Jackie Stewart: “Button Was Wrong To Join McLaren”

Sir Jackie Stewart affirms that the F1 world champion made a mistake when he left Brawn GP for McLaren.

One of the former Formula 1 glories, Sir Jackie Stewart, said that Jenson Button did a terrible mistake when he decided to leave Brown GP and join McLaren because he will find difficult to adapt to a new team that is accustomed to work with Hamilton.

"It will be difficult for him to take on Lewis Hamilton"

“It will be difficult for him to take on Lewis Hamilton. It’s like walking into the lion’s den, because Lewis has had three years with McLaren now. He has it his way. He’s already disposed of one driver that came in there in Alonso. Fernando couldn’t cut it against Lewis Hamilton, and I think that Lewis will want to retain his position of prominence in that team. Whereas at Brawn, I think [Button] would have had an advantage over his [potential] team-mate Nico Rosberg, having knowledge of the team,” thinks Jackie Stewart.

He continues the same idea: “What we’re looking at today is two guys who want to be number one. That situation in one team sometimes makes imperfect bed partners, because there will be differences from time to time, even though McLaren are probably the best engineering team with the most capacity to do the job.”

Stewart concludes: “I think it’s a mistake by Jenson, If I was Jenson, I would’ve wanted to do a deal with Brawn – because I know the culture of the Brawn team, I have high respect for Ross Brawn, I know the mechanics. There’s a totally different culture in McLaren, something that he might never have experienced before.”