Button Signs New McLaren Multi-Year Contract

It has been announced today that 2009 British Formula One World Champion, Jenson Button, has signed a new Multi-Year Contract to stay at the Woking based McLaren team.

It has been a top discussion in the last few months as to where Button will end up after this season, as his current contract runs out at the end of this season. It had been rumored that he had hopes of signing for Ferrari as team-mate with Alonso in 2013, but that was always going to be a difficult step for Button, as team-mate to Alonso at Ferrari would be no better as being team-mate to Schumacher at Ferrari in the late 90s as Eddie Irvine found out.

Jenson Button has had his most successful season with McLaren this year, and is currently lying 2nd in the drivers table 124 points behind World Champion-to-be Sebastian Vettel and is 17 points ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton has never before been beaten by a team-mate at McLaren and Button looks set to be the first driver to do that, with Hamilton’s slightly erratic driving in the past season, Button has driven his usual smooth way and come out on top winning the Canadian and Hungarian Grand Prix, both being races where Hamilton was in the wars for one thing or another.

There is no doubt that if McLaren can build a car worthy of challenging the Red Bulls next season, then Button could well be a title contender with the way he has been driving this season. His last run of results alone have shown that Hamilton is not currently the top dog at McLaren, with Button finishing 1st in Hungary, 3rd in Belgium, 2nd in Italy and 2nd in Singapore whereas Hamilton has finished 4th in Hungary, retired in Belgium, 4th in Italy and 5th in Singapore. Some might say both are far overdue for a win in the latter stages of this season, but Button is the driver who is currently looking closest to winning a race, however both McLaren drivers have never won at Suzuka before, creating even more of an urge for both to perform this weekend and knock Vettel off the top step of the podium (not literally in Hamilton’s terms)!

McLaren, however as a team, have had a highly successful career at the Suzuka circuit, winning many races and World Championships here, including Prost in 1989 and Senna in 1990 (under very controversial circumstances) and Hakkinen in 1998 and 1999.

Either way, Jenson Button has now confirmed his allegiance with McLaren, and hopefully they can build him a car that will allow him to take the fight to the Red Bulls next season and add a second title to his list. The same goes to Hamilton, however first he has to go a race weekend without meeting the FIA for all the wrong reasons! Negativity on that side of things aside, if McLaren produce a fast car in 2012/13 then watch out for Hamilton and Button who could turn out to be the new Prost and Senna of F1!