John Button (racing driver)

John Button ( born July 27, 1943 in London, United Kingdom, † January 12, 2014 in France ) was a British racing driver who was involved in the 1970s in the Rallycross sports. The Formula 1 2009 World Champion, Jenson Button, is his son.

Life

John Button operation in the 1970s in Trowbridge a car commercial for Volkswagen and Audi, the integrated tuning operation bore the name Conti car tuning. Beginning of the 1970s began to button first British Autocross and then participate in Rallycross events. He sat here many a VW Beetle with an enlarged 2.1 liter displacement engine one, because of its striking black-yellow- red paint as Colorado Beetle (German potato beetle ) was known. Later Button drove a revised, nearly 200 hp VW Golf. His starts were limited to British events. 1976 was the most successful in terms of sport year for Button: He took part in both the RAC British Rallycross Championship and at the TEAC / Lydden Rallycross Championship and was runner-up in both series. After the success with the less competitive VW Golf had subsided in the late 1970s, Button gave up his active racing career.

John Button was from the 1990s, the "driving force " behind the motor racing career of his son Jenson, which began in 1989 with kart racing. Although he was insolvent as a result of the sterling crisis in 1992 and lost both his company and his house, John Button organized in the following decade Jenson's racing and took care of, inter alia, the procurement of funds. After his promotion to the Formula 1 Button accompanied his son to the regular racing events; he missed due to illness only one of a total of 247 Grand Prix, which denied Jenson Button 2000-2013.

Button was married until 1987, with the South Africa -born Simone Lyons. In addition to son Jenson the couple had three older daughters. From 1994 to 1999 Button was married to the 19-year younger Pippa Kerr.