Australian Grand Prix 2012: McLaren's Jenson Button aims to get bid for second world title off to flier in Melbourne Qualifying on Saturday will tell us more on that score, but the signs from winter testing are promising. How has this happened? How has a man described only three years ago by his former Benetton team principal Flavio Briatore as a "concrete bollard," emerged to become one of the most respected drivers on the grid? There are numerous reasons, of course, but foremost amongst them is that Button has matured, like a fine wine, with age. The Frome-born driver squirms when stories of him parking his yacht Little Missy adjacent to the Monaco paddock before he had even won a race are dredged up. But he himself is the first to admit that his all-round focus and maturity was not all it could have been back then. "There are so many things a driver can bring which we don't really realise in the early stages of our career," Button said recently. It is not just about jumping in the car and driving as fast as you can. Emotionally, too, Button has developed. After his debut for Williams aged just 20, the playboy years in the early 2000s, the struggles with Benetton and BAR, the near-abyss when Honda pulled out of the sport, came redemption with Brawn GP, culminating in that epic world championship-winning drive in Brazil two seasons ago. Button learned humility along the way. He has matured into the ultimate pro with McLaren; grounded, articulate, good-looking. No one has a bad word to say about him. "He is in the absolute prime of his career," former driver David Coulthard said on Thursday. He has lots of experience, a great team of people around him and he's made McLaren his own. All valid points, although there are still question marks, as there are for every driver. Button's qualifying pace, by his own admission, is not what it could or should be. Despite becoming the first of Hamilton's team mates to beat him last season, he was out-qualified 13-6 by the 2008 world champion and will struggle to beat him again this year unless he can improve on that record. Some believe he is over-reliant on changeable weather to mix things up. Others believe he got lucky in 2009, when Brawn's controversial double diffuser allowed him to build an unassailable lead before anyone else could catch up. Although to most minds he answered those doubters last season, there are still those who feel that Hamilton was the principal architect of his own downfall rather than brilliance on Button's part. The 2011 regulations, with the blown diffuser and Pirelli tyres which made the races more about pacing and less about pace, played perfectly into his hands, they say. Let's see him repeat the trick now that blown diffusers are outlawed and his car has, what is termed in the trade, a "nervous rear end." Button has nothing to prove to anyone. But, admirably, he is not resting on his laurels either. He is up for the fight. "I couldn't be in a better place right now," he said on Thursday. I think you grow in confidence the more the people around you and in the team believe in you, and for me that has been a big thing with McLaren. Their head-to-head battle stands at one apiece. If Button can beat Hamilton this year, he will not only have silenced any last doubters, but may well go down in the record books as a two-time world champion.