That's brilliant.

JB:"Great to have Michael back because it makes me feel young again"

16 min: Hamilton heads to the pits in his McLaren, telling his team that the "rears are destroyed". He has completed four laps on the harder option.

Its practice still. They have to find out how fast they can push on the compounds in the heat. It's all about judging the pace. Lewis went a bit too quickly and paid the price.

Jenson drove well today - very consistent pace.

it's just RodrigoL, no big deal

Did I just see Jenson Button in a Walkers crisp advert here in the UK?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aua3UuT_FI4

haha that's superb thanks for the link

haha it is so funny

a bit cringworthy...

Notice the blured out poster of Lewis in the Moter Racing Intrernational office.

Lewis by 0.45s then, in Round 1.

One for Lewis then

I was a bit shocked by Jenson saying there is loads of problems with the car and moaning again doesn't usually do that if he hasn't had a good qualifying session.

Lewis did ok and i think both drivers will have a good race tomorrow. The car looks very stiff and maybe will be alot better with lots of Fuel in the car.

I don't see Jenson getting close to Lewis in any qualifying session. He's simply missing something.

Yeah, speed....

schhhh!!....

Pity we don't have a car to match Lewis's abilities.

I wouldn't expect the difference to usually remain as great as this time, but my complete guess (isn't everyone's?!) would be that Jenson will usually end up qualifying a couple of tenths behind Lewis.

I think there'll be a bigger gap in the races though. Jenson's just never impressed me as having the killer instinct for battle that say Alonso or Hamilton seem to have. All, of course IMO. None of this means that Jenson's a crap driver obviously, but I just can't see him beating Lewis.

We'll see how it plays out though. Going to be fun watching the intra-team battles this year. As a Mclaren fan, I hope that's not the only thing we've got to look forward to.... that was quite a time difference between the Red Bulls + Ferraris to the Mclarens.

I fear, Jenson showed us the real face of the car
while Lewis was flattering it

But the race is long

you can't flatter a car... you get what's in it out of it

Yeah... or not at all.

'Flattering'.. please. Jenson just underperformed. He has to improve to Lewis' level. He's the fastest, he's the face of the car right now.

Frankly, we've seen old Rubie get bigger margins on Button in qualifying. What matters is tomorrow. Let's see if Button's raved tyre conservation style would give him the edge...

Well at least he blames it on himself. Or wait, not.

Don't have anything against Jenson, and maybe it's a bit unfortunate, but I end up associating him with some of the more annoying posts on these forums, so that it ends up being quite satisfying when Jenson gets beaten by Lewis because it shuts certain posters up

Well, for a few nanoseconds it does.

Well i'm not surprised to be honest. Jenson has never been anything else than a good driver nothing more and nothing less. But the problem for him is that Hamilton isnt just good, he is BLOODY FAST. He has never had a teammate of his Lewis' level, and i reckon this year he will find out that he is not the same level as the likes of him. For large parts of his career, he was always hyped by the british press, and they have especially tried to hype how close the Button vs Hamilton in team fight would be. But Button has never been of a consistently higher level than the likes of Fisi, Ralf Schumachers, and Barrichello's of this world, to suggest he was something special. Maybe a bit more consistent, but not on a different level in terms of raw speed. From 2006 to 2009 there were always 3-4 race weekends where Barrichello blew Jenson away by half a second in qualy. I reckon this year, Lewis will do this to him more often.

So far Button hasn't proved to really be any quicker in terms of raw pace than Heikki, and by the end of the season maybe Jenson won't be rated much higher than Heikki either. Having said that, i do expect Button to have a much more consistent race pace than Heikki, but still not near the pace of Lewis....

Lewis and Massa in the same team would be fun to see.

Well I expect Button to make ground on Lewis as he would not have to pit as early. But that wont matter much if Lewis does not get stuck in traffic when he comes out.

Hmmm i don't know. I doubt Jenson much hyped smooth style is as much as an advantage as people like to believe. Lewis has shown before, that he can look after his tires when it matters. It's a much more difficult task for Jenson on the otherhand to find half a second to consistently match Lewis.....

jenson had a problem he said they are investigating any news on what it was?

The longer the McLaren remains a difficult car to extract performance from, the worse Button is going to fare against Hamilton.

Qualifying was the proof. Hamilton can hustle a car and wring its neck. I don't think I've ever seen Button do that....never ever...

Lets see what Button is really made of. Going up against Lewis was always a massive career gamble. World Champion or not.

Yeh a fly smashed into the Rear wing

I'm not doubting Lewis ability to look after his tyres, i'm just suggesting Button can look after them better. I can see him going an extra 4 - 5 laps with his tyres. The other thing is Lewis is just far too superior in handling slower corners, however Button can match him on tracks that have high speed corners and long straights.

Oh boy...poor Jenson. He did not listen and now he gets the same treatment as KOVALAINEN. I have the strong impression that we are going to see this "surprisingly" huge difference between the two drivers many more times.

What the hell are you on about?

Yes Button will very rarley beat Hamilton in Qualifying but i think the races will be different. I don't think he should of come to Mclaren and i never see him beating Lewis over a season so i think he did make a mistake but the difference will not be huge.

