A myth which refuses to die.

Neither driver had any setup time. Jenson spent all or most of FP working with the new rear wing, which they decided not to race.

this, the Redbulls are going to very difficult to beat until the rules change again.

I think it really is very difficult to win a WDC. I think he will be 2 times at least though. He is going to get a car that is better than the opposition at some point.

If Buttons brakes where not working at Korea, he won't have been able to finish the race.
Lewis brakes where not working correctly, so where Buttons
we only know from Lewis that his left brakes were only working 50%
From Buttons car we know nothing

At Japan Lewis was the faster driver from the beginning, Button held him up for more than 20 laps, and could only lap faster than Lewis as Lewis lost the first 3 gears.

I agree the accomodation time is over, in truth it may not even have needed a full season, but yes, he should be fully integrated into the team after a full season.

I dont think Button ever did get "the majority support", imo thats just a myth invented to justify how close Button was, much like the myth Whitmarsh "loves" Button more than Lewis Hamilton, or the myth that the BBC have an agenda and are anti-Lewis Hamilton.

The time for excuses is surely over for both of them, they'll both be chasing their 2nd WDC.

I cant sensibly disagree with the comments about if Jenson has a car 100% to his liking, and of course what may well happen if he doesn't, and i agree that Lewis is the faster and (slightly) better of the two. Though i dont believe Lewis Hamilton would (or has ever needed to) play second fiddle, and i think you're being naive and also doing him a disservice to suggest he would.

Claiming that Vettel would win nothing without Adrian Newey is about as sensible as saying Lewis Hamilton will surpass Schumachers records, its guesswork at best, of course Newey played a hugely significant part in Vettels success, but whereas i'm convinced Lewis Hamilton was over-rated by many, i remain equally convinced that Vettel has yet to peak, and may well be underestimated by some.

Quite a few rules are changing for next year so plenty of scope to get things wrong.

How was Button's weekend materially different to any other this year when they were using Friday to test new parts? It's their job. Fact is, Hamilton's weekend was a lot more messed up than Button's but he still out-qualified him before being dropped behind him due to a grid penalty for changing a damaged gearbox, then overtook him in the race only to lose the place due to a mechanical failure. He owned Button at Suzuka as at so many other tracks, and it's about time JB supporters just sucked it up and dealt with it as JB had to. To his credit, he handled the ownage from China onwards quite well.

I applaud JB supporters who look forward with optimism to next season and think/hope he's going to be faster and will challenge Hamilton more - that's the spirit! I also look forward to reading all the hopelessly tangled logic that will be used to excuse what in my opinion will be a repeat performance of the 2010 scorecard.

I love the smell of patronising in the morning.

Given some of the posts in this thread, be thankful some of us haven't resorted to phonics and parables to get across some semblance of reality.

Oh, and no apologies for patronising the most blind and ownage-denying Button fans, but then this is a thread for the Button-Hamilton scorecard and no matter which way you read it, Button lost. I wish he'd stayed at Mercedes and given Schumacher a good seeing to - at least then I'd have something to cheer about for both British drivers.

Regarding your first paragraph, there's a direct correlation between him faltering and mcalren faltering. His driving in 2009 was considered by some to be better than 2008, in 2010 he's come top or near the top of most media and F1 insider top driver lists and, certainly up to monza, drove better than he ever has before imo.
I also think he's getting a bad rap for singapore, where I consider him unlucky, and 2 mistakes in front of alonso that probably cost no points and where (imo) the car was very difficult to drive as evidenced by button suffering similar problems at the same time in both GPs.

I don't believe it's a fact that he's 'faltered'.

With respect to the bolded sentence, if red bull build the equivalent of the mp4-24 next season then his impetus will end as abruptly as lewis's did in 2009.

I agree there was a lot of hype, I think what a lot of people lost sight of is that he had the car to come in and perform like that and that it is still the car that is the dominant factor. Put them all in equal cars and it's possible hamilton is the best, maybe by some way, but we'll never know. Over the course of his career it's likely he'll get the opportunity to prove his worth though.

Simply put the problem is probab;y more with 'over-hypers' in the media or among his support rather than with hamilton.

well lewis said in the autosport interview one side they were working 100 percent and the other side 50 percent and said buttons were hardly working at all they were glazing so button had a worse brake problem out of the two, japan if button wasn't left out for so long hamilton wouldn't have got ahead if button pitted one lap after hamilton he would have stayed ahead mclaren left him out to long as i said in the first stint hamilton was on the quicker tyre so button was at a disadvantage

His record of teammates in various categories is quite impressive, Alonso, Button, Sutil, Rosberg, 2 WDC's and Rosberg beat a 7xWDC, even the much malignied Kovallainen looked quite good when teamed up against the likes of Fisichella and Trulli.


