Jenson Button made no secret of the fact that he visited McLaren last week, a move that increased speculation that he will be joining the squad next year. However, whilst a British superteam with the last two World Champions on board is an exciting possibility, it is far from being a certainty.
Button’s visit to Woking might just have been a ploy to improve his bargaining power in contract negotiations with Mercedes/Brawn. McLaren’s management were happy to promote Button’s arrival because it improved their own position in talks with Kimi Raikkonen. It was a public relations victory for all concerned.
Jenson Button is yet to sign a new deal with Brawn, which is somewhat incredible given how closely he grew with the team in the aftermath of Honda’s F1 withdrawal. A straightforward contact extension has not been possible due to a wretched dispute over money. Jenson took a huge pay cut to ensure the team survived at the start of last year, and now that Brawn has won the World Championship and been taken over by Mercedes, Button rightly feels that he deserves a pay rise. Brawn/Mercedes has offered a modest increase but is not providing the salary that Button he feels he deserves. Richard Goddard, Jenson’s manager, said “We aren’t being greedy. When we signed the deal last year we did so in the knowledge that if all went well for the team, things would also go well for Jenson”.
Button’s position is very understandable and he is right to seek just rewards for winning the World Championship. However, the days of megabuck F1 salaries are over. The global financial crisis has forced the sport to cut costs from every area imaginable and that includes drivers. A lot of staff in Formula One have lost their jobs recently and no team can justify paying a driver untold millions at the same time they’re enforcing redundancies.
Jenson’s management will have to negotiate a tough compromise if they want to stay at the Mercedes factory team, but it’s unlikely that flirting with McLaren will have the desired effect.
Ross Brawn does not appear to make emotional decisions so will be unmoved by any simple bargaining tactics. He obviously feels that his offer is fair and perhaps Jenson’s struggles in the latter half of 2009 have reduced his value to Brawn.
With Nico Rosberg joining the team, it isn’t essential that Brawn holds onto Button. Although Ross has made it very clear that he wants Jenson to stay, the team will continue to flourish with someone like Anthony Davidson or Nick Heidfeld alongside Rosberg instead.
Besides, moving to McLaren would be a huge risk for Jenson so Ross Brawn might be confident to call his bluff.
If Button joined McLaren he would play second fiddle to Lewis Hamilton and it would spell the end of his career as a championship contender. Jenson is a great driver and is very worthy of his world title, but Lewis is entrenched in the McLaren way of doing things and the team has developed around him. Hamilton knows the most efficient way to work at McLaren and Button simply can’t compete with that. McLaren is now Team Lewis.
Also, Jenson struggles with his car when it does not match his understeer-biased driving style. This was evident in races this year when Rubens Barrichello had a clear advantage in the Brawn. Meanwhile, Lewis proved in 2009 that he can get the best out of the worst cars on the grid so Button would find himself in a lot of trouble if the McLaren did not suit him perfectly.
The only thing working in Button’s favour against Hamilton is that he is one of the smoothest drivers in the field and he is very gentle on tyres. Lewis is very hard on his tyres, and in previous races his strategy has been modified because he was risking a puncture. Tyre management will be very decisive next year when refuelling is banned, but even with that advantage, Jenson would find it very difficult to beat Lewis in his own team.
Also, if Button made the move to McLaren he would be doing so at time when Mercedes are switching their main support to Brawn. He would be well advised to tie himself to Mercedes rather than go against the flow.
On top of all that, a move to McLaren would do nothing to help Jenson’s image. He controversially walked out of his BAR contract in 2004, and then cancelled his Williams contract in 2005, which gave Button a reputation for disrespecting his employers. Only the personal sacrifices that he made during his dismal seasons at Honda have restored his image, so it would be a shame if he undid that good work by leaving Brawn to chase the big dollars. Jenson was criticised in his early career for being more interested in the playboy F1 lifestyle than success on the track, so if he leaves the team that gave him a World Championship in a dispute over money, that playboy tag will remain with him for life.
There is nothing wrong with Button trying to get the best deal he can and most of us would do the same thing, especially as World Champion. However, he should be careful not to upset the balance between pay and performance.
The news that Kimi Raikkonen will be taking a sabbatical in 2010 has removed his main competition for the seat at McLaren.
Martin Whitmarsh was happy to be seen talking business with Jenson because it gave him the upper hand in negotiations with Raikkonen’s management. McLaren’s senior staff and engineers believe Kimi is one of the best drivers they have ever had and would love to have him back in their team, but will not pay any price for his services.
On his day Kimi Raikkonen is the fastest driver in Formula One and has been handsomely paid for that potential over the past three years. Ferrari has given Raikkonen the highest salary in F1 history so the Finn would have commanded a huge sum wherever he went. However, McLaren felt that he was being unreasonable in his demands.
Part of that may be due to the conditions of his Ferrari payout. There is a rumour suggesting that Ferrari will pay Raikkonen the full amount of his 2010 Scuderia contract if he does not drive for another F1 team next year, but will only give him half if he signs a new deal. If true, Raikkonen will actually make more money by taking a year off which explains why his management were asking other teams for so much.
Apparently, off-track PR activities were another sticking point in negotiations between Raikkonen and McLaren. Kimi was supposedly looking for a clause that got him out of his promotional duties whilst McLaren were not so keen on the idea. Raikkonen values his freedom above almost anything else and that might be what prevented a deal with McLaren from going ahead. It was one of the reasons that he originally left the team for Ferrari at the end of 2006.
It’s hard to imagine what PR value Kimi would have been anyway. In some instances it probably doesn’t make a difference whether he is there or not.
It’s a shame that Raikkonen didn’t join McLaren because he would have pushed Hamilton hard and even beaten him on occasions, but without the Fernando Alonso style of mind games. We’ll soon find out if Jenson Button steps up to the plate instead.
Either way, we’ll learn just how much Jenson values success in Formula One.