Jenson hits starting button again

JENSON BUTTON took just two minutes of persuading to end his Formula One hiatus in order to star at the most famous circuit on the calendar.

Button, who treated last year’s concluding race in Abu Dhabi as the final of his world championship-winning career, will be back at next month’s Monaco Grand Prix after answering McLaren’s call to replace Fernando Alonso.

The call came from Eric Boullier, the team’s racing director, last week after Alonso accepted the challenge of crossing the Atlantic to take part in the Indianapolis 500, which is staged on the same day as the Monte Carlo race.

“It started a week ago with a couple of texts,” said Boullier. “The phone call was maybe two minutes and very easy. Jenson’s first reaction was, ‘great, I am so excited’.

“He has a contract with us, but you could feel his excitement over the phone was real, and I am happy that he wanted to be part of this adventure. Jenson was our choice from day one.”

In truth, the 37-year-old, who is still paid a hefty £5million a year by McLaren in his role as their ambassador, probably had little choice. He has not driven the new

QUICK-FIRE: Button did not hesitate to say yes to McLaren

McLaren and will, somewhat surprisingly, swerve the opportunity to get his first taste of track action at next week’s two-day test in Bahrain. The 2009 world champion said: “I’m thrilled to be making a one-off return to F1 and I couldn’t think of a better place to do it than my adopted home grand prix of Monaco. “I’ve done a lot of triathlon training recently, so I have no fitness worries. It will be nice to say ‘hi’ to all my old F1 mates, too, and maybe give the fans something to cheer.” Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel threw down the gauntlet to Lewis Hamilton for the Bahrain Grand Prix after being fastest in both practice runs yesterday.