Watching Button's unlikely Canada GP win with Ron Dennis: 'We could hardly speak'

Our priority was of course Button, because Hamilton was out of the race. Nonetheless, I wanted to do whatever I could to give us as good a chance of avoiding unnecessarily negative media coverage as a result of our drivers’ lap-seven civil war, so I took an executive decision to speak to them both individually before allowing them to do any live TV interviews. On balance I had thought that their coming-together had been a racing incident: Lewis had been faster and had been trying to pass, but he had not managed to draw level with Jenson by the time the two had made contact; on the other hand, Jenson had jinked ever so slightly to his left, towards Lewis, at the critical moment, and it was that ever so slight jink that had precipitated their contact.

So I described the shunt as I had adjudged it to both of them, separately, my intention being to persuade each of them to agree that, all things considered, neither should blame his team-mate. Once I had secured their consensus on that point, which thankfully I did, I revisited each of them individually, telling Lewis that he should not pin the blame on Jenson because Jenson would not pin the blame on him, and telling Jenson that he should not pin the blame on Lewis because Lewis would not pin the blame on him. They both visibly relaxed. In my long experience of dealing with highly strung F1 drivers, I have always found that identifying on-the-hoof ways of lowering their stress levels is a sure-fire route to reducing the likelihood that they will make mistakes. I have rarely had the opportunity to put that theory into practice halfway through a race though, but the unusually lengthy hiatus in the middle of the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix made it a special case.

I was standing next to Jenson while he was doing all his live TV interviews, and, as so often, he was word-perfect in all of them. I had only a normal umbrella with me, for I had been unable to find one of our wide two-person jobbies because they had all been nabbed by sponsor VIPs, so I held my modest brolly above Jenson while the rain cascaded down on me, unimpeded. I do not think I have ever been so drenched. I was completely wet — all the way through every layer of clothing — right down to socks and underpants. But needs must. When Jenson had finished being interviewed, he darted across the paddock through the rain to our hospitality unit and ordered a plate of pasta, which he ate while we waited for news from the FIA as to when the race might resume.

So it was that when that time finally came, at nearly 4pm, Jenson was dry, yes, but also composed, and in a good way. It was still raining, albeit less hard than it had been earlier, so the safety car was deployed for the resumption. Button was running in 10th place. After seven laps the safety car was driven into the pitlane, and racing recommenced. Jenson stopped for inters — and, as he exited the pitlane, he rejoined the racetrack immediately behind Fernando Alonso (Ferrari). He harried him for a corner or two, he tried to pass him at Turn 3, the two cars touched, and the Ferrari was left beached on a kerb, ending Alonso’s run. Button’s McLaren continued, albeit hobbled by a left-front puncture. He drove it slowly around the circuit, he pulled it into the pits, and our mechanics fitted new rubber. Back out he went, now in 21st place, stone last, with 33 of the scheduled 70 laps to go.

I had been watching from our garage between the resumption and Jenson’s latest on-track contretemps, but, now that I thought a points-scoring finish was highly unlikely, I strolled disconsolately across the paddock into our hospitality area and made myself a cup of tea. I watched the TV monitors for a while, then I thought I had better give Ron Dennis, our chairman, a briefing as to how our drivers’ live TV interviews had gone. I put my head around his office door and found him there, glued to his TV monitors and data screens, all alone. “You’re soaked,” he said. “You can watch the rest of the race here with me if you like.” I did as bidden.

The rain gradually stopped and a thin dry line slowly began to emerge. But off-line the track surface was still perilously slippery. Such conditions were made for one man and one man alone: Jenson Button. Always a master of gradually changing track surface characteristics and ever evolving tyre wear, he began to fly. After just seven laps he had moved from 21st to 14th. Two laps later he was 10th. He timed his switch to slicks better than anyone else, and as the race entered its final third he was up to fourth. Ahead were Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), the long-time race leader, Schumacher and Webber. Ron looked at me and whispered, “We can win this.”

If you are lucky, just a few times in your life you may be blessed with the feeling that, of the eight billion people who inhabit our planet, you are the one in the absolute right place at the absolute right time. But whoever and wherever they were, either staff in our Woking factory or fans glued to their televisions at home, everyone who was now beginning to hope against hope for the most astonishing McLaren victory in the team’s long and glorious history was feeling that rare but unmistakeable tingling sensation that is the prelude to any truly seismic sporting turnaround, especially one wherein you have skin in the game. And I was not only in the absolute right place, at the absolute right time, with skin in the game, but also sitting alongside one of the greatest legends in F1 history, who had more skin in the game than anyone.

On lap 56 — with 14 to go — Nick Heidfeld (Renault) and Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) made contact, ending the former’s race. Out came yet another safety car while bits of broken Renault and Sauber were cleaned away, which meant that the field was now closed up and we were going to see a flat-out sprint for the win. With five laps to go, Button passed Webber for third. Very soon afterwards, he forced his way past Schumacher. He was now second with three laps to go.

Neither Ron nor I could speak. On lap 69 — the penultimate tour — Jenson drove the race’s fastest lap, a scintillating white-knuckle 1min 16.956sec effort, which meant that the two leading cars were separated by just a single second as they embarked on the final lap. And then it happened. Vettel ran wide at Turn 6, Button swooped by, and one of the grandest F1 team principals of them all leapt to his feet, punched the air powerfully with both fists, and let out the kind of primordial, wordless, shapeless, bellowing sound that triumphant men have surely been making since neanderthals first celebrated the successful hunting of woolly mammoths more than 100,000 years ago. Somehow, it was not only magnificent but also exactly right. It is a moment that I will never forget.