“Jenson Button is not a worthy world champion.” You could not find a single voice in the paddock at Interlagos yesterday to endorse that proposition as the Brawn GP driver began his celebrations after storming to the Formula One title with a race to spare.

The Englishman had the misfortune to do his winning early this season, since when he struggled to get near the podium. He was consistently beaten by his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, in qualifying in the second half of the campaign and was viewed as having tightened up in the car during races and become overcautious.

Having amassed an incredible 61 points in the first seven races, Button managed only 24 points in the next eight, compared with Barrichello’s 36. Set against that, Button proved remarkably consistent, scoring at least a point in every race bar one, and his opening achievement of six wins in seven equalled a record matched only by Jim Clark in 1965 and Michael Schumacher in 1994.

The lopsidedness of the results, as much as anything, has led to debate among fans over Button’s merit as a champion. Before his breathtaking drive in Brazil yesterday, there was a feeling that he was unable to finish the job in the style he would have wanted. But he was the man with the most points at the end and he won the title — in points terms — far more convincingly than Lewis Hamilton last year or Kimi Raikkonen the year before.

Plaudits rain on Button for title win

Formula One paddock united in its approval of the new world champion despite his struggles in the season’s latter stages

• Flavio Briatore ready to fight for his future

• Jenson Button: from promising teenager to world champion

• Jenson Button is crowned Formula One world champion at Brazilian GP

Now we know. Button has the heart of a winner

The Brawn GP driver has finally silenced those critics who said that he would never drive like a true world champion

• Jenson Button is crowned Formula One world champion at Brazilian GP

• Jenson Button: from promising teenager to world champion

• Jenson Button enjoys race of a lifetime

From promising teenager to world champion

Jenson Button's journey to the summit has been a rollercoaster, but throughout it all his popularity has never waned

• Father’s reassurance helps Jenson Button tough it out

• Brawn and brains combine to bring tears of joy

• Plaudits rain on Jenson Button for winning ultimate prize

Multimedia

• F1 BLOG: pay your tributes to Jenson Button

• DEBATE: is Button a worthy world champion?

• RACE TRACKER: see how Button shone in Brazil

Times Archive

• Hunt gives motor racing a tonic

• Stewart fights for world title

• Clark regains motor racing Championship

Related Links

• Briatore ready to fight for his future

• From promising teenager to world champion

• Button is crowned world champion in Brazil

Button’s detractors talk of a mediocre driver who benefited from an outstanding car, a man whose uncertain progress to the summit revealed as many weaknesses in his make-up as strengths. Inside the sport, however, that view has gained little traction and the great and the good queued up yesterday to endorse the first Briton to succeed a compatriot at the top of Formula One since Jackie Stewart followed Graham Hill in 1969.

“If you took the six victories he did this year and spread them evenly over a season, it would look like a dynamite campaign by Jenson,” Mark Hughes, the commentator, said. Hughes believes that a mixture of technical and psychological factors have conspired against Button since July. “He’s almost subconsciously adopted a defensive attitude, given his big lead, and that coincided with a technical development in the car which suited Rubens,” he said.

Niki Lauda, the Austrian triple world champion, welcomed Button into the champion’s fold. “First of all a world champion is a world champion,” he said. “You cannot doubt this because it is a fact. In the end, nobody cares how or why you do it, so you have to give him your full respect. But I agree we have seen some other World Championships won in a more steely and more competitive way over a season.”

Lauda believes Button struggled in the second half of the year because he was not as good as Barrichello at setting up the car when it was off the pace and because his smooth driving style, for which he has been widely fêted, ironically proved unsuited to the way the Brawn machine behaved after technical changes midway through the season. “Barrichello drives in a more aggressive way and, when the window for tyre performance is so small, his style still gives him grip, whereas Button was dropping off,” Lauda said. “But there is a way, or there must be a way, for a driver to alter his style to be able to match the other guy.”

Eddie Jordan, the BBC pundit and former Formula One team owner, has no qualms about Button’s suitability for the Formula One hall of fame. “The person with the most points on the board is always the worthiest because it’s a championship over a very long season and you can’t discriminate between who is good at the beginning and who is good at the end — it’s the number of points scored,” Jordan said. “It is arguable that Jenson was far too good at the beginning and, when he was in a very good car, he was probably untouchable. When the car got more tricky to set up, he was less dominant, but I don’t think that makes him a less worthy champion.”

The sport’s commercial rights-holder, Bernie Ecclestone, had made no secret of his hope that Button would delay his moment of glory until the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi in two weeks’ time, but he does not begrudge the popular Englishman his achievement, even if it leaves the race in the Gulf as a dead rubber.

“It’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? If he’s got more points, I suppose that’s it,” he said. “The bottom line is he had a big help at the beginning of the year technically with the car, but Jenson has still done what he had to do and in recent months he has performed to win the World Championship, not to win races.” The last word goes to Anthony Davidson, a former Honda driver in Formula One, who has driven against Button in several categories going back to when both were boys. Davidson argues that Button has earned his stripes over a long career in Formula One, has proved that nice guys can prevail even in the most cut-throat of sports and has shown that, when given the chance, he was good enough to take it.

“I think he is a worthy winner,” Davidson said. “When he’s in the right car at the right time, he’s unstoppable and that is a skill in itself. He might not be the most capable at dragging an ill-performing car around, but once it is capable of achieving results, he finds a new level and, when he’s at that level, he’s unstoppable.”