2012 championship.

Four more seasons with McLaren resulted in no further victories and he retired from Formula One at the end of 2016, making a one-off return at the to deputise for Fernando Alonso.

From the 306 races that Button started, he won 15, qualified on pole position 8 times, took 50 podium finishes and scored 1,235 championship points.

After his F1 career, he became champion of the 2018 season of the Super GT Series alongside Naoki Yamamoto, with whom he shared a Honda racing car at Team Kunimitsu.

He currently competes part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 15 Ford Mustang for Rick Ware Racing with support from Stewart-Haas Racing and sponsorship from Mobil 1.

Button began karting at the age of eight and achieved early success, before progressing to car racing in the British Formula Ford Championship and the British Formula 3 Championship.