Bye bye Jense you made a mistake my boy. Lewis will beat him by 20 points come the end of the year. Cant believe i am making such predictions.

How so?

Lewis made a stupid statement.

Jenson challenged him to prove it.

Lewis reluctantly said "errr, well err ok"

Anthony said no.

Do you think that Lewis is the fittest F1 driver?

If so, why hasn't he proven it as Jenson has done?

OMG. Are you kidding right now? He said that there were injury concerns since the next GP was only 6 days later. Lewis had never done a triathlon before. When exactly were they supposed to do this triathlon. FFS. Read the other posts before you write your next mindless bashing post.

Ahhh... you are talking about short triathlon, not Iron Man.

To me, its difficult to evaluate Button vs. Hamilton.

He did to Rubens same what MS did to Rubens. He had best start of season ever. He was driving shit cars for most of his career and was probably overlooked. If I were Hamilton, I wouldn't underestimate him.

Altough, to me it looks like Hamilton will gain the upper hand, but its gonna be much closer than Lewis vs. Kova.

The triathlon was not inbetween the two gp weekends! it was much later in the year. Lewis would ahve had time to train for it.

It was just a lesson from DC and Button (who's had the experience) to not to say stupid things. Button used to say similar things and he rightfully got slated for it and so did Lewis after his comments.

Well it was the Bath triathlon which was on the one weekend between Hungary and Germany. It would have been mad to do it.

But you're right on the lesson, Lewis was a bit gobby about his fitness, and got called.

Though to be fair at the end of a hot race it's always Lewis who always looks freshest, so gobby but not complete BS.

Anyway Lewis isn't a triathlete as Jense well knew, so it wouldn't have been a fair contest, and isn't on the cards now or ever. Jense himself has said it was just a bit of joshing.

Agreed, I would certainly put Lewis in the top 3 list of fittest drivers, and Jenson too.

Then again at this level when comparing your kinda clutching at straws because they're all fit! The argument of one driver being fitter than another is useless imo. Maybe back some years it was a valid argument but now after a season in F1 the drivers pretty much as fit as each other. Its a demand of the sport because the competition is so tight to get into the sport and tighter once your in it!!

I don't know how relevant this may be, but I noticed after a few races this year, how Lewis didn't look as knackered as Jenson. (or many of the other drivers actually)

Now I realise a marathon and a race are two different things, but it still makes me wonder.

It's not Jenson, but
look at Nico

http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/bilder/...54&b=258428

or Rubens & Kimi

http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/bilder/...54&b=251295

If you want to see a bigger version
klick at

- Größere Version anzeigen

I'll tell you what you will find out in 2010. Not how close Jenson is to Hamilton, but that Heikki Kovalainen is not as bad as people thought.

Each driver cancelled attendance at a triathlon event one week before a race in their championship years. You restating your own version of the TruFacts™ really doesn't change that. If you're going to call one out for being a pussy, then you have to call them both out.

As for your last statement - how has Jenson proved he is the fittest driver?

well the problem is with limit on testing jenson will be playing catch-up all season. He has to learn the team/car dna/engineers (and they need to understand what jb likes from the car) etc etc.

so not untl late in the season will we know how close jb is to lewis as jb just wnt have the time to get to know his knew car/team. Comparing alonso and hammy is not a good comparison as i am sure testing was not restricted then and both were coming in to the race team and nobody really had a advantage -if anything alonso did as hammy was knew to F1.

one thing is for sure JB is no slouth technically so out of the two JB has the advantage but problem is hammy just drives around the problem with his acrobatic driving style to compensate and be just as quick/quicker

trialon atheletes are know to be the fittest athletes in the world thats a fact. JB is surprising good at it at REAL professional level

Man, I can't believe Hamilton cut the chicane at Spa, what a cheat.

At least he's had a chance to use the Merc engine this year, so at least that won't be an unknown.

engine doesn't matter as it doesn't make you change driving style as much (or at all!). The biggest difference will be the new environment and car JB has to get used to and we can forget jenson being EVEN CLOSE to lewis in the first races as he will be so alien to the car charateristics which lewis will be more familar with

Really?

Unless Lewis gets to drive the car before the year end I doubt it.

It's a new car for both of them.

I expect both drivers to do well. Jenson is excellent when the car is working for him, and maybe McLaren have more experience in that area, meaning he's likely to have a good car for the majority of time. If the car isn't to his liking, they have proven they know how to improve a car.

