Jenson Button: How I Nearly Threw Away My F1 World Title

Before we get started, let me tell you you can now listen to high performance ad free. Start your free trial now on Apple, Spotify, or head to our website so you can listen to our episodes uninterrupted. I think I finished last in every race and I've gone from winning the previous season to finishing last and on the way home I was a he thought I was asleep in the back and he's talking to my stepmum and he she he said to her, I don't think he's got it. You know that that hurt. Formula one is uh is a mental game. Pretty much every guy on the grid is super talented. I was terrible at if I had a bad weekend and that was a big issue for me in my earlier career. That's why I struggled at Benetton so much. I had a boss like Slavia Virtori that would pick every fault and tell the world Fifteen Grand Prix wins, a world championship. And for a long time I thought I knew Jensen Button as well as anyone. I mean I've followed him to every single race of his title winning season. I was the guy that interviewed him live in the garage moments. after he won the world championship.

And then we got to sit down with him at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. And For the first time. We recorded this podcast in front of a live audience, and I sat there realising how much of Jensen I'd kind of not noticed like

The twelve year old pretending to be asleep in the back of the car, hearing his dad say something he didn't repeat. until the day he won the world title. The boss who told the press he'd been distracted shopping for a yacht while his hands were still bleeding. The note he wrote after every bad race and put in his pocket. And the season he won six of the first seven races. And then very nearly let it slip. And I remember that very, very well. So I started this conversation by asking Jensen, how does a driver walk into a new team

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (44 minutes, 9,586 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.