Ok, it pains me to say it, but I was wrong. For many years if you had stood next to me in my local drinking establishment and engaged me in a conversation about Jenson Button, I would have argued until the cows came home that he wasn’t any good and that he’d made more bad decisions than you could shake a wheel gun at in his F1 career to date. Let’s face it, he even managed to win the world title in a strange way that forever left a few people (myself included) thinking that while his name is forever on the trophy and you can’t take that away from him, was it a great championship? Then came the fateful day when he chose to leave Mercedes (and we know now that he was offered a substantial contract to stay) and he chose to join Mclaren and take on the man whose championship title he took over. You could have heard me laughing all the way down in Monaco when JB made that call. Half the motorsport world shook their heads in bafflement at the decision. “He’ll get eaten alive” they cried, “Lewis will have him for breakfast” etc etc etc. Well weren’t we all wrong. Has there ever been another precedent for a Formula One driver to have been such a late bloomer? I admit I haven’t yet seen the race (curse you bbc and sky!!) but from what I’ve read, Button took the lead on lap one and that as they say, was that. So, after two years of careful development of his position within the team, a car that is quite clearly a good ‘un from the moment the garage door rolled up (makes a change for Mclaren) and an extremely happy and confident driver who seems to have all his ducks in a row, do we think we are looking at the 2012 world champion? Yes I know it’s only been one race, and that there is an entire season ahead but what are the early thoughts?