Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button: best of enemies - Sport - Scotsman.com

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button: best of enemies - Sport - Scotsman.com

THERE’S no denying the fierce rivalry and tension between Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, and that makes for a mouth-watering season

If there was a defining moment from the opening race of the Formula One season, it was not Jenson Button’s whoops of joy as he sprayed second-placed Sebastian Vettel with his winner’s magnum of champagne, it was third-placed Lewis Hamilton’s deathly stare. The Englishman may have congratulated Button on his win at Albert Park, he may have said all the right things, but to lose to his team-mate after starting on pole cut to the quick. We could almost hear Hamilton asking himself: could it possibly be that Button’s second-place finish last year, 43 points and three places ahead of Hamilton, was a taste of the future rather than an aberration?
Such a question would have seemed absurd back in 2010 when Jenson Button, fresh from limping over the finishing line to win his first world championship with Brawn GP, joined McLaren. Button had a well-worn track record of making disastrous career choices and even joked that he was entering Lewis Hamilton’s “den”.