Button Signs For McLaren

Formula One world champion Jenson Button has signed on to drive for McLaren.

The 29 year old 'Frome Flyer' has signed a long term deal with the Woking based team, which see's him partner ex world champion and fellow Brit Lewis Hamilton. This is the first time two British world champions have started a season on the same team, since Graham Hill and Jim Clark drove together for Lotus in 1968.

Button said in a press release, '...life is all about challenges, and, most important of all, it’s about challenging yourself. So, although I won the World Championship with Brawn GP last year, and I’ll never forget that, I was always adamant that I wanted to continue to set myself fresh challenges.'

This new driver lineup is great news for British motorsport, but bad news for Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen, who has decided to leave the sport to focus on a career in rallying, after failing to find a drive for the 2010 season.

Raikkonen, who won the world championship in 2007, set his sights on joining McLaren, as he saw them as having a competitive, championship winning car, which he was without during what is now his last season in F1, and after the drive was taken by Jenson Button, there were no teams he wanted to drive for. There were a number of teams interested in signing Raikkonen, but the combination of his high wage demands and his need to drive in a competitive car meant only McLaren were on his radar.

Already, the 2010 season looks to improve on the last in every possible way.

Japanese Grand Prix

This weekend saw the Japanese Grand Prix, one of the final three races of the Formula 1 season, and it did not disappoint... for the most part.

The Saturday qualifying session was very exciting, with no less than three red flags disrupting the session. I have never seen a red flag in a qualifying session before and then three turn up at once... what a cliche! Eventually, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel was on pole, with title rival Jensen Button suffering a grid penalty dropping him down to 10th place for the race.

Onto Sunday now, and despite the drivers seemingly forgeting that cars are meant for roads in qualifying, the race was a different kettle of fish altogether, with it being surprisingly quiet with only one major incident, resulting in a safety car towards the end of the race. This was a blessing in disguise for racing fans as it bunched up the cars and left the last three laps as essentially a race on their own, allowing for an entertaining end to a mediocre race.

The winner was pole sitter Sebastian Vettel, who led throughout, with Jensen Button coming home in 8th place.

Click here for a detailed race summary, courtesy of the BBC