Maybe because he gets far more criticised than the likes of Vettel and Alonso plus people coming on here explaining the reasons why Vettel and Alonso are so much better than Lewis


If he gets a car next year that is on average at least 0.5s slower than this years car comparatively speaking to the best of the rest then that would be a good car, you think he can give away such an advantage?


Its McLaren that will start to run out of excuses, not the drivers

Vettel is clearly very good but vastly overrated by some because of the car at his disposal, his record against teammates is nowhere near as good as Lewis's. He was beaten in F3 by his teammate Paul di Resta, as a BMW test driver he was overlooked for the more impressive Kubica this despite him being German to boot, despite testing all year for BMW in his one of outing for them as replacement for Kubica he was 0.5s slower than Heidfeld. At Torro Rosso he was no quicker than Liuzzi although he impressed more in the wet races, he beat Bourdais quite convincingly but then so did rookie Buemi the following year, Buemi who is now struggling against Alguesuari.

His reputation before joining Red Bull was one of being a very good wet driver and a combination of beating Webber and an excellent car has propelled him to the top of the sport, you could say a similar thing happened to Massa, a combination of being able to match Kimi and an excellent car propelled him to the top of the sport, however then he got teamed up with Alonso, oops.

Some of you guys are blinded by fanboyism

You can't see that Lewis choked in 2010. He can't see it, the media can't see it or don't want to say - Whitmarsh hasn't said it, why?

Mclaren have gone to great extents to tell the world that their car was the 2nd best car, better than Ferrari. How did Lewis lose 60 points to Alonso from Spa to Abu dhabi?

I'm in the camp that fears Lewis won't win another WDC unless he gets to grips of himself in a close title run in.

McLaren chocked
They had only the 3rd reliable car

Find the optimum period for critcism, Lewis didnt finish the next 2 races which Alonso won, thats 50 points. So the final 4 races Alonso scored 10 points more than Lewis in which at that stage of the season was a better car, in the final 4 races Jenson finished 4th 12th,5th and 3rd, thats Lewis choking is it? Jenson must have been hung from the rafters.

I agree.

It was a major new part, which would have required a radically different setup.

And normally on Saturday they can sort out the actual setup they are going to run with.

So it was 'materially different'.

And if, as many claim, Lewis is better able to drive around setup problems... Oh what's the point?

... saying Hamilton will never win another WDC.

But yeah, people will always argue against the glaring obvious when they don't want to face the truth. Vettel will be a feature at the front of the grid for the next ten years or more, as will Hamilton.

You must be quite highly strung. Despite being so terrible, Hamilton was still in the championship fight in the final race. Put it this way, in the error stakes Hamilton is no special case who is worse than anybody else. There is no point being great in a title run in if you have screwed up badly in the first half of the year, ultimately costing a championship. You don't get any extra brownie points for winning in race 3 as opposed to winning race 15.

Because Ferrari had a better car from Spa to Abu Dhabi. His car was a few thousandths faster over the year.

You keep going on about Lewis being in the championship fight in the final race, he wasn't really, just mathematically. Button was still in the fight up to Brazil, but really had no chance of winning it.

I'm still a huge fan, I'm just not blind any more and accept that he is not Sennaesque or the Tiger Woods of F1. Give him a car that is the equal of Alonso and Vettel and I don't doubt that he would be quicker, I'm just not convinced that he handles the pressure that well and Alonso is a driver that has got into his psyche.

Time will tell I guess.

OK, '2nd fastest car' is now a favourite bone to chew for the critics of Hamilton, but lets not assume, as many are, that this is a direct comparison of Hamilton and Alonso. This is also a comparison of Button and Massa. We know three of those aforementioned drivers were on form, whereas the one driving the other red car was not (irrefutable source: L. di Montezemolo). It's highly possible that this lack of form may have had an impact on McLaren's in depth analysis therefore negating their self claimed advantage. Clearly Hamilton/Button is a better partnership than Alonso/Massa.

Anyway, leaving the blanket statement of 2nd fastest car behind, I think most with intelligence and without agenda would conclude that it changed from race to race as to who had the second fastest car. Averaged out pace doesn't win points- eg no point being 10s faster at one track and 0.2s slower at the rest........

Erm yes, that's called being in the championship fight.

Just out of interest, why would Alonso have got into his psyche? Is this an excuse for Hamilton?

From F1 Fanatic:

But which was the second-fastest car of 2010? McLaren recently argued it was their MP4-25 but a look at the data suggests a Ferrari F10 was the thing to have if you couldn’t get your hands on an RB6.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2010/12/13/2010...ar-performance/
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uplo...12/ferrmcla.gif

IMO if Lewis had the F10 in the second half of the season ,he would have been WDC.

