Former F1 champion Jenson Button said on the Beyond the Grid podcast that mental-health pressures remain central to drivers’ careers and that no competitor is immune to insecurity. He pointed to a team radio moment when Lewis Hamilton asked, “Have I done something wrong?” to show how even champions can spiral into self-doubt, which Button said can leave talented drivers “in a really dark place” and potentially cause them to fail.

Button said openness about mental-health struggles can be a strength, praising Lando Norris for his candor and arguing that drivers largely must “sort out their demons” themselves. He urged team leaders to listen to drivers’ problems without being overly opinionated and praised figures such as Ross Brawn for calm leadership, but said even supportive bosses cannot remove the internal pressure drivers feel.

Button framed the elite-athlete experience as one in which losses far outnumber wins, citing a conversation with Roger Federer, who estimated he lost about 75% of his matches. To illustrate the rarity of victory in motorsport, Button referred to his own record of 15 wins in about 300 races and warned that modern drivers face extra layers of stress from social media and public exposure. His comments aired on Beyond the Grid and were reported by other outlets; he presented them as part of a wider conversation linking psychological pressures across F1, MotoGP and other elite sports, saying insecurity is a recurring professional experience and not a mark of weakness, which keeps mental health a priority in the sport.