British troublemaker Button finally gets his career on track

Can it really be 10 years, we wonder, when we look out on the tracks on all those Sundays around the world?

A decade already? Was it not 1999 just yesterday? And wasn't Jenson Alexander Lyons Button just a rookie driver with more potential in his right front tire for reshaping the future of Formula One than the rest of the field combined?

Or was all of that talent "just wasted," as legendary driver and British Formula One commentator Martin Brundle put it before the beginning of the 2009 F1 season.

"He has made bad decisions which often navigated him into all the wrong places at the wrong time," Brundle wrote on the BBC Web site as recently as February.

So, did we really spend 10 years waiting for the youngest, brightest, fastest and most likely to be the Next Great Thing become the Next Great Thing?

Even in his hometown of Frome, England, they would gather around the TV at the Frome Flyer pub on Jenson Avenue to watch and wait. And wait. And wait some more.

"Hey," Button recently joked after winning his fourth race in the first five of the 2009 season, "sometimes good things take time."

Pop. Pop. Pop. The British cameras flash, and Button flashes that daring smile.

Whoa, what has happened, here? Is it 1999 again?

Now the British bookies have the local boy as an odds-on favorite to win the 2009 World Drivers' Championship.

Britain is again going ga-ga over Buttonmania and suddenly, F1's "veteran" thinks the hype is no big deal.

"He has performed as everyone hoped he finally would," Brundle told the BBC audience recently.

Expectations were more than high for Button, the young Brit phenom. In fact, they were out of this F1 world.

You could expect as much from a kid who began karting at age 8, then promptly went out and won all 34 races on the circuit after just his second year in the seat. Further successes followed, including three triumphs in the British Open Kart Championship. In 1997, at 17, he became the youngest driver ever to win the European Super A Championship and won the Ayrton Senna Memorial Cup as well, precipitating a move into professional auto racing.

A year later, Button was winning Formula Ford titles, outdueling drivers five years older and even winning a test in a McLaren Formula One car.

And, presto, he was suddenly in F1, plucked out of the junior ranks by the legendary Williams team following the departure of Alex Zanardi.

Yes, that Zanardi.

F1 before you are 21? You must be joking.

Button wasn't.

He was at the top, poised to become the next great one. But on the track he finished eighth in the Drivers' Championship his first year and it never really got better.

In fact, it took six years for Button to win -- in Hungary on Aug. 6, 2006, after 113 races -- and another three years before he saw another one.

Off the track, however, he was a raging success for the press. He came close to punching billionaire Richard Branson after accusing Branson of hitting on his girlfriend in an Australian bar. He had his own line of clothing. He had his autobiography in the works after only a year on the track.

"A volume which has yet to be written about a career which has yet to take place," the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote.

He was anything but noncontroversial, claiming that F1 champ Michael Schumacher was the worst-dressed driver on the circuit, spending many nights in discos and characterized as Britain's leading playboy.

"I suppose this is motor racing's equivalent of the Spice Girls," said Williams technical director Patrick Head, who had 25 years of experience in F1. "It certainly was not driven by us here at the team. I suppose you could say it was all a little unfortunate and driven by hype, but that's the way it is.''

In his eventual book, Button described his first few years as an incredible challenge because "anything less than magnificent would be viewed as failure."

The ultimate failure might have been close at hand.

Until current team boss Ross Brawn put together the buy-out that saved Button's former Honda team (which pulled out of F1 this year) it appeared as though 2009 was going to be another lost year and one that could have easily meant the death of Button's career.

But his patience with the team has paid off in the most spectacular way. Brawn produced a fast car, and the 29-year-old Englishman, at last, has decided to drive the wheels off it.

"The team still has a lot of hurdles to clear to secure a long-term future, but this is a golden opportunity for Button to prove his supporters right and his detractors wrong," Brundle said. "He said he had never doubted himself through all this."

Now, all seems to have fallen in place. Button is winning races and is leading in driver points. He has a solid team (after changing them multiple times in 10 years) and he seems to be on a new path.

Button is now a man careful with what he says to the media.

What three words would he use to describe what it's like to be a Formula One driver?

"Wow, wow ... and wow," Button told the BBC.

What is the biggest perk of the job?

"Racing a Formula One car against the best drivers in the world -- it's as simple and amazing as that."

How would you like to be remembered as an F1 driver?

"As a world champion and someone who worked very hard to build a strong team," he said.

He might be on his way.

It just took a while.

Steven Reive is a feature writer with Wheelbase Communications. He can be reached on the Web at: www.wheelbase.ws/mailbag.html. Wheelbase Communications supplies automotive news and features to newspapers across North America.