Why Button's F1 return is confusing

"He could do it standing on his head, I should think," says Damon Hill when I ask him whether Jenson Button is really 'up' for his Formula 1 return.

The 2009 world champion will sub for Indy 500-bound Fernando Alonso at the Monaco Grand Prix (as you may have heard...), but the first time he will have driven the 2017 McLaren-Honda MCL32 will be in Thursday morning free practice. That's not for lack of opportunity, but a coherent choice - which seems odd to me.

Now, Jenson clearly has nothing to prove to anyone. Seventeen seasons in the top flight, 305 grand prix starts, 15 wins, 50 podiums and that surprise title for single-season Brawn GP eight year ago. He was an exceptional F1 driver and a popular guy with fans and insiders alike.

But in that context, you'd hope he'd only consider racing again if he knows and wants to be competitive - if nothing else, to protect that hard-earned pristine reputation. If you or I were placed in such a situation, we'd surely do everything to prepare - wouldn't we? C'mon, this is F1 and the Monaco GP! Is he really just going to turn up and jump in?

Of course, I'm being flippant. As he's pointed out, he'll have had time in the simulator to get ready for Monaco. But this is a new breed of F1 racing car, remember. He hasn't driven a 2017 car on the new generation of Pirellis at all, anywhere. Isn't that puzzling?

Remember too that the comeback is happening because Button is the official McLaren reserve driver, so it's not entirely unexpected. At any time, Alonso or Stoffel Vandoorne could be indisposed by injury this year, and surely by his job description Button would always be first-choice sub - yet Oliver Turvey (below) drove in the Bahrain test, not Button.

"It will be interesting, won't it?" says Hill. "He hasn't been out long enough to have forgotten how to do it, and of all the circuits where he could give them a good result, Monaco is the one. It's not horsepower-dependent and the car seems to be reasonably good."

All true. Button may well score a point or two in the Principality, with a fair wind. But that still doesn't answer whether he really wants this opportunity - and if there is any question, should he really be doing it at all?

Walking away from F1, or any motor racing category for that matter, is the biggest and most personal decision a driver will ever take. We can all think of examples of drivers who knew it was time and stopped without a backward glance - and conversely those who lingered way past their best.

Hill can certainly recall a couple of ripe examples: he belongs in the first category, his own father firmly in the second.

Graham Hill famously raced on into 1975, by which time he was approaching his 46^th birthday. Sure, he'd won Le Mans with Matra in '72, but in F1 terms he was becoming an irrelevance (at least as a driver).

Eventually, it was only with a heavy heart that he chose to call it a day mid-season after failing to qualify at his beloved Monaco, with that trademark wink and a grin, and a helmetless parade lap in his Hill GH1, at Silverstone.

Twenty-four years later his son would have settled for a similar touch-of-class send-off at the British Grand Prix, only for legal wrangles to tie him to an unhappy final half-season at Jordan. He really didn't want to be an F1 driver any more.

And now I can't help but wonder: is Button in a similar boat? He hasn't even attended a race this year, despite his reserve role. Life appears to have moved on for him. Is he doing this because he really fancies it or because his contract says he must?

Hill dismisses my question.

"He's left that door open, he's never said, 'I don't want to get back in a car'," says Damon. "Neither has Nigel Mansell, for that matter... He's never retired!"

Ah yes, Mansell. When news first broke that Button would be returning for Monaco, I must admit 'Our Nige' did spring to mind. Here too was a world champion parachuted into a return - typically with a tad more drama. But no-one would ever have doubted his motivation for a comeback.

The circumstances of Mansell's surprise return to Williams in 1994 were, of course, awful. Ayrton Senna had died at Imola, and in the month that followed Hill valiantly stepped up to the plate to lead his devastated team, just like his old man had at Lotus in '68 after it'd lost Jim Clark.

But to his dismay, Hill realised Williams lacked faith. Mansell had quit F1 as world champion at the end of 1992 and quite wonderfully conquered Indycar (although not the Indy 500 - take note Fernando!) at the first attempt the following year. Now in his sophomore season in the States, Mansell got the call to return. He didn't need convincing.

"I didn't have anything against Nigel, I was just annoyed that Williams hadn't seen me being able to deliver what I actually did deliver," says Hill today.

