If you didn’t hear GQ in conversation with Jenson Button on Facebook Live at the Michael Kors event last week, you missed a corker. Here are ten of our favourite things he said…

1. “Nico Rosberg will win the world championship this weekend…Well, unless one of us crashes into him. I mean, Lewis [Hamilton] is very rich and has a lot of money, flies around in a private jet, so I’m sure he can afford to pay me. The only possibility, however, would be when Nico laps me because we’re not fast enough. Anyway, I’m open to offers. And anyway, I’m retiring… sorry, taking a sabbatical.”

2. “I watched the new Grand Tour in the bath today…It’s the kind of show you watch in the bath. Did I like it? Well, I’ve seen it all before. They are driving the same cars as they do in all those car shows. It’s really good fun, but there is definitely an area that is missing. As a racing driver, it annoys me because those shows are all about sliding and tyre smoke. I know we all like that, but personally I just think: ‘Poor car.’ I love cars and they just destroy them.”

3. “If I could only save one car from my collection…That’s a tough question. I could get all emotional and say a certain car, but I won’t. I really love my McLaren P1… but the one I would save is a competitor’s car. I’ve got a Ferrari F40, which I just love. I will never sell that car because it is so close to my heart. When I grew up I had a picture of Bart Simpson on my wall, a picture of Pamela Anderson, and a Ferrari F40. I don’t know which one has aged the best, but for me it is the F40.”

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4. “I think you need more personalities in F1…That’s why I’m really happy we have someone like Daniel Ricciardo in the sport, Ricky Bobby as I call him. He’s a good friend and he really doesn’t care, in many ways, what people think of him… he is just himself. I love that about him.”

5. “Formula E is the one part of Formula One I don’t like…I think they have done a great job in getting the various countries and cities involved. To be able to race around some of the biggest and best cities in the world is fantastic… I don’t like the sound of them, but when you are there watching the races I am sure it’s great. I spoke to some of the drivers and they said the cars are fast, the circuits are tight and the racing is exciting, but it’s all relative.”

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6. “I am all for women racing drivers…I would love to be racing with 21 women on the starting grid. I think we should start a race series. That’s probably the wrong thing to say, isn’t it? There was actually a suggestion that women have their own race series… but I don’t agree. Because if you are good enough, you are good enough. It’s not a physical sport like running 100m or running a marathon. If you are good enough as a female, you should be able to race in Formula One… It will happen and when it does it will be fantastic for the sport.”

7. “The scariest moments I have had racing have probably both been in Monaco…Once last year when I went through turn one and the car in front sucked up one of the drain covers as it passed over it. They are welded down, but it just came loose. It flew up and hit my front wing and damaged the suspension. I suppose I was lucky in that had it been a foot higher it could have been much worse… so that was scary. The worst moment was 2003 in Monaco. I came out of the tunnel, doing about 180mph, and locked the rears during braking. I hit the inside barrier, then slid across and had a second impact at something like 35Gs. That’s a lot. And it knocked me out. I remember waking up and Sid Watkins, the F1 doctor who is no sadly no longer with us, was stood over me smiling. There were people cutting off my suit and injecting me with painkillers and he said: ‘Where does it hurt?’ And I said: ‘My left leg really hurts.’ And he said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘No, it’s my right leg.’ And he said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘No, it’s my arm… my left arm.’ And then I just started laughing. It was because of all the stuff they were pumping in to me.”

8. “If I had to go out for dinner with four of my fellow racing drivers…Definitely Ricky Bobby, Daniel Ricciardo. Second, Felipe Massa because he really is retiring. Fernando [Alonso] can actually be quite fun. Now I’m stuck… I’ll tell you what, Sebastian Vettel sent me a WhatsApp the other day. I was shocked! Not just because he sent me a WhatsApp, I was shocked by the content. Unbelievable! I still wouldn’t invite him though. It would probably be Daniil Kvyat, because he’s a lot of fun. And it’s funny because we racing drivers often swap crash helmets after a race, and recently he asked me if he could have mine. And when I asked him why, he said he had a story: he told me I was the only driver he had ever asked for an autograph. He said: ‘I was trying to get in with this girl, so I got your autograph for her.’ This is something like ten years ago, before he was in F1. So yeah… I’ve got a fan. Apparently it didn’t work out with the girl though.”

9. “The only animal I have hit whilst racing was a bird. I’m sorry…It was actually on my second test with Williams back in 2000 in South Africa, and I was driving down the straight in Kyalami and this bird flew straight at me – I suppose I was driving straight at it. Anyway, in F1 cars they have a very small windscreen that’s about 10mm high and the bird crashed through that, hit my helmet and went into the air duct above my head. That was messy. But the weird thing was I got out of the car, feeling pretty sorry about the poor bird, then when I came to get back into the car I couldn’t drive because I had pulled something in my neck. Damn bird!”

10. My favourite team-mate of all time…Is Rubens Barrichello. We spent four years together and we went through some very difficult times together. I mean, at one point my team didn’t exist anymore, at the end of 2008. But in 2009 we drove together at Brawn and that was a special time. And he was also the best team-mate in terms of setting up a car. Fernando is good, but Rubens was at another level. Let me put it this way, you can see why Michael Schumacher wanted him as his team-mate for so long.” Jenson Button was in conversation with Paul Henderson at the Michael Kors flagship store. Michael Kors are the official lifestyle partner of the McLaren-Honda team.