Though Fernando Alonso was his strongest all-round teammate, Jenson Button admits all his partners had “weaknesses”.
The Briton raced alongside a myriad of drivers during his 17-year career, from established veterans and world champions to up and coming talents.
Notably, Button dominated Rubens Barrichello at Brawn GP to win his title in 2009 and would later beat Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso at McLaren.
Perhaps then it was no surprise those were the three names that first came up when asked to name which had been his “best”.
“I don’t know what ‘best teammate’ means really,” he admitted on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
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“Fastest teammate would be Lewis and teammate that was strong in every area would be Fernando.
“They all had weaknesses, as I had weaknesses, but they were both drivers that were remembered for their extreme talent and for their championships.
“The teammate that I felt technically was above the rest – head and shoulders above the rest – would be Rubens, [he was] very talented when it came to setting up the car, I learned a lot from him.”
Button would go on to name another driver though who on his day, was capable of fighting anyone.
“The one that surprised me the most was probably Checo [Sergio Perez], his speed and how on certain days he could be very quick,” he noted.
“Circuits that had front limitation didn’t work for him, circuits that had rear limitation like Bahrain worked very well for him and he was extremely quick.
“I don’t know if he actually understood why it was but that’s the way it was for him. To see how quick he was on circuits with rear limitation surprised me, and that surprised me more than any other teammate, his speed on those circuits
“There’s many drivers that had talents and skills that stood out, [but] there’s not one really that I would say, ‘He was the best by far’.”