You could see his point - although from the Williams perspective, here was a driver only in his second full year of F1 facing not only the daunting prospect of succeeding the world's greatest racing driver, but also the challenge of taking on brilliant, young Michael Schumacher and the controversial Benetton team. It's little wonder Williams reached for the comfort blanket of an old favourite.

On June 26, 1994, Mansell was racing his Newman-Haas Lola at Portland, Oregon. He ran second early on to Al Unser Jr's Penske, but eventually faded to fifth at the flag. From there, he took a chopper to catch a flight back to the UK - and a hurriedly-organised special test at Brands Hatch.

The contrast in commitment to Button is stark.

"That was one of my happiest times of 1994," Mansell later recalled. A crowd of 15,000 turned out for the mid-week test on the (suitably named) Indy circuit, as Nigel got to grips with the tricky FW16 that even Senna had struggled to tame.

Then he was off to Magny-Cours to join Hill at the French Grand Prix.

On July 2, he qualified on the front row beside his team-mate, missing out on pole position by 0.077s. The following day, both were overshadowed by Schumacher's Benetton, which raised further suspicions about its legality thanks to a scalding launch off the start line. Traction control had been outlawed, but had Schuey's team 'forgotten'? That's another story (and a mighty big one!).

To get back to our point, Mansell retired with gearbox failure, soaked up attention and adulation - and headed back to America and his life in Indycar with reputation firmly intact.

What really rubbed salt into Hill's wound was that at the end of the year, when so much more had played out and Damon was in with a shot of the world championship, Williams called on Mansell again. Free from (and finished with) Indycar, Nigel returned for the final three grands prix.

To Hill's pleasure, the old lion didn't have the race pace to live with his fired-up team-mate - although his presence did play a part in inspiring Damon's greatest F1 performance, when he brilliantly beat Schumacher in the rain at Suzuka in an aggregated race.

Then in Adelaide, Mansell cheerfully played the role of wingman as Hill gave everything to go for the title. That bid ended, of course, with a controversial collision that handed the crown to Michael, and subsequently an unexpected win for... Mansell. His 31st and last grand prix victory, at the age of 41.

He should have left it there. But the comeback and that victory tempted him to sign with McLaren for 1995, and the ignominy of a farcical and rather sad final chapter to a wonderful F1 career. But still, hats off to him for '94.

"Nigel is incredible," says Hill with a smile. "In Adelaide he put it on pole position, remember. He never lost his total commitment as a driver. He was one of those who couldn't get enough. An incredibly competitive person, incredibly skilful and talented. And probably one of the bravest drivers ever to have sat in a racing car."

Damon was a very different creature. "In 1999 I'd had my fill," he says. Years later he would try a Grand Prix Masters single-seater and briefly consider joining Mansell to race in the short-lived series for veterans. "I could still do it, but honestly I was getting to the point after 20 laps when I just said, 'Look, I'm done'."

For Hill, there was something about having known what it was like to race at the highest level - and the height of his powers - that left anything after an obvious anti-climax.

"If you're not going to win a race it's very difficult to raise your game sufficiently," he says. "Alonso is doing an incredible job giving it all he's got at the moment at McLaren, but if you've won, everything else is less. It's bloody hard to get enthusiastic about sixth place. It sounds ungrateful, but it's just a fact."

With this in mind, I ask again: does Button really want this comeback? His focus now is triathlons, a demanding sport in which he is approaching world level for his age group. He is achieving new wonders right now in an entirely different sphere.

Back in 1999, Hill walked away from F1 with a sigh of relief, but with an unsure future ahead of him that led down a dark path to depression (as his recent autobiography so openly recounts). Button at least has a focus in his new life - although Hill does still draw some similarities between the two world champions.

"Jenson is a little bit similar to me in some ways," he says. "He doesn't blow his own trumpet, he doesn't self-promote, he's understated. But when you look at what he does, he does a brilliant job.

"He might not be Max Verstappen-level or have the cut-and-thrust character of Lewis Hamilton, but then when you look at how he compared to people like Lewis, there was not a lot between their performances.

"He has a specific skill set and when the opportunity is there he delivers, and he's sublimely quick. A little bit like Alain Prost - minimal effort, maximum result.

"If you put him in the ring he's not going to knock the bloke out, but he'll definitely score points."

As we've already acknowledged, he may do exactly that in Monaco. But there's doubt about this comeback. I just hope racing in F1 again, when he doesn't really need it, doesn't turn out to be a decision he'll live to regret.