Jenson Button was last night named British Driver of the Year beating outgoing McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton to the prestigious Autosport award.

Hamilton, who joins Mercedes in a controversial three-year deal next season, ended his McLaren career with more points, victories and pole-positions than his team-mate this term.

McLaren driver Button won three times across the Formula 1 season, including in the opening and closing grands prix in Australia and Brazil respectively. He came home fifth in the world championship.

He beat 2008 Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, four-time IndyCar champion and triple Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti, 2012 World Touring Car champion Rob Huff, Force India F1 driver Paul di Resta and 2012 DTM runner-up Gary Paffett to win the award.

Button paid tribute to departing team-mate Hamilton, and admitted he was relishing the prospect of becoming McLaren’s most experienced driver :

“For me the excitement of going to McLaren was obviously in racing for the team, but it was also racing against Lewis. He’s unbelievably fast. I spent a lot of time with BAR and then Brawn, and I know they’re a great bunch of guys, so he will definitely have a lot of fun there. I love the role of being the experienced driver and that is definitely the case next year – I think I am the most experienced guy in F1 next year. Really looking forward to working with Checo [Sergio Perez] next year too, he has shown great speed and seems like he wants to learn, so it should be good fun.“