The Button insight that explains Vettel's inconsistency

Driving style is often blamed for the struggles of a driver, but it's usually done so in vague terms because Formula 1 drivers don't like discussing their approach in great depth.

That's particularly true when it comes to limitations that they either understand but do not want to accept publicly, or have not yet got their heads around. But it's a significant factor that can explain why even the drivers capable of being world champions can be superhuman one day, average the next.

Sebastian Vettel's struggles this year have been well-documented. He's been outpaced by Charles Leclerc over the balance of the season, although there have been some green shoots appearing recently with his race pace at Sochi and, in particular, his qualifying speed at Suzuka.

But why are drivers like Vettel susceptible to such problems while others are less badly compromised?

Once drivers have reached a little distance from their grand prix career, they usually become more forthcoming. In his latest book, Jenson Button: How to be an F1 driver - a broad and fast-paced look at what it takes to be a grand prix topliner - the 2009 world champion touches on how car characteristics interacted with his default driving style and what conditions he needed to get the best out of himself. Ask him about Vettel's problems this season, and Button gets it.

"He hasn't lost his talent and he hasn't forgotten how to drive quickly, it's just the car hasn't been suiting him," says Button. "Either he hasn't found a balance that suits him yet, or he might never with this car. He might just have to just get through this season and work on next year's car and try and solve the problems when they develop the new car.

"It is tough and some drivers cope better with it than others but maybe next year's car will suit him better than it does his team-mate. Pretty much every driver in F1 is very skilled at what they do and you put them in a car that suits them they go out and win. The difference is, some of the drivers are better at dealing with a car that doesn't suit their style and can drive round it."

Button became regarded as a driver who was brilliant at his best, but with what may be termed a narrow performance window - a characterisation he accepts. Given a stable and predictable rear, he could attack the corner as he wanted, keep the minimum speed up and carry that through to the exit. Then he was as good as anyone, perhaps even better. It is an ultra-precise style, one instilled in him during his early days karting with father John.

But often, Button would struggle if the car could not be persuaded to offer those characteristics, something occasionally compounded by the fact that he would struggle to energise the tyres when they needed to be worked hard to 'switch on'. It's what makes him a fascinating case study.

"I try to be so precise in the way I drive - that's the case since I was karting. It's always been about precision. If I have oversteer, I struggle to place the front on turn-in" Jenson Button

"If I find a car that I can develop and design around me, its fantastic and I can really get the best out of it better than anyone, I would think," he says.

"I am limited in that I don't like an unstable car on entry. Then I struggle to put the car where I want and struggle to be precise.

"I guess I only really learned that over the last five years of my career at McLaren, just comparing myself to the way that Lewis drives. We were very different in our driving styles in the way that we braked and steered the car through the corner and got on the throttle. I just looked at that and thought, 'I cannot drive a car like that'.

"So I have to work a lot more on the set-up to find a balance that suits me probably more than most drivers and especially people like Fernando Alonso and Lewis. So I would spend a lot of time developing the car around me."

Button needs to be so precise because of the importance of keeping the minimum speed up mid-corner. He's not a 'point and squirt' style racer, but in order to have the best possible minimum speed you need to have the car in exactly the right place and dynamically in the right window so the grip is there and the available track is being utilised. If the car is more vague, you need to be more of an improviser.

The ideal driver would be able to switch between a wide range of styles with equal verve, which is rare. This allows them to adapt to the way the car ideally needs to be set up and driven. Button points to Hamilton's tendency to run lower rear tyre pressures, which can offer greater grip but also extend the phase when the tyres grip under load and make the rear end less nailed.

After thriving in a compliant Williams, Button struggled badly at Benetton and eventually came to understand that his smooth, early-braking style wasn't loading up the front axle enough and giving him the bite he needed at turn-in

"I try to be so precise in the way I drive - that's the case since I was a kid in karting," says Button. "It's always been about precision. If I have oversteer, I struggle to place the front on turn-in. I don't like the oversteer because it's not consistent, but it's more that I can't place the car on entry with the steering wheel.

"If I brake in a straight line and the car is settled I can really pick my line and be precise at turn-in, get the apex right, then I will get the best exit, whereas a lot of people will pile in with massive oversteer. They might miss the apex by a few inches but they are positioned well for the exit, get on the power and get out of the corner, a bit like Lewis Hamilton. But I have just never been able to do that."

Button mentions in the book that he arrived in F1 believing he was the finished article, but had to face a very steep learning curve. He suggests it wasn't until he was at McLaren, which he joined in 2010 as world champion, that he really started to understand the limitations of his style in depth.

After thriving in a compliant Williams in 2000, he struggled badly at Benetton in '01 and eventually came to understand that his smooth, early-braking style wasn't loading up the front axle enough and giving him the bite he needed at turn-in. But as his career progressed, up against some formidable team-mates, he developed greater understanding of himself and of the qualities that allowed Hamilton and Fernando Alonso to excel in a wide range of machinery.

"Lewis didn't mind having oversteer at any point of the corner," says Button. "That was his driving style - he would just control it with the steering and basically throttle and brake were like switches to him. Fernando was a bit different because he didn't like oversteer on entry either.

"Remember back in his Renault days, we were all struggling because the front tyre was so wide it made the car too neutral on entry. He would arrive at the corner and immediately add a massive amount of steering lock to the car, taking it over the peak of the tyre, if you like. He purposely did that so he could control the rear of the car better, so he was good at working his way around situations. I remember we sat there watching, thinking, 'This is the ugliest driving style we've ever seen, but he's just won the race'. Others couldn't do this as they liked to be more precise."

Seemingly at odds with Button's obsession with precision is how effective he was in wet conditions, especially on slicks in the wet. Seven of his 15 grand prix wins came in rain-affected races. The wet requires improvisation and accepting the imprecision of constantly changing conditions. Button himself is aware of that contradiction, but it is perhaps in the low-grip conditions that his underlying feel and judgement come to the fore.

"I find it strange to get my head round why my driving style in the dry and wet are so different but they both work," he says. "A lot of drivers think, 'Oh, it's wet there, I'll slow down', but for me it's more feel than what I see. Wet driving is another thing altogether."

Button's characteristics not only explain why he struggled at certain times, but also why he thrived at others - in dry conditions, at least. To return to the Vettel comparison, he also enjoyed cars where the rear grip was particularly powerful. That means the blown diffuser machinery in which Vettel thrived and that Button delivered arguably his finest season with in 2011.

"Well, 2004 definitely, and '06 as well in the BAR/Honda years," says Button. "The Brawn year obviously stands out but at McLaren it would be '11 because we had a blown diffuser and it would help me a lot on braking. I could keep the car stable and it did exactly what I wanted it to do, so I could drive the car as I wanted. That's why '11 was a stronger year than '10 or '12, because of the characteristics of the car and the regulations."

That's what can make the difference between eclipsing a driver like Hamilton and being fractionally behind - albeit not by much as he was in the years either side of 2011. It's why on one day, Button - like Vettel - could perform like one of the all-time greats and might, on another, be merely very good. That's why the defining characteristic of those tiny handful of drivers that are regarded as the very best of all time is adaptability.

A contradictory driver, perhaps, but also an outstanding one who is one of only 33 to have been crowned world champion so far. Button is a reminder that driving is a three dimensional challenge that goes far beyond whether a driver is simply 'fast' or 'slow' in a sport that, as his latest book reminds us, is far more complicated than meets the eye.

Jenson Button: How to be an F1 driver
Released by Blink Publishing, available now