If either driver is better than the other, they're still not going to have a wet blanket "number 2" driver. I see Massa as being like Button also. Both Ferrari and McLaren seem now to have one hustler and one perfectionist hot-lapper.

It is going to be EPIC.

Don't worry Bernie just look care if that little problem...

Lol, I easily out bench and out squad them. Define what fit is?

edit: Marathons and all those extreme long distance sports are bad for your health btw.

I'm sure this years Brawn was just as alien compared to the Honda of the last few seasons, but he managed OK.

I think that McLaren don't tend to create cars for drivers, but to look for drivers for their cars. Ron Dennis being the person he is, I doubt very much that any driver - even Alonso or Hamilton - could totally steer what characteristics a car should have. The engineers of McLaren will formulate what kind of car will have the most chance of success, the drivers can give their input too, but if the car is totally different than their wishes, big crying boo-hoo.

With other teams, it is different, I think. Ross Brawn seems to be a teamleader who is willing to adapt the car specifically to his prefered driver. Same goes for Flavio Briatore. I remember that at Benetton (Renault avant la Lettre) built cars that were taylorsuited for Schumacher. He could drive quickly in it (worldbeating even) but very capable drivers like Berger and Alesi had huge problems in the same car.

In short: I do not think Button will have big problems adapting to the McLaren, not more than Hamilton I think. My prediction again is that Hamilton will be faster, but not by much, and I would not want to bet against Button being quite equal to Hamilton in the end.

(I mean: many Hamilton fans believe Hamilton 'destroyed' Alonso in 2007. While they ended equal in points, equal victories and I believe 9-8 in qualifying for Hamilton.)

Thats pretty good results all the same when the pre-season predictions were that Alonso was going to destroy Lewis.

well one thing is for sure JB won't have that muppet race engineer "Shov' (andrew shovlin) or the rest of his side of garage mechanics as they sometimes let JB down with the set-up of the car.

I gather JB will use Kovys race engineer? i forgot his name lol how experienced/good is he?

I don't know of any teams that tend to create cars for their drivers. They don't look for drivers for their cars either, they look for good drivers. If McLaren had looked for drivers whose driving style would suit their oversteery car, they wouldn't have picked Alonso.
But it's likely that the stronger driver have more influence on the development of the car.



I think they usually say "beat" which is technically correct.

I agree with hughes. Next year might actually favour button. Everything should be fitting his style and hamilton will be the one to adapt more. So no excuses this time JB.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/for...icle6926826.ece

Mark Slade, Raikkenon and Alonso's race engineer.

Does Hughes take into account qualifying? Jenson will have to qualify well on low fuel, if he doesn't Hamilton will just destroy him.

I hope McMercless give equal treatment, because Lewis will get soundly beaten come years end. Lewis was in for a world of hurt when Raikkonen was set to join. Im still suspicious that Raikkonen mysteriously wasnt able to join....

But Jenson will still put Lewis in his place. A monkey backmarker.

If they're on different strategies due to difference in tyre management, qualifying positions probably won't be that decisive.
If Button's strategy is to get ahead by staying out for longer, he doesn't have to be pole.

Not down in 9th or 10th place.

Yeah OK, If you say so.

prost used to be something like 5-8 place but by the end of the race he is fighting for the lead. The key in those days was tyre management and fuel economy WITHOUT losing touch with the leaders too much.

JB can do that but somehow i dnt think it be like those days as i suspect everyone will pit early (or when tyres become damaged) and the people trying to save tyres be to slow then the sprinters/aggresive strategy

You're forgetting one thing and that's overtaking. Prost overtook alot.

if next years cars are as close as predicted btw the top 4 (Mclaren, Ferrari, Brawn, Red Bull) or similar to this year in general, then a diff. of 2 tenths 3 tenths in qualifying could be the difference btw lining up beside your teammate or having a bunch of hard hustling mofos like the Ferraris, a red bull and a mercedes btw you and your teammate. It will be quite unlikely to win the race then, no matter how smooth n consistent your race pace is. You will spend too much time trying to overtake those guys... and you are basically screwed on tracks like Monaco, Valencia and Singapore.

