Remember we asked you last week to email in your questions for Jenson Button? Well, the McLaren answered a selection of them in Japan...
Huge fan of yours, have been since I started watching Formula 1 in 2002. My question is: If you could relive one race from your career, which one would it be and why? Aaron Irwin
Jenson Button: “I’ve always been asked what my favourite race was and probably my favourite race was here in Suzuka, winning the grand prix in 2011, for many different reasons. But if I was to re-live the race, it would be Canada 2011. Just because everything happened in that race and it was one of those races that just proves you should never, never give up because anything is possible. I mean, I was last twice and I thought, ‘This is going to be a tough race’. I never thought I’d win it but I was dedicated to getting the maximum out of the car every lap and came away with a victory. So a perfect race in a way, with so many things going wrong, but I ended up winning the grand prix. So very special.”
Apart from Daniel Ricciardo, who do you think will be the next World Champion in the current field of drivers? Tim Jobs
JB: “I think you’d say Daniel Ricciardo. I’d choose him.”
So not Valtteri Bottas then, for example?
“It’s a shot in the dark, isn’t it? I mean there’s a few drivers: you’d say that Kevin’s quick , you’d say that Bottas is, Kvyat’s quick. But it’s a real shot in the dark. I’d say Ricciardo’s easier.”
I've a question: If Big Ron came to you and said, ‘Button, I’m going to give you a car and the choice was a McLaren P1 sportscar or an F1 sportscar’, which would you have? Sent from Ross Taylor (aged 15)
JB: “An F1 road car because when you look at McLaren that’s the car you think of. I mean, the P1 is a beautiful work of art and technically so advanced. But the McLaren F1 was the car that, when I was growing up, I had a picture of it and it was the car to have: central driving position; it’s still the most powerful normally aspirated engine in a road car – supposedly – so that would be the car. And it’s worth a hell of a lot of money – the re-sale value’s much better!”
How much longer do you see yourself competing in Formula 1? I hope you won’t retire any time soon, whether or not you stay with McLaren for 2015, F1 needs a gent like you! Also, what does your general fitness training programme look like? Christian Sorgendal Oslo, Norway
JB: “I don’t know. Why put a number on it?
“General fitness training programme? Lots of cycling, lots of running, lots of swimming. Lots of core work at the moment and some reaction work as well. So strength work, you don’t need it in F1 anymore. But it’s all stuff that I love. I love doing triathlons, which is all physical and mental training for F1 as well. For example, on Tuesday I cycled around Mount Fuji, which is 106km and 2000m of climbing. That’s four hours, so that’s the sort of training I do. It’s all mixed up; it’s all different. Long stuff, the base, I have other stuff which is peak training – peak heart-rate training – there’s all sorts. But I enjoy my training, and I’m lucky that I do really.”
When you finally hang up your racing gloves, what have you got planned next, will we ever see you doing F1 commentary? Stewart Knight
JB: “Never say never to anything. But I’m not thinking about that right now.”
What single piece of career advice would the Jenson Button of 2014 give to the Jenson Button of 2000? Kevin Ayres
JB: “Learn as much as you can. There’s no day that goes by that you should not be learning and improving yourself as a sportsman but also as an individual. It’s something I didn’t realise when I was 20 years old; I thought that driving skill was enough – natural ability – but it isn’t.”
Have you ever sneezed during a race and if so how fast did the corner come? Laura Armstrong
JB: “Yes I have, and obviously you have to close your eyes. But it’s only for a split second so it’s not really a problem. For us, the biggest issue is if you have a section of corners that come straight after each other, you can’t breathe because of the G-force you pull. So that’s the biggest problem for us. Shanghai was always the worst circuit; not so much now because we’re going slower. But when you’re pulling high G in turn seven to turn ten, you hold your breath…you couldn’t breathe. Not on purpose, you just couldn’t breathe.”
If you could pick any driver from past or present to be your team-mate who would it be? Alex Bowe
JB: “Alain Prost. I know he’d be a tricky team-mate but I think I’d learn a lot from him. I think it’d be very interesting to have him as a team-mate.”
If you could drive any F1 car from history, what would it be? Sam Joseph
JB: “I really don’t know; that’s a difficult one. I can’t fit in the MP4-4, which is one of the most famous McLarens ever and one of the most famous cars in Formula 1. So it wouldn’t be that. It would probably be something I’ve driven. For me, I think I’ve driven some of the best Formula 1 cars ever in terms of outright pace. I think Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari from 2004 was probably the quickest car ever made in Formula 1 history, so for me it would probably be that car – just to experience the G-force. We had a good car that year but we were still a second off them.”
I'm interested to find out what you find most frustrating about Formula 1 as a driver, a team member and also a fan. Dom Hunt
JB: “Probably that we always feel we need to change the sport. You look at football and you look at tennis – they’ve found something that works. There’s no need to change it and I feel we try to change things too much in this sport. So I think we’ve just got to be very careful with the decisions we make, in terms of the future of the sport. I think the drivers - we’re the guys that drive the cars, we know what would work for us and what would work for the show, so I think it would be nice to have a bit more of an opinion, drivers as a whole, for the future of the sport.”
Jenson would you like to see Formula 1 go back to a manual gearbox with clutch pedal in future to make cars more physically demanding to drive? Regards, Mikes McDonnell
JB: “No. With the speed that we travel, it’s impossible. It’s just not possible.”
Being one of the more experienced drivers, what advice would you give to Lewis or Nico at this crucial part of the season? Tom Writing
JB: “I wouldn’t. I think they’re big enough boys to understand what challenges lie ahead and obviously they will feel a lot of pressure. But that’s part of the sport; you’ve got to deal with that. Lewis has obviously been there before, Nico hasn’t. But they definitely don’t need help from me in that area. It’s fun watching it and seeing how it plays out.”
How do you keep mentally prepared for the pressures of a race weekend? Do you have any good methods of managing stress that you have developed over your career? Thomas Glover
JB: “You definitely need to manage stress in this sport! You go through a lot of emotions - positive, negative – it’s a proper rollercoaster, lots of ups and downs. The way that I do it is through friends and family: I always have friends and family around me. There’s not a race that goes by that I don’t feel I have someone by my side that can help me through difficult times, whether it’s my physio Mikey, my fiancée, my family and friends.”
If you could change one rule or regulation about F1, what would it be? Michael Culliford
JB: “There’d be two. It would be engine size because I think it’s nice to have freedom in terms of cylinders. I loved the V10s, that was an era of Formula 1 that, for me, was outstanding and it’s nice to have raced in that era. And the other one would be mechanical grip, so tyres.”
Do you think Lewis Hamilton is the toughest team-mate that you've had thus far in your 15 years of F1 and why? Phil Bekoe
JB: “Outright speed, yes. Outright speed, he’s the quickest. And also when he got it right in the race, he could really put it together. He was a very tough competitor, but he had his weaknesses - as every driver does - so you could always have a chance to beat him. But we had a good rivalry, definitely.”
The 2014 Russian GP is live on Sky Sports F1 this weekend. Extensive coverage of Race Day from Sochi begins at 10:30am on Sunday with lights out at 12pm.