well with jb struggling with tyre temperatures that will cost him lap time all jb saying is that he wasn't happy with the car simple as that

the comments on hear from hamilton fans is ridiculous button struggled with the car big time tyre temperatures look at what happened to lewis in quali in australia that was tyre temperatures give jb a break for god sake

yes yes yes but Hamilton learnt from it, Button either isn't learning, or its an excuse.

Lewis can also overtake.

this tyre temperatures thing happened last year for jb like in silverstone were his lap time was half a second down on rubens hopefully the pirelli heat up better im pretty sure he will have a good race

In Monaco he retired from 11th... Passed by Rubens and both Force India s...

If he has been as weak as you're trying to claim here in all these races, it would mean Lewis hasn't really done anything special this season at all.

Why do you think Jense sometimes can't heat his tyres? It's a question I find puzzling. He has great physical skills and is quite intelligent. He can see exactly how to do it from Lewis' telemetry. You'd think he could learn to do it on the simulator.

So what prevents him?

It is lack of aggression in his personality? That the brake-later-turn-harder thing is too unnatural to him?

Next year the Pirellis will probably need some adaptation as well...

He says he can adapt to driving more aggressively when needed on certain tracks, but that never solved these tyre issues.

I find it puzzling as well. In the meantime, it's hurting him more than tyre preservation will ever help him.

Next year, Lewis without this stupid last mistakes will be in front of Button by more than 50 points. Of course, in case that car is competetive.

Its just as puzzling as why Lewis cant change his style when he needs too, such as Monza, singapore.

I see no difference. Each have their own styles and can not change, its as simple as that. Both cases have their problems. Their "style" has cost them both points.

And won them both points

Lewis went down a blind alley at Monza, with the low downforce setup.

When seen in the context of DNF's, and 2 crashes, it begs the question, why isn't Button ahead of him in the WDC?

Mistakes? Try mistake. He only did one mistake that cost him points, that's Monza, the rest weren't his fault.

Yes, that has been mentioned a countless amount of times now. I realize it, don't worry. But when I adapt their bad luck into the point system, I hardly see any huge differences. Lewis has a 3 point advantage now, and when I adapt races like Melbourne, Spain, Hungary etc. he'd have an advantage around 25 points. On a total of over 200, I don't think that's a lot, or lets say, enough, to read all the bashes against Button here right after he has suffered and performed badly in a qualifying session.

Why Button isn't ahead even though Hamilton lost around 20 points more due to bad luck? Well, I guess Button is simply performing a little bit worse, isn't he?

Yes because Webber has such an exemplary record in wheel to wheel battles

After his engine had been cooked. We don't know how much damage had been done, how much hp he was down etc.

You yourself think Hamilton is the best driver in F1 today. Why bring Button down so much? Do you think drivers like Vettel and Webber would beat Button at a similar rate? If yes, what's so special about Hamilton? If not, why are you so sure Button is the worst driver out of the top 5 in the current standings?

Bollocks. We never got to see whether on race day it would have been the right idea.

so u mean Lewis should randomly decide to cruise and collect... it doesnt work that way. Lewis style dictates whenever he sees an opportunity for a better result he goes for it. Monza was a mistake, he saw an opportunity that wasnt there and paid an hefty price. This will happen from time to time to even the best that adopt such strategy.

Singapore was entirely different, except he had a crystal ball to know Webber was gonna react so desperately to collect him.

That was as clear cut an overtaking chance as any....and I believe even "conservative Jens would have gone for it...it was pretty much the same chance Jenson had vs Alonso in Canada and took... the diff. is the thuggish reaction of Webber. Its a shame strawmen will continue to place the blame squarely on Ham. even though Webber openly accepted some responsibility for it. The only major personal mistake that has directly cost Ham points this year remains Monza. One less than Jens.

Still you have some writing rubbish gross exaggerations "fast guy that makes tons of mistakes with sporadic great results" ...wow
I have to admit thats a pretty nice hater spin to describe Lewis the racer. Retains just the barest modicum of truth in it to pass as some "legitimate" point of view and not trolling. Kudos

Yes, very true. Maybe I should've said 'in qualifying', but even then I now remember he made the mistake at T1. No need for the 'bollocks' - I am a Hamilton fan as well you know

If the championship rules stay as they are and he wants to win championships then I think this is exactly what he needs to do in some circumstances.

Monza is a definite example of waiting to see how it will play out, he was in a great position in the championship then and had 4th minimum sewn up and was ahead of both RBs.
Singapore is different, that was a definite opportunity although clearly he could have been more careful
I think hamilton needs to go 80-20 on his style v button's style, sometimes look at the larger picture.

I'd say that Fred is possibly a better championship driver because he gets a better balance between the two, not a better driver in an individual grand prix or on talent etc but in terms of driving for a championship maybe for now...

F1 is so competitive now though that 2 tenths is a decent margin, ive said this before if you're 5 tenths slower than youre teammate your not long for F1, Petrov, Liuzzi and di Grassi spring to mind.


