I think in 09 Jenson was usually ahead in qualification when he was happy with the car. Later on in the season when the car was less than perfect, his qualifying began to suffer relative to Rubens.

you clearly underrate rubens like you do with mosts drivers to make lewis seem much better

Exactly. Although some of those poles he got last year were freaking marginal. He never really dominated in qualy even when the Brawn was at it's best. It's just not his forte.

As a Lewis fan I don't really see how is devaluing Buttons title making Lewis look better. If anything, it makes Lewis look worse. I think that Button is a great driver, and one of top performers in 2010., and definitely driver of the season 2009.

Nah... they'd do a Golf... they'd embarce him to within an inch of his life .... money conquers all.

But to say Lewis is like Barricello was 2009 is overrarting Barricello

+1

I'm a fan of both, more so Jenson than Lewis... but I know that Lewis is a special driver, and any driver who can run as close as Jenson is doing this year in his first year at McLaren is a top driver himself... I'd go as far as saying Jenson is probably up there in the top 3 drivers on the grid with Hamilton and Alonso. But what both JB and Lewis' performances have shown to me this year is how good Barrichello is even at this point of his career!!

Yeah. But then again, nobody said that.

+2

Still can't figure out why Hamilton qualifying 0.2-0.5 seconds faster and sometimes finishing just ahead of a driver who posters here claim is useless somehow makes Hamilton special, except then we have all the excuses for why Hamilton hasn't lapped Button I would think that bigging up Button would be the thing to do, to show just how good Hamilton is to go even faster.

If the only reason Button won lasts years WC was because his car was supposedly dominant and nothing to do with his driving, then why on earth didn't Vettel or Webber win in the actual fastest car? The suggestion it was down to the car also devalues the driving skills of Senna 88, Prost 89 and 93, Mansell 92, Schumacher 01, 02 and 04, all of which were won in actual dominant cars. Unless of course Button winning the WC in a non dominant car is somehow different to the others.

Button is fast, Hamilton is faster, maybe even the fastest ever.
I don't think anyone can disagree with that, although there are some that would - strangely enough usually Hamilton fans

It's the usual knife edge dance: teammate of my favourite can't hold a candle to him, yet is otherwise clearly the 2nd best driver on the grid.

Indeed a difficult position to maintain, knife edge as I said, so people are bound to slip off it left and right along the way.

Yes, its pretty known Jenson isnt a qualy specialist...


last year qualy was 10 - 7 to Rubens.... nevertheless when the car was hooked up, he had 4 poles n outqualified RB rather consistently... he only struggled when Brawn went backwards.

The Mclaren has been quite hooked up for a long time now and Jens has remained beaten by Lewis throughout the European stage xcept Hockenheim...and it hasnt been that close.

Rubens might be an underrated driver, but he aint Lewis level, qualy or race pace

...depends who's your favourite... and if they they run a mile when faced with a strong teammate or try to get any strong teammates sacked/nobbled.

It must be good not to have this problem

Yeah, didn't like it either when Hamilton continued to speak out for retaining Kovalainnen, but what can we do? Fortunately McLaren management would have none of it!

...I'm surprised that no one has suggested the reasons why JB's performance fell off relative to RB's in the last half of 09:

1. His mindset changed from having nothing to lose to having everything to lose, i.e. he succumbed to pressure.
2. RB spat the dummy FA style and refused to share set up info.
3. RB changed his brake compound mid-way through the season and benefitted as a result.

I dont know if any of these are "the" reason or even "a" but I dont find any of the reasons given so far convincing... lets try to remember that F1 is more about machines than it is about people and driver talent is a pretty constant input so not much is going to change re driver talent between the first and second halves of season when 2 very experienced drivers are paired.

Surely that's not the best example of a driver preferring weak teammates that you can give

Hamilton said, that he and Heikki get along well, and that they are friends and therfore he wanted to keep him as his teammate, but
on the other hand he don't mind whoever his teammate is
Why should Lewis be afraid of any teammate if he beat the reigning 2x WDC as Rookie?

... and its not like there was every any chance of FA coming back

Who knows, maybe a greater chance of that than Hamilton joining him at Ferrari?

Dunno, now Whitmarsh is in charge and, I'm told, desperate to promote Hamiltons teammate.

That's because on current form he would be replacing FA at Ferrari, not joining him

Nah, Hamilton has no use for a disobedient number two, he needs them nice, supportive and quiet like Kova.

... and post Istanbul JB

What I dont understand, though, is why an FA fan does not find that to be an admirable trait??

Whitmarsh wanted Kimi, that's no secret

And Lewis only answered questions as he was asked, if he gets a new teammate, and when yes, who he wants
and Lewis said, that it's not his joice but he stated his opinion about Heikki, and refused to talk about other drivers as his teammate,
as long as Heikki was there.

Because this FA fan sees neither the need nor the sense to support each and everything his favourite driver does or says.

Mindboggling concept I know.

.....perhaps there isn't much to talk about Alonso recently

Not really... its much easier to criticise than to support.... internet forums (like life itself) are of full of people who like to criticise.

I have to admit, some do it with more style than others

ok so i take in that fact you think Jenson became WDC was because he was slower than his team mate and because he had a crap car.


Why is it so hard to admit the car was a monster and that he was infact faster over the course of the season than his team mates these are basic facts that seam to pass you by

Not difficult for Lewis/Button this season.

