JENSON BUTTON had a guided tour of the McLaren Formula One factory on Friday. He spent two hours with senior management and met a senior engineer. It is not every day that you see a new world champion out of contract and being ushered around a former arch-rival?s facilities.
Button and his manager, Richard Goddard, claim that finding a car capable of retaining the world drivers? championship is a higher priority than money. Often such meetings are clandestine affairs held at midnight, or at remote country house hotels or windy airfields, but McLaren?s headquarters is an impressive sales tool, and both parties clearly wanted the visit to be public.
I thought Team Button were simply giving the Brawn negotiators a hurry-up, and that McLaren were managing down the expectations of Kimi Raikkonen, but it runs deeper than that. Button has gone to ground on Brawn, and McLaren have a genuine interest in signing him, although it?s not yet done. Their 2009 driver Heikki Kovalainen is fast and likeable but can't deliver under pressure. McLaren can probably handle two world champions in the same team when it comes to resources and politics, although the experiment failed miserably with Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in 2007. Button is a different character from Alonso.
How would two British drivers work for the sponsors? It?s not ideal but Finland is hardly the biggest of markets, and for Vodafone and others, Hamilton and Button working together would provide some strong marketing opportunities.
There is a major twist in this tale. This week it will be announced that Mercedes-Benz has sold its shareholding in McLaren and will be taking a majority stake in Brawn GP. McLaren will continue with Mercedes engines, but Brawn will become the works team, so Button has to get out his crystal ball to work out which team will give him the faster car next year. Will McLaren return to top form? Or has the tide turned, given that Brawn and Red Bull won 14 of the 17 races this year?
It?s really all about Button?s confidence. Can he take on Hamilton in the team that nurtured and helped to develop the 2008 world champion long before he drove their F1 car in anger?
Hamilton was in brilliant form during the second half of the season when McLaren sorted out the car, and he has grown in stature and maturity. I am sure he would rather have an inexperienced teammate, but I suspect that he will fancy he can handle Button or Raikkonen. He wouldn?t want Alonso or Sebastian Vettel alongside him.
Nico Rosberg will drive for Brawn next year and I strongly suspect that Button may be nervous that Rosberg will be the favoured son. He has yet to win a race but he has speed and potential. However, Button must feel that he could handle Rosberg in a team that he has helped to develop over many seasons, and where he has forged strong relationships with engineers and mechanics.
Whatever the rhetoric, I suspect money does play a part. Button is fully entitled to cash in on being world champion but I would be sure that his Brawn financial package tops ?10m next year, and not the lower numbers reported.
McLaren played a significant role in helping the Brawn management emerge from the ashes of the Honda team, only for them to begin a love affair and now marriage with McLaren?s part-owner and engine supplier. McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh assures me he has no regrets about doing so for the good of F1 in difficult times, and I take him at face value on that. However, I am sure he would love to steal Brawn?s champion to even the score a little.
For Brawn?s part, they clearly haven?t loved Button enough but it seems bizarre that after all the mutual compliments and back-slapping in these past few months, the relationship has broken down. Camp Button have been negotiating through the media, which has alienated Brawn and Mercedes, but falling back in love overnight is an F1 speciality. Cue fat cheque, fast car, smiley photographs and gushing press releases.
What would I do? As Brawn GP, I would give Button a 24-hour ultimatum to sign or leave. I would want to know where I stood. It?s a long winter, and maybe the likes of Robert Kubica will be back in the market if Renault quit the sport. Raikkonen would be on my wish-list too. As McLaren, I would try to sign Button while continuing to put together a realistic Raikkonen deal.
If I were Button, I would sign the best two-year Brawn deal I could achieve, become the new best friend of Mercedes-Benz, and then keep my options open for the future. The cash will come soon enough and he doesn?t need Hamilton with home advantage regularly beating him.