I guess it makes it harder for him when the team won't order Jenson out of the way, "Lewis is faster than you, do you understand?"


Monaco DNF hardly counts plus Lewis has never benefited like Jenson has scoring additional points

I think the new points system is being used by some to exaggerate the gap too. Taking into account the reliability problems etc, let's double your tally and make it 50 points. Sounds like a lot doesn't it? That's only 20 points in the old system, and up to last year, if a driver had been within 20 points of his teammate it would have been considered close.

Kovaleinen was 45 points off Hamilton in 2008, which is a good comparison because the McLaren was a front-running car throught that year. If Jenson was doing as badly as that (which is what the detractors seem to be claiming) hed be over 100 points off Hamilton with the corrections for reliability.

It seems some people can't accept how close Jenson is, such that, with Hamilton's lost points, it's almost equal. No, Jenson isn't beating Hamilton, but he's doing a bang-up job against one of F1's elite, and I'm pleased that his title defence has not turned into a disaster.

Lets ignore the time difference


Jenson is very good in a very good car, Lewis is very good in a good car

I remember earlier in the season button was qualifying close to lewis on times but a few places further back so I guess this is one on the other side of the scales.

Jenson's style doesnt overcome the deficiencies of his car, relying on faster/cars drivers isnt going to net him the WDC imo


Yes Lewis bumping into faster cars, Jenson not being able to keep up with faster cars

2 more entertaining pages of 'yes he is better! No he is not!!'

Keep ehm coming guys. plenty of hours to kill before race start.

its easy to view with hindsight and say...oh he should have done a Button for a certain race... because we now know the 10 points or wutnot would have been better than the resultant DNF....
but it still doesnt work that way. The reality is there is no way to know which races pushing 80% will yield more points than pushing 100%.

And its not like Hamiltons career is xterised with reckless or banzai moves n overtakes where he has a 50% chance or so of getting right...like some are trying to depict... he is as calculating as the best when it comes to those moves and lot of times we've seen him bide his time b4 making a move, or not making a move at all when he didnt have a clear chance though he was faster. Like the man himself said, when uve executed as many overtakes as he has done, its not out of the world that things wont align once or twice. but I believe he'd still get better at it... overtaking in F1 is something even the very best can always get better at...a true dark art.

His mistake in Monza wasnt his overall attacking approach. It was his attacking approach at THAT corner. I know his thinking was to get past the deadweight ASAP n start racing Alonso n Jenson FTW....he knew he had the car. And for that split second his ambition clouded his patience n judgement. It happens... 9/10 times in those conditions, he'd eventually navigate Massa successfully n get a podium or even more. There is no knowing when that 1/10 will happen when things wont work out.

You cant have a driver execute so many types of brilliant overtakes in China 2010 alone and then advise him to just sit back n do nothing....not when more is clearly possible and he is fighting for WDC in inferior machinery which means he needs all the breaks he can get. You can only remind him to be careful.

If anything, what this season is telling us is that Buttons approach cant work in such conditions, he's executed it as flawlessly as possible...zero race day mistakes, hardly see him on the ragged edge in qualy (xcept maybe today), had just one car failure (while running 11th) etc n yet he is still behind his "unintelligent, stupid mistakes prone, car-breaking" teammate in the points.

As for Lewis vs Jenson

q1, q2 today Lewis had approximately one second over Jens
q3, 7tenths

jjcale, I believe thats the Senna-esque speed you were looking for

Wow, talk about the twisting of words eh? but then I guess from you its no supprise.

What I mean, and what any other level headed Lewis fan would have understood is that Lewis should know when to go for it and when not to go it. When putting your nose up the inside is good and when it isnt a good idea, sometimes he needs to race from the head rather than heart.

Yes, this was exactly what I was trying to explain here earlier.

If the difference between a good car and a very good car is 2 tenths then I guess that's correct...

Yea because no other good driver has ever botched an overtake

Jonathan Legard, is that you? Because that post read like a condensed purée of lazy F1 clichés. Not to be overly cynical because there are elements of truth there, but overall it's just so bum-clenchingly simplistic.

Im not just talking about one overtake but Lewis in general, surley you can agree that sometimes he needs use his head more often? Monza 09 is a perfect example. If you cant agree with that when most if not all jenson fans accept Lewis is the quicker guy and can get more out of a racecar than Jenson then really there is no hope for a discussion with you. I bet even Lewis's shit smells nice doesnt it.

I just had to go back to the first page of this thread and have a look. This post caught my eye.



I snipped out a bit about weight distribution. Anyway, looks like someone got it about right back then.

You know how it is around here. Really it all revolves around the same 'my driver is better than your driver' arguments, and when a close pairing comes along, the madness starts. Though I never anticipated Jenson/Lewis to reach 20,000 posts.

