They thought Jenson Button was past it. Then the rain came down in Hungary

Twenty years is long enough for a Formula 1 grand prix winner to become an older (rather than elder) statesman, for revolutionary technology to become museum furniture, and for world champions to become television pundits. But it is not quite long enough to dull the luminosity of truly unforgettable races. Mention the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix to anyone who was there, or indeed anyone who watched it on TV, and their memories will be vivid, soaked in rain, streaked with champagne spray, punctuated by sighs and gasps, and illuminated by the smile of a driver whose perseverance had finally been rewarded.

As the F1 circus rolls into Budapest this week, the drivers, movers, and shakers are inevitably concerning themselves with the here and now. New regulations have redrawn the competitive map; fresh rivalries dominate paddock banter; engineers pore over data; bolters bolt; cleaners clean; cooks cook; and journalists chase rumours that may prove within mere hours to be nonsense. Such is F1’s relentless rhythm. Yet anniversaries have a useful habit of slowing the carousel for just long enough to remind us that every present eventually becomes the past, and that some races deserve to be revisited not only because they were statistically significant but also because they encapsulated something enduring about why we all fell in love with motor sport in the first place.

The 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix was one such race. The Hungaroring had earned a reputation over the previous two decades as F1’s Monaco without barriers – or should that be sans frontières? – a circuit on which overtaking was, if not quite impossible, then certainly dangerous and difficult. Qualifying was crucial – and Saturdays were therefore usually everything, whereas Sundays often became exercises in controlled inevitability. The venue rewarded precision rather than improvisation, and calculation rather than inspiration. Then, in 2006, for the first time ever, the F1 heavens opened on Budapest, whose summers had always provided dry and scorching weather for Hungary’s grands prix. Three years in a row I suffered a wasp sting there, if you are interested.

However, even in 2006 qualifying was dry, and the form horses duly lined up at the front – Kimi Räikkönen’s McLaren and Felipe Massa’s Ferrari on the front row – but Sunday was different because, as I say, never before had F1 drivers and cars contested a wet Hungarian Grand Prix. That alone altered every assumption on which the teams had hatched their race plans, and drivers who were able to detect minuscule changes in grip levels through their fingers and toes acquired an advantage that no simulation could quantify. One of those had always been Jenson Button.

There had been something paradoxical about Button’s early F1 career. Even his fiercest critics rarely doubted that he possessed extraordinary natural ability, for his smoothness behind the wheel bordered on artistry. His car control, especially in changeable weather conditions, or when tyre degradation and/or graining were proving hard to manage, had long impressed even the doughtiest race engineers. Yet F1 has never been especially patient with gifted drivers who fail to accumulate victories. As race followed race, and season followed season, the uncomfortable arithmetic became impossible to ignore. By 2006 he had made more than 100 starts, yet he had scored no F1 grand prix wins at all.

Statistics can become burdensome if repeated often enough, and every F1 grand prix weekend brought another reminder. Would today finally be his day? Had his opportunity already passed? Did the sport’s grandees misjudge him, and would he now somehow fail to fulfil what had once seemed inevitable? There was a curious unfairness in much of that conversation, for a driver’s quality is often measured in circumstances over which he exercises little control.

Button himself rarely appeared consumed by bitterness. Frustration, undoubtedly; disappointment, certainly; sometimes snappiness even, yes; but never the sort of corrosive resentment that can hollow out careers from within. Instead, there remained in him a quiet confidence that, if the right opportunity ever presented itself, he would be equal to it.

Even before the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix had begun, fortune appeared to have dealt him another unfriendly hand. He had qualified an encouraging fourth, but then came a 10-place grid penalty following an engine change, so he would start the race from 14th. In normal conditions, at the tortuous Hungaroring, where making up places on race day was an improbable ambition, that would have been enough to extinguish any hopes of a decent result from the get-go. But the conditions were not normal.

