Button was held up by traffic. Kovy last year was doing all the holding up (worse than Trulli train). No comparison.

What would be the point of sprinting up behind Schumi, just to sit behind him for the next 30 laps?

Obviously he needed to look after his tyres, and hope that Schumi's tyres went off enough to allow a chance of overtaking him.

It's about using your brain.

Exactly, he's expected to be an improvement on Heikki, not a threat to Lewis. Button has never seemed unbeatable, Fisi trashed him. Hamilton's fans need to calm down, it's early days and beating Button is not something worth gloating anyway.

Fair comment.

However given Button is the reigning World Champion, I think its fair to pass comment.

It's only one race but Jenson has a huge mountain to climb just to possibly match Lewis at times. Particularly while the car is difficult.

Jenson wasn't as quick, but I think MAC screwed him, he should've stayed out longer on the softs -- after all, Jenson did a good job of looking after them, perhaps too conservative. They should've forced Webbo to go longer. Ah well.

Well done, Lewis, you did a good job.

Would not have worked. If they pitted only 1 lap later, Webber would easily come out ahead. Even though his soft tyres were still ok, fresh tyres made such a big difference.

Not necessarily, the softs were working for Jenson at the end of the stint.

Button's pace:
10 2:03.656
11 2:03.832
12 2:04.029
13 2:03.730
14 2:03.852
15 2:03.864

Webber's pace on fresh tyres:
18 2:00.785
19 2:02.584
20 2:01.171
21 2:01.178
22 2:01.520

He wouldn't have a chance to overtake Webber if he stayed out longer. He was very lucky they pitted at the same time and Webber's pitstop didn't go so well.

You obivoiusly were not watching live timing, people on new tyres was a second faster. Why do you think Schumacher Who pitted before Nico closed the gap from 6 seconds to 3 seonds. Why do you think Lewis was able to jump Nico. If Button had stayed out longer he would have ended up 8th maybe even 9th.

Lewis puts down his fastest lap right away after changing the tyre

I think the criticism on Button are fantastic, before he was walking on could nine thinking he was King of the hills, now he has been shaken just a tad and knows he needs to dig in.

If people are making excuses for him, he will never have to work harder and he could literally be a Heikki and use the second driver senario as an excuse or just do an Alonso and "so" twist the truth of the facts that he could not handle a highly competitive driver who got on too well in the team.

The critcisms means he just will have to pull his fingers out, and the results mean MCLAREN "if" they stand a chance in keeping up with Ferrari KNOW they have to stop pussying footing around this everyone is being treated the same "impeding" policy and get on a produce the most competitive car going and let the BEST driver in their team get on with it...who will that be, just depends how deep the driver gets on a drives his car and uses every ounce of it.

Yes it is still early days, but there are no excuses for Jenson qualifying 4 places behind Lewis, not making ground on schumacher when he was in the pits and leap frogging him (this is when a driver has to pushes his car much harder), not using his tyres enough and in general not doing a little more with his car. If his fans admit to this he will get better, make up the excuses and he will only become a lazy driver, blaming Lewis Hamilton, well we have all got or seen that T shirt already, most of us have burnt it already.

I do think people are going over the top on this Lewis v Jenson thing. People shouldn't be so shocked, if Alonso can't beat Lewis over a season then Jenson isn't going to.

Those laps were in Webbo's dirty air, I think...?

I couldn't get LIVE timing to work.

Still here, laughing at all the conclusions drawn after one race, or in the case of this post, one qualifying session. I always said that Hamilton was quicker, but Button would be good enough and it would be close enough that Button would have a chance to amass more points over a season, and I stand by that, for now. I'm well aware he's the underdog, but I just don't see the final table set in stone just yet. Fair play to Hamilton he performed this weekend, whereas Button was average, but I think its a decent start he's got something to build on.

The only way Jenson will outscore Lewis is if Lewis retires from the race or has mechanical issues. On pace alone Jense doesn't have a chance

Button will never beat Lewis via out right pace or race on the tracks.

I think with 3 season's under Lewis's belt, and one season with a character building troublesome car that was fantastically transformed around, I personally cannot see Button beating Lewis unless he makes an outright mistake or something is wrong with the car.

You won't see a race where the McLaren is on form, Lewis is on form and Button will come up on top.

I do think if Button ever so rarely finds himself infront of Hamilton during the last 20 laps of the race, he will have the ablity to contain Hamilton, but that is going to be a very rare race, where overtaking is genuinely hard to do.

Making excuses is one thing, but what you're saying here is just b*llshit. Schumacher pitted before Button. If you have any idea about the new rules, you would know pitting earlier is the way to leapfrog, not pitting later as in previous seasons. How on earth was Button supposed to leapfrog Schumacher, even if Webber was not directly infront of him?

Besides that, what his fans say won't really make Button a worse or better driver.

It's clear by now you enjoy bashing him, but don't lose your sense along with it.

On the basis of yesterdays race, drivers can easily finish in their qualifying position since overtaking is almost impossible. So its about the .4 sec that Lewis qualified ahead of Button. If Button had qualified ahead of Lewis, he would have probably beaten him in the race - due to the regs. The gap isn't so big. Lewis isn't going to beat Button 19-0, I dount he even thinks that.

Too many words like 'impossible', 'never' and so forth are being banded about now to take this debate seriously. I'm not arguing that Hamilton is the naturally quicker but your confidence is so boosted right now, its as if your talking about a 3 second gap or something. Similar qaps existed between teammates at Merc, Red Bull and Ferrari. It's a long season and the qualifying gap is basically the equivalent of missing one apex on a qualifying lap.