All blinded fanboys
Autosport
F1 fanatic
Frank Williams
Stirling Moss
etc, etc

because they knew it was the MP4-25 wich fell behind Ferrari( & RedBull ) at the 2nd half of the season.

Alonso is Lewis' biggest rival and vice versa. When Alonso declared that he would do a Kimi and win the wdc he was playing mind games with Lewis - he was reminding him of the 2007. 2007 is a monkey that Lewis has on his back. 2010 will now see that monkey getting heavier and Alonso and Vettel will use it to chip away at Lewis' self confidence.

Until Lewis gets reid of the monkey he will be a very exciting fast driver, but he'll falter at the final hurdle.

I could of course be wrong ;)

QFT

We know all this but we dont think its our duty to spend hours and hours trolling every thread about SV to "educate" his "misguided" fans... just give things a bit of time. There's no need go banging on about the same thing over and over.

Well I guess Fernando and Lewis must have forgotten to look out for Vettel whilst watching each other!

PS- only Vettel did not 'fall at the final hurdle'.

Surely he got the monkey off his back in 2008? He may have had a below-par final race, but he still won the championship.

very reasonable as the driver you think is the best on the grid, has been in the same car as him and we know how that finished.

Or perhaps you could enlighten me as to how a driver can do better (in inter-team rivalry) than never be beaten by a team mate.
Certainly not something most past or present drivers can claim.

Alonso's mind games didn't really work did they... looks more like Fernando has that 2007 year as a monkey on his back. Lewis has been a better driver for his first year, and also for 'finally' (can't believe I'm saying that seeing as he won the title in his 2nd season!) winning the title in 2008. In 2009 he was the best driver on the grid aside from the WDC Button, and this year he was the best overall (along with Alonso IMO) but couldn't beat a Red Bull car that had a significant advantage. That was the only thing stopping Lewis from winning a second title. If the cars had been more level, we wouldn't have seen Lewis make his little errors throughout the year, as he'd have less risks to take.

Still think this pairing is the best in F1, and given a good -26 next year, we could see an awesome battle between two great drivers in Button and Hamilton.

Quite agree with this, just an addition... Vettel wasn t very quick in quali against Bourdais before the B-spec of the car... He was only about 0,080s ahead of him after 8 or 9 qualis... So Vettel doesn t seems to be very dominant against his teammate with a mediocre car... For example Buemi was doing better with Bourdais after 9 qualis...

It wasn't really a below-par race, it was the low-downforce rear wing plus the overcautious team strategy. They cost him 3 places by bringing him in early for inters, then Kubica and Glock's tyre call added all the drama. His driving was fine.

Same with 2007 actually, his driving was still fluent in China, not tight, he had 22s over Alonso at one point, if only the team had brought him in. Then in Brazil the off was trivial, if red mist, the real problems were the gearbox, the wrong cooling package and the short stint they gave him on the supersofts.

This year, well Monza was a bit unlucky in the way the tie-rod broke, and again with how Singapore ended. There was something funny about his braking on and off all year, so I'm not putting those mistakes in Brazil and Korea down to pressure, or at least all down to pressure.

Which is why i haven't said he wont.

I agree about people arguing against the glaringly obvious though, because it doesn't sit easily with their agenda some are still claiming the McLaren was the 3rd fastest car, despite senior McLaren personell saying it was the 2nd fastest.

The problem with the "McLaren was the second fastest car" mantra is that the actual differential given by Tim Goss is forgotten.



0.074 seconds is such a small margin that the cars, on average, might as well have been identical for driver comparison purposes (of course, this is a simplification, but I hope my point is taken).

And what's more important is how many races was each car quicker than the other...

Exactly and F1Fanatic's fastest-lap calculation shows 1 draw, 6 McLaren and 12 Ferrari weekends.

Not to say, Tim Goss used all four cars (presumably) bringing the off-form Massa into it.

Yes. I thought that flaw was already mentioned weeks ago. Don't get why this useless statistic is kept being brought up.

might surprise pple to say this, but in terms of speed, I see Vettel as more a Button kind of guy.....does tidy laps, consistent n quick when the car is great n planted, also good driver in the wet...but I still dont see enough to place him in that highest echelon...simply shading Webber doesnt cut it. We also recently learned, his dip vs Webber was due to some upgrades to the car that werent refined and Webber could simply extract better until upgrade was refined.... he hasn't been great in streettracks either...usually another sign of the megatalents. Got outqualified by Kubica in Monaco, Alonso in Singapore..both in slightly slower machinery. The picture will become clearer in coming years...hope he gets the Alonso Ferrari matchup he wants, that will be interesting.

