Contrasting tale of two top guns

For two of Formula One’s oldest, most experienced and successful drivers, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix marked a series farewell.

Felipe Massa of the Williams team, who began racing in 2002, is retiring. Jenson Button of the McLaren team, who started in 2000, will not race next year, although he will remain on contract to his team.

Button, who will help develop the car behind the scenes and attend to some marketing chores, said he might return to racing. But for now he will be replaced at McLaren by Stoffel Vandoorne, a young rookie. And given that Button will be 38 in 2018 in a series that favours younger drivers, few expect to see him race again.

“I feel like a kid again,” Button said after the announcement in September. “I don’t have to worry about certain things, and I can go and do things I’ve always dreamed of doing. It’s a nice feeling.”

Button has won 15 races in 304 Grands Prix, just under 5 percent; Massa has won 11 races in 249 Grands Prix, about 4.4 percent. Button has been one of the top three finishers 50 times, compared with 41 for Massa, well over a 16 percent rate for each.

Aside from starting two seasons apart and retiring the same year — and despite sharing nearly identical results percentages — these drivers are tied by little in style or personality. But they are an example of how thin the line can be between winning a Formula One World Drivers’ Championship, or not.

As it turned out, both won or lost the title, which is based on points accumulated throughout the season, at the Brazilian Grand Prix. It was there in 2009 that Button won his single drivers’ title; and it was there the year before that Massa, a Brazilian, held the title for about 20 seconds.

As Massa crossed the finish line in his Ferrari as the winner of the race and the apparent winner of the title, Lewis Hamilton, who had to finish fifth or better to win the title, was in sixth in a McLaren and heading for the final corner, his task apparently hopeless.

But despite a pouring rain, Timo Glock, in fifth in a Toyota, had decided to stick with dry-weather tires rather than take the time to have them changed. In the last seconds of the race, the tires lost some of their grip on the wet track, and Hamilton passed Glock in the last corner to finish fifth. He beat Massa for the title by a point.

“I lost the championship by 1 point, but I was on pole position and won the race, so I did the best I could,” Massa said while looking back at his career last month. Neither Ferrari nor Massa has won the title since.

For Button, who, like Massa, started racing in the series at age 20, the crucial moment came in 2009. Button had been a journeyman driver, a solid performer who had won only one race, at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix for the Honda team. But Honda unexpectedly withdrew from the series at the end of 2008 because of the financial crisis, leaving the team in a precarious position.

The team was renamed Brawn and Button had to decide whether to accept a 50 percent cut in his salary. He chose to stay. The team made the most of a loophole to create an aerodynamic device on the rear of the car, giving it an advantage that allowed Button to win six of the first seven races of 2009. He held on through the Brazilian Grand Prix and won the title with one race remaining.

“From having no team whatsoever to winning the first few races and then having some really tough races and winning at the end driving through the field, it makes it very special,” Button said.

Button joined McLaren the following year and has developed into one of the most solid drivers of the series, winning eight races with the team. He first raced at McLaren alongside Hamilton, then Kevin Magnussen, then Fernando Alonso, and he fared well against each.
One of Button’s most notable wins was the Canadian Grand Prix in 2011.

“I had a drive-through,” he said, describing a penalty that requires a driver to spend time in the pit. “I broke my front wing and got a puncture, and I crashed with Lewis as well,” he said, referring to Hamilton.  “So a pretty fraught race, action-packed,” he said. “It’s one of those races that teaches you never to give up.”

He had started seventh, dropped to last place twice during the race and finally won, taking the lead on the last lap.

Massa, who had a difficult first season in the series with Sauber, took a year off in 2003 to gain some experience by being a test driver for Ferrari. He returned to racing at Sauber in 2004 and then joined Ferrari alongside Michael Schumacher in 2006. He stayed until 2013 and was replaced by Kimi Raikkonen a year later.

Massa considered retiring but instead joined Williams in 2014. He has been a top-three finisher five times with Williams and helped develop the car.

As personalities, and even in their driving styles, Button and Massa are opposites. Button is a man of measured words. He is calm; he rarely shows his emotions, on or off the track; and he has one of the smoothest driving styles in the series.

Massa can be brooding, often emotional, and is sometimes outspoken, with a more flamboyant driving style than Button’s. Massa has been involved in a few frightening accidents.

The worst, at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009, almost ended his career. During a qualifying session, a spring flew off another car and into the front of Massa’s helmet, causing a serious injury just above his left eye.

A metal plate was put in his forehead, but he returned to racing the following season and said he was unaffected.

Button looks back fondly on multiple periods of technical rules changes.
“In the V-8 era, the best was probably 2011,” he said of his favorite form of car. “With the blown diffusers, they were just immense, the amount of grip you had. It would make you laugh the whole time, so much grip to play with.”