+1

Watching the BBC Forum yesterday and John Button was in the background looking depressed, Very Depressed.

Seriously though, i wonder if Both Jenson and his Dad now know they won't beat Lewis over a season, not a race.

Should of stayed put Jenson, should of stayed put.

Rosberg lost his place to Hamilton because he was held up, Button was not held up, and should have ATLEAST put down a storming lap time to make up that ground

Sorry I answered my own post LOL


Rosberg lost his place to Hamilton because he was held up, Button was not held up especially when Schumacher pitted and he had clear air, and he should have ATLEAST put down a storming lap time to make up that ground

Why do I keep on answering my own post for, gosh I have to get used this this forum

No idea why you just quoted yourself but in the case you were replying to me..

Are you even serious? Did you have live timing on during there race? Rosberg lost his place because Hamilton pitted one lap before and was able to do a lap 2-3 seconds quicker because of his fresh tyres. Next to that, Button most certainly was held up, as he had Webber right infront of him after Schumacher pitted. So no, he could not put down a storming lap time, but even if he had clear air, there was no way he was gonna do a lap of 2:00 in the first stint to be able to overtake Schumacher. He would have to do a laptime 2 seconds quicker than Vettel was able to do at that point to even have a chance at leapfrogging Schumacher with a later pitstop. Please use logic in your future posts.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. It's vastly unfair to judge Button on the results of one race where all the drivers are getting used to racing in the new cars. I'm not a Button fan, especially as I believe he lucked into his WDC but you can't say that he was really all that worse than Lewis yesterday. He was stuck in traffic and managed to make up one place, while Lewis did have quite a bit of clean air after his pit stop.

Until we see them both racing wheel to wheel, it's going to be tough to say how much better or worse each driver is. Lewis is a great driver, you'd have to be blind not to see it. He's a hard act to follow, Jenson admits as much, it's just a case of whether he can manage to keep up or not. My gut feeling from his previous performances says that Jenson won't be able to manage that, but I won't be unhappy if I'm proven wrong over the course of the season

It's indeed hard to say he was that much worse than Lewis yesterday, but the main difference already occurred on Saturday, by only qualifying 8th he pretty much made his own race.

Jenson did the right thing. He's won one WDC, not many drivers get one of them. At least he is brave, unlike the rest of them. We'll see how the season pans out.

Yes, how dare Jenson celebrate becoming World Champion, his lifetime ambition and achievement. He would surely have known that he wouldn't be a World Champion for ever, and would not win a race one day, so this display of joy was nothing short of misguided. Silly, silly boy.

You really do post some absolute tosh.

Give me a break. Cool analysis m8.

I see you edited your post but the part you put in bold is, as I said in my previous post, wrong as he did not have clear air with Webber right in front of him. And even if he had clear air, there was no way he was going to do a lap of 2:00 that he needed to leapfrog Schumacher. To even get a chance at doing so, Jenson had to drive a laptime 2 seconds quicker than Vettel was able to do at that point because meanwhile, Schumacher had fresh tyres and just like everyone else on those, was easily able to drive the pace of a 2:01.

That you claim Jenson should have leapfrogged Schumacher is just insane.

Still not really sure what Jenson was thinking going to mclaren. If he doesn't improve his qualifying and fast he's going to be making dirty air excuses all season long.

MW's view

MW is a biased fanboy.

Ha ha. But seriously, I think MW is trying to be encouraging just as he was with Heikki.

half of those posts are from you. and they're cringe worthy.

Then he's just a patronising biased fanboy.

I have to say I'm amazed by some of the nonsense in this thread.

Jenson qualified .4 sec behind Lewis. Clearly not good.

But Alonso qualified .4 sec behind Massa. Does that mean that Alonso will never beat Massa?

Clearly not, because Alonso won the race.

So why was Alonso's race so much better (comparatively) than Jenson's?

Obviously, it was the fact that Alonso's .4 sec put him only 1 place behind Massa on the grid, and on the clean side as well, while Jenson was 4 places behind Lewis.

Yes, the worst of all
even worse than Ron

Did they find anything wrong with Buttons car after qualifying?

Did they find owt wrong with Alonso's?

I too am amazed. though in my case amazed how some people didn't notice that Fernando made one specific mistake in Q whereas Jense was consistently slower in every sector .

It had bad dirty air hysterics

As soon as you go to new tyres you go about 2 seconds quicker, the timing of the stops has more to do with not being held up behind slower cars when you come back out of the pits, Jenson would have been treading water with his worn tyres no matter how well he'd looked after them

Perhaps MW has all the data at hand and know Button was making excuses? Perhaps he is giving Jens a public pat on the back and a private foot in the rear? Some drivers need encouragement some the whip. MW seems a bit more sociable than RD so maybe he starts nice and slowly turns up the heat as with Heikki.

I rather think that Button will be happy to be a DC to Hamilton's Hakkinen. Nobody can take 2009 from him and better drivers have left F1 with far fewer wins than him. He will get the better of Lewis on occasion and if the driver merry-go-round starts up with Lewis looking for a new drive, Button can inherit the team while a new guy settles in.

All of the drivers will have learnt about the new rules from this race. Jenson merely needs to apply those lessons to his own strengths and maybe we will see the gap to Lewis narrowing or even reversing fairly quickly.

You need to get your head around this, the reason that Lewis qualified 0.4s quicker than Button was because he was 0.4s quicker than Button, 0.4s quicker in Q1, 0.4s quicker in Q2, 0.4s quicker in Q3, and at least 0.4s quicker in the race. You cant magically say if he had outqualified Lewis he would have beaten him if he wasnt even capable of doing that in the first place.