Bahrain Grand Prix: Jenson Button serene in midst of F1 phoney war

These are the days of rehearsed respect, of tolerance and back slapping. Jenson Button was the quicker in the morning, Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon. To read anything into that brings the shutters down. "Are you joking? I'm not going to answer any questions like that. It's Friday, testing," said Button, provoked by the suggestion that first day honours might have ended even. Friday practice is Formula One's net session, a day for fine tuning, for shaking out the glitches and correcting the oversteer, but not yet proper cricket. Assessing performance is not so much about the numbers posted as decoding reaction, with Button especially so. The glow of his world championship is still on him. His status is validated by overalls bearing the McLaren stamp and the No 1 on his car. Related ArticlesDavid Coulthard's guide to BahrainButton: flying start essentialMcLaren spark arms raceButton: Lewis and I must work for each otherButton makes breakthroughSport on televisionEvery play he makes pays double. You could throw any number of Hamiltons at him and he would take them on. This is what being a champion means to him. A driver on the wrong end of nothing for so long, Button is walking on sunshine, and don't it feel good. "I am normally pretty relaxed but especially this year because I am with a team that pretty much every year they are fighting for the championship and that is unusual. There is no reason not to be excited. I am the world champion. You don't do it to prove to anyone else, you do it to win the world championship for yourself. I haven't really thought about it much during the winter since moving because I have been so busy, but then you hear someone say it and it feels really great." It is in this enhanced state that he began the opening phase of his title defence, pointing his McLaren at the desert and ripping a time that dripped menace and belief. This is where talented kids imagine they will be when they start out, doing the work of heroes. Button carries with him that same sense of innocent wonder. At 30 it is something to see. On the other side of the garage, Hamilton is coming from somewhere else entirely, liberated not by the acquisition of some great prize but by the shedding of a load. Despite his relative youth, Hamilton, 25, presents the more worldly countenance, a measure of the strain that often comes when asked to manage genius prematurely. Hitherto this was the responsibility of his father, Anthony. The umbilical link was cut a fortnight ago, releasing Hamilton like a balloon into the wide open space marked freedom to choose. "This last couple of years I have had a lot of growing up to do. I'm in a different place, a different state of mind. This is a new time for me." He smiles at the thought that he has had it so good. He remembers the days when the house was about to fall in and none knew, long before his elevation to F1. "People only see my career in Formula One, they don't realise what I did before and the troubles I had in different years and different races. I have been in those positions when you have struggled to be at the front and to compete. "The experience of knowing how to deal with it, how to handle yourself through the pressure times, how you carry yourself; I had to grow up a lot earlier, a lot faster than other kids who have just been at school, having fun going out at weekends. I had to mature quite fast. You sacrifice a lot to get where you are." It is fascinating to watch Hamilton and Button circling each other; measuring, yet not measuring, silently logging details, processing everything through snatched glances. "We don't know who will win this race," Button said when pressed on his impressions of Hamilton. "I hope it will be me, Lewis hopes it is him. You don't think how good your team-mate is or that it is a good lap he's done. You think that the car looks good today. I haven't looked for any weaknesses so I don't know if there are any." We can put that down to driver diplomacy. Formula One is rare in the simultaneous demands it makes of rivals that must also function as team-mates. It draws from them public displays of unity that run counter to the competitive instinct so finely developed. This is the first day of term. The boys are on their best behaviour, sitting crossed legged on the mat. Button puts his hand up. "I don't think about fighting with my team-mate, I think about working with him. If I am quicker in this race, great, if he is quicker, he's quicker. And you go to the next race and try and do better." Yes, Jenson. The same lines are being trotted out up and down the pit lane. At Mercedes one wondered how long before Michael Schumacher played his joker and invoked his sore neck to remove him from the embarrassment of a time sheet dominated by his team-mate, Nico Rosberg. Schumacher said he was rusty. He was certainly angry. It was good to see. Slowly the fighters are making their way to the ring.