F1 Legend Reveals His Difference With Lewis Hamilton That Makes Him 'Look So Smooth'

A Formula One legend is certain one of his unique driving strategies has made him a bit cooler than Lewis Hamilton.

Unlike Hamilton, former Brawn driver Jenson Button only copped the world title once in his F1 career. However, the latter is confident that his style has set him apart from the rest.

According to Button, he learned how to “look smooth” by “modulating the throttle” as opposed to his former teammate Hamilton, who does pretty much “everything through the steering wheel” when coming into corners.

“The way I drive is very different to most,” Buttion said on “ The High Performance Podcast. ” “For example, Lewis [Hamilton], comes into a corner – it’s great because I have all the speed traces from the data when we were team-mates – hammers the brake as hard as he can, there’s no modulation.”

“He turns into the corner, goes onto the throttle, the same amount of pressure every time, it’s linear, and he does everything through the steering wheel,” he continued. “I was the complete opposite. I would brake and modulate it to stop front-locking, and I would come on the throttle and modulate the throttle so I didn’t have to change my steering angle, so I’d be smooth on the steering. They would say ‘oh, he looks so smooth’. It’s just because that’s what I’d use, very differently to someone like Lewis.”

“That hurt me in some ways, but it helped me in those mixed conditions, [to] really feel the conditions underneath me. Modulating the brake when you come under braking, you won’t lock up as much. You don’t want steering angle in the wet because it’s very easy to lose the rear and modulating the throttle is key as well because it controls that.”

While Button thinks his signature driving style may have put him a cut above the rest, he also admitted that world-class drivers such as Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are better than him in terms of making the best out of a “bad car.”

“My greatest weakness was I wasn’t willing to move on from a bad weekend,” the 2018 Super GT Series champion admitted. “But I feel I’ve definitely got over that. One thing I haven’t been able to get over is driving a bad car, that’s my weakness.”

“Lewis and Fernando Alonso can jump in a bad car and get more out of it than I can–that’s probably my weakness."