At the start of this year Jenson Button’s career was hanging in the balance. His contract for 2009 disappeared with the Honda Motor Company and the popular Brit was faced with the prospect of being left out of Formula One. Button was offered a lifeline at Scuderia Toro Rosso but he declined to make the move to Red Bull’s junior squad. Instead he took a leap of faith, a pay cut, and waited to see if the team that had been so good to him could be saved. He knew that Ross Brawn had built a competitive car so Jenson stayed loyal to his boss in the hope they made it to Melbourne.

The result is that Jenson Button is now 2009 Formula One World Champion.

Jenson has always had enormous potential and, whilst he struggled in the early years of his Grand Prix career, he has developed into a formidable talent.

This year Button was finally given a car equal to his skill and he promptly won six of the first seven races. After such a strong start the 2009 title was always his for the taking.

Much has been made of Jenson’s poor finish to the season and the uninspiring results have taken some of the shine off his crown. Button has landed on the podium just once since the Turkish Grand Prix and on that occasion he was beaten by his teammate. In the last nine races he has scored a mediocre 28 points (an average finishing position of sixth place) and has only maintained his series lead due to the misfortune of his rivals.

It was not the ideal end to a championship campaign and the pressure on Jenson showed. He lost his cool during a press conference at the Belgian Grand Prix and has since admitted that watching his title chances whittle away was incredibly stressful.

However, some of those complicated difficult races showed Jenson’s true championship character. When his Brawn wasn’t the fastest, or when he struggled in qualifying, Button focused on minimising his losses. He spent the second half of the season in damage limitation mode and scored points wherever he could. Whilst other drivers made mistakes and ran into trouble, Jenson continued to plug away and did not make a single major error all season.

Button won the world championship with a superb mix of outright victory and the consistent accumulation of points.

2009 has been a huge emotional journey for Button and his comeback from F1 oblivion is a great sporting story. Who better to tell that story than the man himself?

Below is a selection of quotes that follow Jenson’s path through 2009. They provide a glimpse into the brave face he adopted to hide the despair of Honda’s exit, the surprise of his fairytale season start, the pressure of Red Bull’s title surge, and the pure elation of being crowned Formula One World Champion.

This is 2009 as told by Jenson Button

December 2008 after Honda’s withdrawal
“The first couple of hours were the most painful but after that I thought, what is the point of being down and trying to look at every reason for it? It’s not going to change. We need to stay positive ourselves and as one team because if we are not, no one will be interested in taking it over. It’s the kind of thing that will make us stronger or it’s going to break us, one or the other.”

January 2009 at the shakedown of Brawn’s first car
“I feel like a kid again. Getting into a Formula One car, it’s so exciting. It feels like 2000 again but with nine years of experience, so it’s the perfect position to be in.”

Australian Grand Prix
“What an amazing day! This is just a fairytale ending to the first race of our career together at Brawn GP. It may have looked like an easy victory but it really wasn’t easy at all out there today but we brought the car home and that’s all that matters. This win is for me, my family and my team. It’s been a traumatic few months and I want to say a massive thank you to them all for being so strong and never losing belief. This weekend we have achieved everything that we deserve for all of our hard work over the past few months.”

Malaysian Grand Prix
“When the safety car is pulling away at 20 seconds a lap, you know that it’s too wet for an F1 car.”

Chinese Grand Prix
“To finish the race today is an achievement in itself and to be on the podium is fantastic. We couldn’t have beaten the Red Bulls”

Bahrain Grand Prix
“It was a great race today and I’m so happy to have seen the chequered flag without a safety car or red light in front of me!”

Spanish Grand Prix
“To come away with the win is a little unexpected but it means so much to continue our run of success. Obviously Rubens is disappointed not to have got the win today and he has been a huge help over the weekend in helping me overcome the issues that I faced on Friday.”

Monaco Grand Prix
“Wow. Winning the Monaco Grand Prix is something that you dream about as a child and as a racing driver and the reality of taking that victory just feels awesome. To win in Monaco is truly a special feeling”

Turkish Grand Prix
“Today the car was the best its felt all year. This is the first race where the car really has been absolutely perfect for me. Definitely this was a victory for all of us at Brawn. To beat these Red Bull guys fair and square was a great victory for us.”

British Grand Prix
“We need to understand why our car doesn’t work so well at low temperatures and hope for warmer races to come.”

German Grand Prix
“We have to beat the Red Bulls again. Since they have beaten us in the last two races they could destroy us in the championship. I have to fight as hard as I can to get back to the top step of the podium. The next few races will be very important.”

Hungarian Grand Prix
“The car just doesn’t feel like it did a few races ago but we’ll work hard to identify the problems before Valencia. It’s disappointing as we had high hopes for this race but we were fortunate to come away with two points.”

European Grand Prix
“We did what we came for this weekend and beat the Red Bulls, our main title rivals, so I’m not too disappointed with seventh position,”

Belgian Grand Prix
“Does Jenson want this title or not? It’s a pretty silly question, isn’t it? Why the fuck am I here? This is not what I have to say because that is not a question, is it? In reality, that is not the question, it can’t be. Does he want the title? No, I want to finish second or third.”

Italian Grand Prix
“Yeah, it’s going to be a tough few races, but it’s an exciting challenge and as I said, it’s nice to get this result today. I think we’ve shown that the Brawn car is good. A few people were questioning us a couple of races ago, but we’ve put a lot of effort into improving this car and it works at this downforce level which is great”

Singapore Grand Prix
“I don’t go to bed thinking ‘can I win the championship?’ or ‘when am I going to win the championship? I take it race by race. Every race I go to I want to perform as well as I can and I want to win so that is the way I think.”

Japanese Grand Prix
“Today was about picking up points after our eventful qualifying session yesterday and that’s exactly what I did.”

Before the Brazilian Grand Prix
“It is an easy situation to be in. If you know you have to go out and win a race, it is a much more difficult situation than knowing you have to score four points. I am not coming here thinking how many points I need to get and how many points I can finish behind my two rivals. It is about me relaxing and enjoying the race and not doing anything too stupid.”

After taking the chequered flag in the Brazilian Grand Prix
“We are the champions, my friends!”

Addressing the press after the Brazilian Grand Prix
“It feels like I’m still racing. It has been flat out since I have got out the car, it is more of a relief. You feel ecstatic, all the bad memories and the good memories go through your mind, not just from this year but previous years in the sport. Especially this year you know, such a great start to the season, then the last races pretty stressful for me because pace was there, but for whatever problem in qualifying we struggled. It made it very difficult for me, bit just because mentally that hurts when you can’t get the best out of the car, but also I read too many papers and magazines and there were some negative comments. It’s tough when you are a driver and you know that you are at the top of your game, but there has been a lot of good stuff written about us this year and so there should be.

This team has done staggeringly well, what this team achieved this season after the winter we had is exception. I don’t really think there has been a season like it in Formula 1. It’s great to be sat here as world champion and I personally think I thoroughly deserve it. I’ve been best over 16 races and that is what world championships are. I am it. I am world champion. I am going to say that all night because I heard my flight is cancelled.

This was my best race I’ve driven in my life, I know because of the emotion that’s involved in it, but also because I knew what I had to do – I did it, and that is why I am sat up here as world champion. I am going to enjoy this moment very much. The people around me have been so supportive. I might have come across like I don’t care about this in the past, but that was just me keeping a face. It shows a weakness if you show it is hurting or stressful, but I can say it now, it was very a tough few months and I needed the people around me, especially the team to fight for this.

Today I didn’t win the race but I did best I could with the car and it felt like a win to me.

I am the world champion – I am not going to stop saying it.”