Well 2 tenths is an average and a guess, i think theres been some races were the gap between the two as been more, if Jenson is seen as one of the top drivers then i'm saying that Lewis at times can bridge a performance deficit between cars

lol so predictable...strawman labelling time

the point is the same... *so and so mistakes of Alonso/any top driver* = he needs to use his head more often


As long as u cannot prove Lewis makes unreasonably more mistakes than any of the top drivers outthere, your post comes across as just the usual tit for tat..."oh Button is been criticized for another poor qualy session, I have to have a slight dig at Lewis" post....its pointless.

The problem with statements like the above is that you're taking one incident and making it seem as though over the course of Hamilton's career, or simply this season, he hasn't been racing "from the head".

How many "competitive" overtakes have Hamilton had this season, in comparision to the single "overzealous" (not how i would characterize it) overtake attempt at Monza? We can easily go thru the field, and point out a season where each driver has made multiple overzealous overtaking attempts...yet somehow their racecraft is not being characterized as one that exhbits more brawn than brains.

One can easily flip the script so to speak, and say that given Button's rather poor qualifying abilities comparative to Hamilton over the course of 16 races, Button needs to start using his head more (e.g look at Hamilton's telemetry, learn from how Hamilton warms his tires, sit down in an F1 two seater with Hamilton and take notes...).

In the end, I get why certain talking points are being used in this thread, and kudos to BBC for much of it:

Button's fortunate (can't keep up, lets try pitting first) pit strategy resulting in an early win this season allowed the BBC hacks to peddle the now renowned Hamilton needs to improve his racing IQ mantra that many here have been repeating...even though the same was not being said about the other would be championship contenders who exhibited the same low racing IQ.

Fast-forward to Monza and Singapore, and the BBC hacks were at it again...peddling the same "needs to think with his head" story.

So to sum up BBC's role in the Jenson vs Lewis scorecard:

Scenario A:

Button qualifies ahead of Hamilton -> BBC hacks say: "Hamilton needs to see a shrink, he can't get a hold of his emotions, he needs a father figure back in his life"

Scenario B:

Hamilton qualifies ahead of Button -> BBC hacks say: "We all know if Button doesn't have faith in the rear end of the car he just can't excel, the track temperature dropped that's all that needs to be said, Hamilton qualified only x positions ahead of him (.500 sec difference) so, like, whatever"

Scenario C:

Button finishes ahead of Hamilton -> BBC hacks say: Ready the "Mission Accomplished" banner, then follow script from Scenario A

Scenario D:

Hamilton finishes ahead of Button -> BBC hacks say: "Button finished in x position, he just couldn't find the pace today...now lets please talk about someone else"


After 16 races I'm pretty sure their views and vernacular have been etched into the minds of many BBC F1 viewers....not naming names...

I guess most of the arguments are about whether the points difference reflects accurately the relative performances of the two drivers

There have also been races were the gap has been smaller, hence the average. And sure, a lot of drivers can bridge that, it all just depends on exactly how big the performance deficit actually is. I don't really see where you're going with this.

It's not as bad as you think, 4 people saying the same thing over and over are responsible for 19,000 of those posts.

Bahrain, Spa, Australia, Monza, Germany, Singapore...

Sporadically definitely wasn't the correct term, but it's really that simple. The overall consensus is about the same. Button, is approx. 2 tenths slower a lap on average than Hamilton, but Hamilton makes mistakes. If Jenson's crew hadn't lost him Monza, we'd all be sitting here wondering how the heck Jenson is ahead in points.

We still have 3hrs and 27mins to go before the race. But we all know Vettel is the better of the 2 RBR drivers....

Just hoping he could convert this pole into another win. So far in 2010, his record of winning from the pole is downright abysmal.

And you can argue until the cows come home, and you will get nowhere if this is the point of contention.

This is all rather simple, I really am amazed people do not understand simple theory here between Hamilton and Button. The points are irrelevant to Hamilton, they are important to Button, their differing styles only serve to highlight that.

Anyone here play poker tournaments? There is a similar theory there too. It is possible to play it safe in a poker tournament and ease your way into the money (i.e. into the points). But all winning players will tell you that the only way to win tournaments consistently is to take risks and be aggressive and to have the attitude that you are gong to either win or crash out trying. Because while the safe and steady ones get into the small money often, they very rarely win the big prize.

So if you take a player from each camp and compare their results after 10 tournaments then the safe player might well have the most money won. Some will use that to justify that player is thus the better. But those in the know, those who realy understand what it takes to win a poker tournament will say that player never once put himself in a position to take a tournament down. The "losing player" however is still the one more likely to go on and win a tournament next time.

This is Hamilton, It is a an arrogant, foolhardy, ballsy and dangerous approach, but it is the sign of a real winner, someone who is prepared to lose everything in order to win everything.

So the answer is that maybe Button is as good a driver as Hamilton, almost anyway. But Hamilton is always going to be far more likely to win races and championships regardless of the fact the points suggest different. Because I am absolutely sure that the points mean far more to Button than they do to Hamilton.

Don't you win the WDC by having the most points?