I really think that Lewis is performer of 2010. so far (and unless he screws real badly in last two races ;) its gonna stay like that). I also think that Button showed clearly that he is one of the most error free drivers, maybe not the fastest out there,probably very similar to Kubica. Vettel/Webber/Rosberg/MS/Alonso/Massa simply are not nowhere near Lewis/Button this season.

one thing that also hurt him in 2009 and now 2010 was tyre temperatures

Your response is quite childish, you failed to actually understand my post, while I'm sure it was pretty clear. I never said 'slower' or 'crap' anywhere, it's just the conclusion you create out of it. Read and try it again.

It was a great grab for McLaren to get Button in... granted he was reigning world champion which finally gave some creedence to his early reputation, but these guys have been watching F1 a long time and could've seen from years like 2004 that Button was one of the best guys out there....

Kubica isn't the all-rounder that Button is yet, but Jenson really did set a challenge for himself by joining McLaren and Lewis, and I still don't think he's letting himself down by not beating him... To be that close to a driver we've seen do some incredible stuff, and right from his first GP, is probably actually vindicating for Button about his own talents.

Hm, why not. I know this isn't the thread for it, but if anything I see more in Kubica than in Button at the moment. He's not as experienced, but he's not making any more mistakes than Button. He's in a sub-top car and I'm impressed by how he's able to run along competitively with the top teams in some races. He perhaps hasn't proven as much in the wet though.

That's what I was suggesting.. perhaps I should've explained but like you say, this isn't the thread for it. They are both quite similar drivers though, despite the visual differences when they are behind the wheel (Kubica is a little more see-sawy, but then he's in a Renault not a Mac), their style and racing philosophy are similar.

Button has proven time and again though that his touch and feel for mixed conditions is unmatched in Formula One, and that's something Kubica doesn't have in his armoury.

He's clearly very good but isnt that just a bit over the top... RB, AS, LH, SV, MW and certainly MS are as good as JB in mixed conditions.

Edit: left out MW

I would say the top 2 of the drivers you stated would be Jenson and Lewis the difference betwean them is that Jenson has a good feel for the conditions and Lewis monsters the car round

Watch yourself. Such praise cannot go unchallenged.

It could be worse - we could just make up stuff to discredit him, or decide we dont like his personality...

it would be easy to judge if he had a more competitive teamate

It has struck me how a lot of people, particularly in the media, are at pains to compare Button to Hamilton, and give the impression that they are both pretty equal, much in the same way that Andy Gray would have you believe that Steven Gerrard has been one of the top 3 footballers in the world for the past 10 years. But i'm convinced that at least in Lewis Hamilton's mind, he isn't afraid of Button at all. I think he is wary of the fact that he's a fast, consistent and error free driver but beyond that he looks at the timing screens and it only confirms in his own head that his team mate isn't as good as him. Take his post race interview at Spa with Lee McKenzie for example, he described his feelings when he could see that Button was making up places behind him and how it was great that McLaren could be headed for a 1-2. To me, that's a similar sort of mindset to the one he had when he had Kovalainen as team mate. I very much doubt he'd be brimming with so much 'team spirit' had Alonso been on the other side of the garage still.

I do however see a genuine rapport between Lewis and Jense, but people would be naive to think that this would last if they have a major incident with each other.

I'll admit they are just opinions, but I shall defend my opinion to the best of my ability!

No, he hasn't proven this at all. Hamilton, especially in the Spa qualifying when he massively improved while it had started to rain, proves that he is one of the best, if not the best, in mixed conditions. He also held his own on intermediates to the end of the race.

Such as 'he's sneaky' or 'whitmarsh favours him'? That sort of stuff? Yes you certainly could.

Yup, that sort of thing

... except, when I say it its true

It's a debate and it is some people's opinion, including mine, based on what has been observed over the season so far.

But that is going away from the debate about who is best in mixed conditions.

Well, now that you mention it .....
nip it in the bud!

Heh.

Jense initially drove for Williams and it was clear even then that he had a huge potential; sadly that potential was realised away from Williams (altho', honestly, we never quite gave him a competitive car). As far as comparing with Lewis tho', frankly, while they are close (and the top 5 are all very very close) Lewis still seems to have a very definite edge over Jense in almost any area of comparison. Which is not to denigrate Jense in any way at all, but to acknowledge how good the current crop of top drivers actually are.

To be honest, we're living thru' a pretty golden period in terms of driver talent; Alonso, Kubica, Webber, Button, Rosberg, Vettel, Schumacher, Massa, Hamilton, Petrov, Sutil, Hulkenberg, Barrichello. On any given day (with some reasonable machinery) any of them are capable of winning a race and there is a whole generation of new drivers bubbling under in the GP2 ranks.

Anyway, as an objective observer, for me, Lewis is currently the best of them all but the rest are, by no means, slouches.

You might believe you're an objective observer, but naming Petrov and Hulkenberg along with the rest of those is, to say the least, highly optimistic. Even with top material, I doubt they would beat their teammates for a win. And even if they'd win a race, it won't just put them along some of the other names mentioned to create a 'golden period in terms of driver talent'. Which to me, does not make much sense as you could argue any given year in F1 was part of a certain period, as you'll always have winning drivers in F1. Someone has to.