The Big Questions: Jenson Button on Drive To Survive’s ‘fake’ drama, Red Bull’s Bahrain issues and Lewis Hamilton’s 2022 championship chances

Welcome to Metro.co.uk‘s The Big Questions, where we ask, well, the big questions (and the smaller ones too) and this week, we’re diving deep with Jenson Button.

The former Formula One champ may be out of the F1 driver’s seat now, but as Brand Ambassador for Williams Racing and a pundit on , the 42-year-old is still busy in pit lane.

And, well, frankly he’s busy full stop: with 2022 also and mother to his two children – Hendrix, two, and Lenny, 14 months – Brittny Ward, and launch his own Scotch, Coachbuilt.

Is it cliche of us to say the man doesn’t take the foot off the gas, or no?

But taking five from his hectic schedule, the driver sat down with us to chat all things F1’s 2022 season, from to whether Sir Lewis Hamilton will re-clinch that championship after Max Verstappen claimed victory in 2021. Oh, and we also tackle the claims of ‘fake drama’ in the Netflix series Drive to Survive.

So 2022 is off to quite the start for you – not only have you expanded your role with Williams, but you’ve just got married too, and launched a Scotch whisky this week…

It’s been a busy year, but a great year. I’ve got some other things I’m doing as well, racing and something later in the year that I can’t tell you at the moment.

There’s a lot going on, I’ll be doing quite a few races with Williams this year and I think everyone is excited about the Miami GP. It’s all fun stuff, I’m at a position in my life where I can be involved with companies that I want to be involved with and stuff’s that fun.

Did you get a break after the wedding? A honeymoon at least?

No, I’m in Saudi Arabia for my honeymoon, without my wife. We’ll do something in July or August which will be nice, just the two of us. It’s tricky spending too much time away from the kids, though.

Talking Bahrain, Williams came in there in 13th and 16th with drivers Alexander Albon and Nicholas Latifi, how are you feeling with one race under the belt?

This is a building year for Williams. They’ve got the funding now for the future which is great, but it takes time. They understand what they need to do.

This is definitely a positive year, and new regulations always mix things up, which is good, but it’s gonna be a couple more years till they’re going to be super competitive, fighting at the front.

But at least they’re on the journey, which is the important part.

It was obviously an upsetting race for Red Bull. As a pundit, were you surprised seeing last year’s leaders drop out so late in the game?

It was strange. I mean, first of all, it’s great to see another team [Ferrari] up the front. I do think that Mercedes will be challenging those top two here, which is good. So you have three teams possibly fighting for the win, but it was a strange one. 

It’s unusual for them to have a failure like that. A fuel pick-up, the problem…which happens, and normally you get through that in testing so you can understand at what point you stop sucking up fuel, but I don’t know if they did that, or they’ve had some other issues. 

[It’s] very technical now, F1. It’s a lot more complicated than when I was racing.

Is Ferrari a solid challenge for championship?

​​They’re definitely the quickest at the moment, both cars upfront, fastest qualifying…they’re definitely the team to beat. But I don’t think Red Bull is far behind at all, and with a different track here in Saudi Arabia it could turn around very easily.

It’s an aerodynamic circuit, very fast, very flowing, the opposite of what we saw in Bahrain which is a very stop-start circuit. We could see a challenge from them, or Mercedes, or from another team, who knows.

Last season we saw one of the biggest tussles for the championship with your own former teammate Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Do you think this might be Lewis’s year? And, if not, do you see him hanging around as a driver?

I have no idea what he’s gonna do, sometimes you want to go out on top, but it’s difficult walking away when you’re on top when you can come back the year after and win again. Who knows. 

For me, it’s exciting to see him battling it out with people like Max and the Ferrari guys, with Charles [Leclerc] being competitive and quite an aggressive driver, as well, in the way he fights for position. 

This is what we want. When it was just Mercedes winning every weekend it’s not so fun for people watching and everyone involved. To have two teams last year fighting for championship was great, and possibly three this year, if not more – F1’s in a good place.

Netflix’s Drive to Survive has done so much for the sport, however in regards to claims of ‘fake drama’ surely there is a lot of that in F1 rivalries?

No, not at all. I’m a purist, so I don’t like anything that’s not correct. This has been my world for so many years, I know what’s fake and what isn’t: when a tyre squeal isn’t a tyre squeal; when the commentary isn’t actually the commentary for the race. 

But I understand it as well. It’s brought in a lot of fans around the world who might not have been fans before. I thank them for that, but as a purist… I like watching Sky Sports F1 to be fair [laughs], that’s where I am and I know it’s truthful. 

It’s entertainment, which is good.

With so many children of F1 drivers taking up the mantle, and racing being in the Button blood as well with your dad being a driver, do you see your own kids following in your footsteps?

I have no idea. I’m definitely not gonna push them but if they say ‘dad you used to be a racing driver, can I try it?’ I’ll obviously say yes. But I’m not gonna be a pushy dad, I learned from my father not to be pushy, and that’s normally when things work out.

I’ll let them choose their own paths. if one of my kids wants to be, a driver, it’s probably more likely to be my daughter. She’s only 14 months but she’s the aggressive one in my family.

Having been in the spotlight for decades, what’s a misconception about you?

I don’t know if there are any. I try not to read negative comments, maybe there were but I don’t know.

I worked extremely hard in my racing career and the point for me was to be the best I possibly could, whether that was the best in the world or not at any given time I don’t know, the important thing is that I gave it my all and that’s what matters.

I can definitely walk away from the sport having my head held high. It’s a really fun career, I enjoyed it but it’s nice to step away and challenge myself in other ways.

Do you think you’d enjoy being at the top more or less these days with things like social media?

I raced at a very good time in the sport. I went through the years of the V10 engines, V8, the Hybrid – and when people didn’t have cameras on their cell phones. It was a good time and we could definitely relax a little bit more…there were pressures, sponsors, if you worked for big teams and manufacturers, but I could go and sit in my room on my own. 

It seems everything is filmed these days. It’s a necessary evil, I guess, it’s extremely in your face being a racing driver these days, you can’t get away from a camera.

Jenson Button is a Brand Ambassador for Williams Racing and a pundit for Sky Sports, covering the 2022 Formula One season.