Jenson Button, the Formula One World Champion of 2009, is a speed-addict Brit who left the Grand Prix behind him, but kept the eagerness to accept a challenge. As of February 28, this year, Jenson is the world’s fastest man at the batak.
The batak is not – despite its martial-sounding name – an ancient mystical weapon used to wage war against gods, but a training instrument to sharpen reflexes with the speed of light. A piece of equipment specifically designed to improve reaction, hand-eye coordination, and stamina, the batak consists of twelve LED targets that turn on and off in rapid succession.
The trainees must tap as many buttons as possible in a determined period. The structure is a 2-meter tall by 1.7-meter-wide frame (77x67 inches, or six-foot-five and five-foot-seven), and the pace is quite rapid. The current world record is 50 strikes in half a minute, set by the retired racing driver in a promotional event for the 2023 Formula One season.
Mr. Button may have retired from the sport, but his abilities are nothing but laser-sharp. Better yet, laser-sharper, as he is no stranger to this device that’s been used to train athletes for decades, having constantly used it during his speed-driven racing days.
Photo: Guinness World Records
Age is just a number for Jenson, who broke his own – and the world – batak record (his personal best was a 56, set many years ago). Since the Guinness World Records (GWR) officially sanctioned it in 2012, the batak has seen fourteen record holders. With a score of 58, the former Formula One pilot currently sits on top of the list.
The former record of 56 was achieved in 2019 at a GWR event in Dubai, two years after Jenson Button hung his steering wheel on the wall (of Formula One fame). The 2023 world record holder had actually reached that same score in 2011 (when this performance wasn't yet included in GWR-adjudicated records). Watch the video at the end of this story and see him batak-battling his then-teammate, Lewis Hamilton.
The attempt was part of a promotional campaign for the new season of Formula One that debuts next weekend, on March 5, in Bahrain. A race that Button himself won in 2009, one in six first-place finishes for him that season. At the end of the seventeen-race-long competitional year, Jenson became the world champion.
Photo: Guinness World Records
Apart from out-tapping batak records and keeping an eye on motorsports (particularly Formula One), Jenson is now a Sky Sports broadcaster and coachbuilding entrepreneur, as a co-founder of Radford Motors.
Aged 20, he debuted in Formula 1 in 2000, when Michael Schumacher won his first out of the five-in-a-row title. He left the high-speed spotlight at the end of the 2016 season, after having established Brawn GP as the most successful (strictly statistically speaking) F1 team ever, with a 100% titles-to-participations rate. In its first and only racing year, the team won both drivers’ and constructors’ championships (in 2009).
After nearly two decades in news television, Răzvan turned to a different medium. He’s been a field journalist, a TV producer, and a seafarer but found that he feels right at home among petrolheads. Full profile
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