Watch - Jenson Button threads F1 car through impossibly small gaps

A lot of advertising stunts are a bit lame and initially we thought that this one designed to promote McLaren’s and Mobil 1’s partnership might be the same. But after watching this short video we thought it was worth sharing.

The premise is that Jenson Button has to drive his F1 car (after a bit of research we think it’s an MP4-27 from 2012) through a series of 240cm gaps placed at strategic points around Silverstone. His car is 180cm wide and at first you think that a 30cm margin for error on each side is pretty comfy given the margins the drivers leave themselves on street circuits like Monaco. However, when taken at speed the gaps certainly look tight enough to make you breathe in rather deeply.

What’s more, the markers placed on the track to define the 240cm gaps are rather sturdy. We’re all used to seeing cones on apexes at Trackdays and we’re also used to seeing those same cones caught under splitters and distributed willy-nilly around the track limits about fifteen-minutes later. Consider then the hefty, sharp-edged and generally vicious looking yellow and black barriers used to demarcate the gaps for this film. The consequences of getting it wrong don’t bear thinking about.

Yes, there may be some camera trickery and it would be nice to see a few more runs without slow-mo, but all in all it’s worth a couple of minutes.