Button's problem is oversteer - he hates it. If you look at the sector 2 with all the bumps, the car was dancing all over the place. It is very difficult to be smooth when you're fighting the car - you need to be aggressive - that is where the likes of Lewis, nando, Massa etc will excell.

Throughout Q1,Q2 & Q3 Lewis was consistently faster than jense and that is how I predict the season will unfold. It wont be emabarrassing for Jense - Lewis really is that good - 2011 is the year that he'll make a stronger challenge.

IMHO

not surprised, button's just lucky last year and even rubens looked more impressive than him...do you really wanted to compare him to lewis?

Poor Jenson is in for a very rude awakening this season. It appears he has overestimated his own abilities. He can't see what everyone else can see...that the only reason he was WDC last year was because he had a car that was way ahead of all the others. He will live to regret joining McLaren because he will be no match for Lewis. It's funny that the Button fans who were so smug last year are now conspicuous by their absence...I wonder why???

So we all going to agree Lewis is faster than Jenson or has this always been the case

Yep same treatment...i.e. equal treatment and then ends up behind lewis...

AtlasF1 - where one swallow DOES make a summer

'OMG he so crap he got outqualifyzored! Hamilton is god and Button is wanker!'

Get a life guys. So - what are you going to say tomorrow if Button were to beat Hamilton in the race?

I think they are both great drivers and the battle is going to swing left and right.

Both great drivers and its all about the race as far as im concerned. Hamilton will beat Jenson all the time in Qualifying but its the race that Jenson will be able to look after his tyres better and this is where he gets back on par with Lewis.

Button, Meh, just a little bit better than Heikki, the only difference is Button is a storm trooper when things go his way, and having the ablity to capitalise on people's mistakes. I can see Jenson making up places not through a fantastic "out and out" racers drive, but through others making mistakes tomorrow.

When it comes to treatment, I think this has been McLaren's problem more than Jenson's, bending over backwards to get him on par with Lewis in the factory is what will kill of McLaren's season this year, if they are not careful.

The focus on a winning car has been taken over due to the team trying to make sure everything is equal, and as Hamilton is losing out on having the best of everything, so has the team, and for that trying to get a car to suit Jenson's style has made the car become medicore in comparsion to Red Bull and Ferrari.

So in other words, McLaren have spent too much time messing around pleasing Button when what they should have done was pump in the hours to get a competitive car out on the grid to suit Hamilton's aggresive style and made Button adapted to that.

Sorry I was meant to reply to Redevil.

Many make a lot of Jenson's ability to look after the tyres better than Lewis, and although Jenson's smoothness is naturally more gentle on the tyres, I think Lewis is actually better at this than many credit him (I think he's still trying to shake a reputation that's 2 years old).

I think Jenson's smooth style will only be gentle on the tyres once (or if) he manages to balance the car with less oversteer. What's possibly going to work against him in that area this year is that the ban on pitstops means the balance on the car varies through the race more than ever, with the huge range of fuel levels needing compromise setups. It's very possible that oversteer will be a feature of the cars at some point of the race no matter how well balanced the car is. If Jenson continues to struggle to look after the tyres when he has oversteer, he might find it more than cancels out the gains he has once the balance becomes more neutral or more towards understeer.

My gut instinct is that unless Jenson gets a good balance (for his style) in qualifying, he'll be looking for a few tenths from Lewis most of the time. In a car suited to their individual styles I think both Lewis and Jenson are supremely fast, and I'm not sure I could pick between them, but I think Lewis will loose less time than Jenson when the car isn't matching their natural styles. How Jenson compares to Lewis in the races will be more down to whether McLaren and Jenson can balance the car to make the most of his smooth style. If he's always having to drive against his natural style, he'll be more prone to overdriving and struggling with the tyres. In terms of race craft, Lewis is a little more aggressive with the positives and negatives that brings, and Jenson is a very decisive and clean overtaker, who may not go for the more risky chances but will have less race damaging incidents or errors.

Although I think they are quite closely matched, overall I think Lewis will be ahead of Jenson more than not in qualifying, and will probably have more wins (if the McLaren is a winning car). If the car isn't quite championship winning material, I wouldn't be surprised if the final points tally might be switched, with Jenson collecting points more consistently. I'm certain he'll be more of a threat to Lewis than Heiki was. I fully respect Jenson for being up the challenge of taking on Lewis at McLaren (although I'm sure there were many reasons behind the decision, and not just 'needing the challenge'), and he's more confident in his own ability than many outsiders are.

Very good post, but on the whole I think Button is just an impediment to Lewis and McLaren, he will drag down McLaren adoptive aggresiveness since Lewis joined as they try to get the car to suit Button, and stop focussing on Lewis as much.

Whether Lewis beats Button or Button beats Lewis is neither here nor there as Red Bull and Ferrari are running away with the title if McLaren keep this up.

I am certain if Button did not join the team we would be looking at a much better car today that totally suits Lewis's driving style which would have been challenging for the front row.

Looking at the sector times Button is losing out mostly in the 2nd sector - not so good around slow corners ?

It's not exactly a "flowing" sector, so I can see why.

Well it's by far the longest sector. Logical he loses most there.