And Button was ready. His opening laps displayed precisely the qualities that had persuaded Frank Williams to hand a teenager his F1 debut six years earlier. There was confidence without recklessness, and aggression without desperation. Overtaking manoeuvres that should have been risky unfolded with deceptive inevitability, precisely because they were executed so cleanly. While others were wrestling visibly with uncertain grip, Button appeared almost at ease with his Honda, placing it exactly where changing conditions demanded. Our lap charts were already a mess early on – some drivers going forward and others falling back – but within two tours of the circuit he had passed Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault), and Michael Schumacher (Ferrari). Yes, Schumi, whom no-one ever managed to overtake in the rain.

Watching it again, even two decades later, one is struck not by wild heroics but by controlled conviction. The finest wet-weather performances often display that characteristic. From outside the cockpit they can appear almost serene, when in truth they represent astonishing acts of judgement repeated corner after corner and lap after lap.

Equally impressive was Honda’s strategic composure. Wet races sometimes tempt teams into overthinking, yet Honda judged the evolving conditions beautifully. F1 occasionally romanticises individual brilliance at the expense of collective excellence, but here was a victory that belonged to both. The 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix never felt like a lottery. No, it felt earned. Every decisive moment reflected preparation meeting opportunity.

As rivals stumbled, retired, or found themselves compromised by changing circumstances, Button simply continued doing exactly what clever drivers do when presented with an exceptional chance. He drove fast, yes, but also intelligently and with remarkable emotional discipline. One sensed that he understood perfectly the magnitude of what was becoming possible, yet he refused to allow that understanding to occlude the precision required to complete the task.

When the chequered flag finally fell after 70 absorbing laps, the significance of the result stretched well beyond one driver’s maiden F1 grand prix win. For Button personally, it ended one of F1’s longest and most misleading statistical curiosities, for it was victory – at last – in his 113th F1 grand prix start. Now no-one would ever again introduce him as the immensely talented F1 ace who had never yet won, which had recently become an oft-repeated refrain. In a single afternoon the narrative around him had changed for ever, as it always does in such circumstances, and as it never did for F1 drivers who still quietly rue their near-misses. Just ask Martin Brundle, Derek Warwick, Nick Heidfeld, Nico Hülkenberg et al.

For Honda, the symbolism reached even deeper, for it was the Japanese giant’s first F1 win as a constructor (rather than as an engine supplier) since John Surtees had triumphed at Monza in 1967, 39 long years earlier. Entire generations of engineers had joined and left the company during that interval; technologies had transformed beyond recognition; F1 itself had evolved almost beyond comparison; yet there remained undeniable emotional resonance in seeing that familiar red H emblem returning to the top step of the podium under its own name.

History rarely moves in straight lines, and Honda’s F1 story certainly has not. It has contained triumphs, withdrawals, reinventions, disappointments, and glorious rebirths. In partnership with Aston Martin, now, in 2026, we must hope that the cycle is somewhere between disappointment and glorious rebirth. Budapest 2006 occupies a distinctive place within that larger narrative because it represented vindication for a project that had thus far absorbed enormous effort without much reward. Such victories always feel more meaningful than routine confirmations of superiority. If Aston Martin-Honda ever enjoys a similarly triumphant exculpation, you can be well sure that Lawrence Stroll will not only pop champagne corks but will also open case after case of his finest Sassicaia.

Button’s maiden F1 grand prix victory also reminds us of an often overlooked truth about racing careers, and that is that a driver’s progress is rarely linear. Modern discourse encourages impatient judgement: young drivers are proclaimed future world champions after half a season, and others are quietly dismissed before circumstances have allowed their abilities fully to emerge. F1 has always generated snap verdicts, but the social media age has accelerated them into permanent background noise.

Jenson’s career remains a useful corrective. His eventual F1 drivers’ world championship, the jewel in the Brawn crown of 2009, understandably dominates Button retrospectives, yet that unlikely triumph becomes easier to assimilate when viewed through the lens of Budapest three years earlier. F1 world champions are not manufactured overnight. No, they log their experiences; they absorb their disappointments; they refine their skill sets; and they learn when to attack, when to conserve, and when to trust instinct over calculation or indeed vice versa. The driver who mastered changing conditions in Hungary 20 years ago was already becoming the complete competitor who would eventually conquer an entire season.