Jenson seemed to struggle attimes in q2 on low fuel e.g. monaco (he even went faster with race fuel in q3) which may be because the car setup was less than optimal for those conditons.

with no refueling, the car handling will even be more distorted in the extreme conditions of full tank and low fuel, so Jenson will have to work hard on his adaptability.....Id expect Hamilton at the moment to be able to deal with those varying conditions better.

well goes without saying but he relied on the people above slowing down with tyre degredation and his tyres being in better shape. He never did 50/50 overtaking monevers.

i just hope the cars are easiler to overtake next year when they are heavy and getting lighter

I don't know if Lewis is the fittest. I think Jenson would probably beat him in a triathlon type challenge since Jenson has competed in many of these and is built for it. However, Lewis is no slouch at similar events, even when it was his first time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecGpLy7Bn0g and he was competing against Aussies who have this kind of challenge (they call it Iron man challenges) almost like their national sport. Pretty amazing that Lewis won, especially in kayaking against guys who grew up doing those sort of watersports.

If anything it'll be harder. I don't see him being able to overtake like Prost did.

Alonso was extremely and I mean really extremely lucky that he ended up on equal points

Jenson is no Heikki lol. Lewis will beat him but it's not going to be a slaughterfest as you guys might think

How was he lucky? Alonso finished ahead of Hamilton 10 times that year compared to Hamilton finishing ahead of Alonso 7 times.

This is a pretty interesting response by one of Timesonline's readers:-

chris Cassell wrote:
Mark Hughes analysis makes some sense, but 150kg of fuel needs to go somewhere, there is no spare space in an F1 car, it will have to be longer or wider or taller and it has to be on the CoG.
With the extra length the cars will not be so nimble in a corner, particularly with a tight apex, the quickest way now, as any kart racer will confirm, is to make the back skip out a micro second before you need power, this is Hamiltons teritory.
The car will also need tow out and camber angle changes to cope with the length, this makes the car feel unstable, again this is Hamilton teritory.
Adding some fuel is a major change, it's not as simple as some pundits are reporting.

True. Not so good for Jenson possibly.

I would agree that adding race fuel loads is not a simple change like some think.

But I disagree that the approach to a corner is going to be any different now. It'll be the same as it was before, they'll just have a heavier car for the first half of the race or so. Its not like Lewis is any better on a full load of fuel now than he is on a light one, ya know?

I guess that everyone has their pet theory, and whilst I agree with Mark Hughes' analysis of the two respective driving styles, I don't agree that the outcome is quite as black and white as he thinks it is.

The first thing to consider is that the tyres are going to be a lot more robust due to the extras loads being transmitted through them. There is also a mandatory pitstop to change the tyres. Another is this misconception that Hamilton always destroys his tyres based on his troubles in the MP4-24 in this area - anyone with a reasonable understanding of engineering will realise that car characteristics are the most significant influence on tyre wear and behaviour, a fact partially backed up by Hamilton's one-stoopers in Turkey and Brazil this year.

Next year you are going to have a situation that is not a million miles from NASCAR - the cars may start of with understeer, be neutral midrace, and have oversteer at the end etc. Therefore, excluding latent car performance and adjustability, I think that the drivers who are going to see most success are the ones that have the widest window for operating at near maximum performance - those who can drive around these "problems".

Therefore I think that Hamilton will not struggle next year as some think/hope. I also think that Jenson may be in for a bit of a shock at how quick Hamilton really is - although I think that he will perform well for himself and the team.

At least mr. Hughes tries to take a stab at an analysis. He could be wrong, but that is not a problem. It is a problem when people like Briatore (or, apparently, Massa) think that Buttons WC doesn't mean anything because 'he was in the best car'.

Did you not see the final 2 races of the season? It was one hell of a feat of Lewis throwing away the championship like that. Kimi and Alonso were extremely lucky they were facing an inexperienced rookie

I could argue that Lewis was lucky that Kimi had 2 mechanical failures that year and that Alonso crashed in Fuji to even have a chance of winning the title going into the last two races.

But I won't.

I could also argue that the F2007 was a superior car, but yeah


Anyways these new rules are more of a handicap to Jenson than Lewis, particularly the low fuel quali. Jenson can't afford to qualify down in 6th or 7th every race because there are some fast guys out there..

That's the money quote right there ... all this talk of undertseer drivers and oversteer drivers goes out the window next year, it's about who can deal with the car balance dynamically shifting under them as the fuel burns off.