Click to download the image above as a full-sized PDF file

It is hard to imagine James Hunt celebrating his World Championship by bidding an early farewell to the party to sit in quiet contemplation. And few would have expected it of Jenson Button.

But a hotel room was where Button spent his first hours as the king of Formula One; not with his model girlfriend, either, but alone with his thoughts, tracing the unpredictable journey that has taken him from a little Somerset town to the pinnacle of his sport at the age of 29.

Yesterday, he sipped from a large glass of white wine as he reflected on his triumph, but the lack of excess underscored Button’s transformation from pitlane playboy to man of serious achievement.

“I think most drivers when they have the possibility of winning the World Championship, they go crazy,” Button said. “But we all celebrate it in different ways and for me to just chill on my own was the best thing. I tell you what, I was so tired. I went to the party, but it was just so hectic, so full on. So I came back to the hotel. I was on the phone to my girlfriend, my mum and then I was up until about 4am just lying in bed with a big grin on my face. Just time by myself, just relaxing and thinking about what I had achieved.”

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

• Former winners hail 'playboy' champion

• The 50 greatest Formula One drivers: updated

• Button v Hamilton: who is the best of British?

Multimedia

• MATT DICKINSON: Ross Brawn: a reluctant hero

• EDWARD GORMAN: Button facing battle in 2010

• Button's title in pictures

• F1 BLOG: Pay your tributes to Button

The tenth Briton to become world champion, financial gains should not be far behind the sporting prize. Nick Fry, chief executive of Brawn GP, ruefully admitted in the wake of Button’s success on Sunday: “This probably makes him more expensive, unfortunately.”

To help the team balance the books, Button had taken a pay cut from £8 million to £3 million a year, and paid all his own expenses this season. A compromise deal could be struck at about £6 million a year, although it is still nowhere near the £15 million salary of Lewis Hamilton.

Button insisted yesterday that it was “not about the money”. Indeed, he looked bemused when asked if he would be treating himself to a lavish present, such as a private jet, another yacht or a big new house in Monaco.

“I don’t need to treat myself,” he said. “Father Christmas has been. The World Championship, that’s the biggest Christmas present ever.”

It is a competitive car that Button craves, especially as his nine British predecessors as world champion failed to retain the title. “I didn’t know that,” he said. “That’s a great ambition.”

In that respect, he has no qualms about committing himself to Brawn despite predictions that they will be overtaken by the greater resources of Ferrari and McLaren.

“I have been with this team since 2003,” he said. “It might have changed names, and shrunk in size, but I love the atmosphere, the way we all pull together in difficult times and we have been through a lot of those.

“We have been working for a long time on next year’s car. That comes with good leadership. Yes, you will see the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull at the front, but you’ll also see Brawn there as well. I want to be a part of that, I want to arrive next season with No 1 on the car in a Brawn. I want to be with a team that can win, that’s my main goal.”

It will be tough for Button to live up to this remarkable campaign. There are better drivers on the grid, and there may well be quicker cars next season, but he believes he can improve going into his eleventh season.

If winning the championship would affect him in any way, he said, it would be from a boost of confidence having driven through the pack at Interlagos on Sunday. It was a performance that demonstrated that he could be a gritty, aggressive racer, which many had doubted.

He has been questioned many times in his career, and Button admitted his focus had not always been absolute.

“You can’t win unless racing becomes your life,” he said. “That’s something I didn’t realise when I started in the sport, and that’s why I found it very difficult in my early years in Formula One.”

A passion for physical exercise, particularly triathlons, has been one indication in recent years of greater dedication. “When I am training is when I have thought about what I can achieve in the sport, about the chequered flag and being world champion,” he said.

And so insistent was he on maintaining his focus in Brazil that he had instructed his girlfriend, Jessica, to stay away from São Paulo.

“It was not a nookie ban,” he said, “although you lot wrote that anyway.” He will finally catch up with her on Friday in Dubai where he will take a break before the final grand prix, in Abu Dhabi on November 1.

Last night, Button, still grinning from ear to ear as he may be for several weeks, flew back to England on a private jet magnanimously lent to him by Rubens Barrichello, his vanquished Brawn team-mate.

Today, he has a sponsor’s engagement at the Bluewater shopping centre near Dartford where he will discover if his profile has been transformed among the British public.

Tomorrow, he will travel to the Brawn GP factory in Northamptonshire to celebrate with his team, although he must wait until later in the year to receive the drivers’ trophy and see his name engraved below Fangio, Prost, Senna and Schumacher.

“I haven’t looked down the list because I know the names,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll forget anyone who’s become a world champion in Formula One.”