How Jenson Button won the 2009 Formula One

It took six wins, one crash, 89 points and 16 races out of a total of 17 for Jenson Button to win the Formula One world title and become the 10th British driver to claim motor sport’s greatest prize.

When Button finished fifth in the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday, he bagged enough points to inherit the title from last year’s winner, Lewis Hamilton.

“It’s really amazing, especially after the last few races I’ve had,” Button told the BBC. “This one makes up for it. It was just such an awesome race and I’m world champion, baby.

“Twenty-one years ago I jumped in a car and I loved winning. I never expected to be world champion because you think racing drivers in Formula One are different to you but we’ve done it today.”

Button’s father, John, admitted the victory brought tears to his eyes. “I’m all washed out at the moment,” he told the BBC. “I’ve got to accept where he is now, he goes down in history with all the other great names. I haven’t got my head round that yet. We had a big squeeze and we were crying in there and he was crying on the radio in the car, which is not my son at all because he’s a hard man obviously.”

Button and his team, Brawn, have had an incredible championship, with near-total dominance early on giving way to a sequence of missed opportunities and, in Button’s case, a string of poor results.

But after seven seasons as a Formula One driver, 2009 proved to be the year the 29-year-old from Frome in Somerset did just enough to finally take the world title.