Briton Jenson Button was crowned drivers world champion on Sunday when he finished fifth in an incident-filled Brazilian Grand Prix won by Australian Mark Webber.
Button, who has led the championship all season after winning the opening Australian Grand Prix in March, had started 14th on the grid, but drove with courage and determination to achieve his goal and send the Brawn GP team into wild celebration.
“We are the champions,” Button sang out of key from his cockpit after crossing the finishing line and capturing the title with one race to spare.
Later the 29-year-old told the BBC: “It’s really amazing especially after the last few weeks. It was such an awesome race – I’m world champion baby!”
“When I first jumped in a car 21 years ago I never expected to be world champion – but we did it today.”
Button’s success ensured also that the Brawn team, created out of the ashes of the defunct Honda team last winter, also clinched the constructors’ world championship.
“It’s very special,” said team boss Ross Brawn who paid tribute to Button and also former company workers who were laid off in the team’s reorganisation.
“The work over the winter was sensational and I give all my thanks to all the people who couldn’t be with us and who had to leave.
“The second half of the season was hard but it was a great race today. Jenson knew what he had to do.”
Button’s great success came in his 169th Grand Prix and at the end of his ninth season in Formula One, a year when he won six of the opening seven races and then struggled to recapture that form.
It was a classic case of the tortoise and the hare in the second half of the season as Button survived the intensifying pressure around him, but continued to collect points.
Webber, in a Red Bull, won comfortably ahead of Pole Robert Kubica in a BMW Sauber and third-placed outgoing drivers’ champion Briton Lewis Hamilton in a McLaren Mercedes.
German Sebastian Vettel, in the second Red Bull, was fourth ahead of Button with Finn Kimi Raikkonen sixth for Ferrari.
Swiss Sebastien Buemi of Toro Rosso was seventh and the luckless local hero Brazilian veteran Rubens Barrichello, in the second Brawn, eighth after starting from pole position.
He suffered from heavy traffic and then a late puncture that wrecked his hopes of glory.
Webber, who started alongside Barrichello at the front of the grid, led the race from the early stages and was never headed as he cruised to just the second grand prix victory of his career.
Webber’s victory ensures the Australian will finish the year fourth in the drivers’ championship.
Factfile on Jenson Button who won the Formula One world championship here on Sunday:
Name: Jenson Button
Nationality: British
Date of birth: 19 January 1980
Place of birth: Frome, Somerset, England
Residence: Monaco
Height: 1.83m
Weight: 70.5kg
Marital status: Single
Hobbies: Water sports, cycling, ski touring, cars and music
Website www.jensonbutton.com
Career details
GP debut: Australia 2000
Best World Championship position: 1st – 2009
First win: Hungary 2006
Last win: Turkey 2009
Pole positions: 7
GP starts: 169
GP wins: 7
GP points: 321
F1 career:
2009: Brawn GP Formula One – 1st in Drivers’ Championship
2008: Honda Racing F1 Team – 18th in Drivers’ Championship
2007: Honda Racing F1 Team – 15th in Drivers’ Championship
2006: Honda Racing F1 Team – 6th in Drivers’ Championship
2005: BAR Honda – 9th in Drivers’ Championship
2004: BAR Honda – 3rd in Drivers’ Championship
2003: BAR Honda – 9th in Drivers’ Championship
2002: Renault F1 – 7th in Drivers’ Championship
2001: Benetton – 17th in Drivers’ Championship
2000: Williams – 8th in Drivers’ Championship
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