Life to the Limit Quotes

“All you need to know about racing you can learn from Super Mario Kart.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“It's one of the things I love about motorsports - you're always learning, always having to adapt and develop. It's not like tennis, where the rackets might change a bit but everything else stays the same. If you're in motorsport, the formulas are always changing. The regulations, the tyres, the power, the type of engine. It keeps you excited.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“And if you were to say that meeting sponsors and fans isn’t the best preparation for a Grand Prix, then I’d probably agree with you. But it’s part of what we do. Without sponsors and fans you don’t race, simple as that. Either you suck it up, do your job and enjoy it, or you’re Kimi Räikkönen.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“The sound of that V10, a rich growl that reached right into my soul.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“Formula One drivers were like gods to me, growing up.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“He's a very different character when he's not on malaria pills, of course, but we had some cool times together.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“Put it this way, the dictionary I'm looking at defines 'pot calling the kettle back' as 'Flavio Briatore labels Jenson Button a playboy'.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“...while you´re a pampered hamster and it´s a pretty bloody brilliant treadmill, at the end of the day you´re still a hamster on a treadmill.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“Older and wiser now, I restrict my road-racing impulses to the correct racing line for a roundabout”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“So anyway, we took our seats, and I can’t remember how far we’d got through the meal when we became aware of a kerfuffle at the door and turned to see that His Royal Highness Sir Richard Branson was arriving. And he was very, very drunk. Now, by this time we’d already had our fill of Sir Richard, because earlier in the day he’d arrived at the circuit with all the pomp and ceremony of a returning hero. With a bevy of flag-bearing dolly birds in his wake, he’d marched up and down the paddock, waving, grinning and giving the thumbs up to his adoring public, who were, in fact, wondering what he was doing there in the first place. The reason, of course, was that he had a couple of stickers on our car. A million bucks’ worth of sponsorship, which is a lot of money but in F1 sponsorship terms, chicken feed. And yet he was behaving as though he had bank-rolled the whole thing. I can’t say he’d won a lot of admirers with that stunt, but at the end of the day he’s national treasure Sir Richard Branson, famous publicity seeker, so you cut him some slack. It’d be like hating a dog for barking at the telly. They can’t help it. It’s just what they do. What he did in the restaurant was less excusable. However, before I go on, it’s only right and proper for me to point out that he apologised for what happened that night, and even said that he gave up drinking for months afterwards. Not only that, but the press had a field day at the time and no Branson blush was spared. With all that penance paid you might think that he’s done his time and by rights I should leave out this story.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“And that was the first time I ever had a petrol tank hit me in the balls. When you think about it, it’s daft place to put a petrol tank in such close proximity to the driver’s testicles. But there you have it.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“In my first or second year I was made to play rugby for the school team. God knows why. Something to do with the first team being off in France. Maybe I was the only boy with two legs available. I don’t know. Either way, I got forced to play rugby, and what I remember most about that experience is the misery. I turned up knowing nothing about the rules (and years and years later, I still know nothing about the rules of rugby), took one look at what was happening on the pitch and thought, You have got to be kidding. Our opponents all had beards. We were twelve, and although I was reasonably tall, I was a proper skinny kid, and not at all built for scrums”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“These days I do all sorts of public engagements, and even the smallest thing, like doing an interview or being on stage, gives me the same feeling of apprehension beforehand. Then you do the thing and it feels great and you get off and think, Well that was okay. Why was I bricking that? And that whole parcel of feelings sends me right back to my schooldays. I wish I could get rid of it, but it’s embedded somehow.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“A wing on a Formula One car operates like the wing on an aero-plane except in reverse. So whereas the aircraft wing generates life, the wing on a car does the opposite, pushing the car down to the surface.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography

“I’d joined Paul’s team, GKS, in 1995 when I moved into Formula A. It was a great team, where I found myself temporary teammates with Sophie Kumpen, who was dating Jos Verstappen and two years later had a baby with him. In other words, I raced with Max Verstappen’s mum, which is one of those things, like policemen getting younger, that you try not to think about. Later I got to race with Jos and Max, so I’ve got the full house there.”
― Jenson Button, Life to the Limit: My Autobiography