Anyways back to topic....dream scenario for everyone next year will be for Ferrari n Mclaren to catch up to Redbull, development of cars stabilize bcos of little regulation change... and drivers truly battling it out on not just Sunday but Saturdays...I can see the Mclaren boys shining.

Though as a Mclaren fan, wont mind if for once we are the ones with the dominant rocketship...that will be fun.

I think we should rely on the real numbers as provided by McLarens chief engineer who after all is the expert on how fast the McLaren is!
The McLaren was at least .074s faster per lap than the Ferrari according to their chief. This means for example that McLAren could have enjoyed a 148 second advantage through the 2000 laps completed during the season. And still Hamilton finished 2 places behind a Alonso's Ferrari

Also the official fastest laps charts from the F1.com is probably a much better indicator than F1fanatic's attempt:
http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2010/
This shows 6 fastest laps by McLaren to 5 for Ferrari. And over the season the McLaren was faster than the Ferrari 10 - 9 in the races.

Looks to me that F1fanatic.co.uk is just trying to prop up their #1 ranking of Lewis Hamilton. Do they really think we are that stupid?!

Alonso's situation was dire and he put together a plan to make a run at the title based on his assessment of the competition, his abilities and the performance of his car. To be leading at the start of the final race is all he could ask for.

Ps. Don't forget that Lewis had the lead and did nothing try to keep it! In the final races Lewis was just a spectator, at best perhaps a kingmaker.

Yes, you are becuase you again ignore reliability. With Ferrari reliability Lewis would have been WDC now. Even if only that wheel rim lasted, Lewis would have WDC now and would still have worse reliability than Fernando. Gives a different perspective on their seasons, doesn't it?

Everytime I pop up here I see you (and some other haters) repeating the same 'lie'. Alonso had slower car and finished higher in WDC standings. Factually speaking - its true, but of course 'truth' changes a lot when you account in reliability issues Hamilton had and Alonso didn't.

Sorry about personal post, but I really don't understand what are you guys trying to gain/show here and I really don't understand how doesn't it become boring to you too because everytime I log here I see same people repeating same lies

Overall their performances were on a similar level, not legendary kind of level by all means. In the end, Vettel made less mistakes and won. If you want to up the Alonso, you should first think of a way to put Vettel down ;)

It's no better or worse than discounting the engine woes Ferrari had to manage all season.

After Ferrari fixed the problem at the first races of the season there was no problem any more with the Ferrari engines

You guys always forget Tim Goss stated only an average value
If I drive from A to B with an average speed of 90km/h this does not mean that I always drobve 90 km/h
So the Macca was not always the 2nd fastest car, at the end of the season it was the 3rd fastest, at Canada and Spa it was the fastest etc.

Personally I think lewis having 3 races affected by mechanical issues is more significant.

But we don't even need to go down the reliability route, halifax and others are just using a convenient statistic without any analysis of it whatsoever.

Would you agree that the number of races one car was faster than the other is more significant than an average lap time differential?

And those questioning Goss have to understand how he came up with the figures is important. I daresay including just the fastest car or both cars each weekend makes a difference or including every lap or just the fastest laps. Both the latter will be affected by circumstances.

For example the Ferrari was unquestionably faster in monza but didn't get to show it until the last lap and we know fastest lap has more to do with being on newer tyres near the end of the race etc.

I accept that I'm more likely to question the validity of the stat given my bias just as other posters will readily accept it as it fits their agenda.

But when some posters (not you) just repeat the stat without any consideration or analysis but simply because it's useful to them I think their agenda becomes very clear and their lack credibility.

Wrong. Evidently they had less engines available than McLaren and therefore in all likelihood a worse performance/time ratio to deal with all season. To what extent it really affected them is of course debatable, but the fact that they contested 16 or so races with two engines less than McLaren isn't.

In simpler terms, having more engines at your disposal certainly allows a team to run each engine close to maximum performance for longer (of it's shorter lifespan).

At least it didn't affect Alonso
Ferrari was the most reliable car 2010. Fact.
Had McLaren any advantage from their engines usage- No.
Lewis had 3 gearbox and 1 wheelrim failure.

The engine situation at ferrari was never as thight as the media made us believe.

Exactly

Quite reasonable as a whole, but a few things. First, from a drivers POV reliability issues are plain bad luck (leaving the car breaker idea aside for a moment ;) ). It was also plain bad luck that cost Alonso a podium chance in Valencia. So in effect Alonso's Valencia negates Hamiltons rim failure in Barcelona. In both cases the driver was robbed through no fault of his own.

As for Monza, Ferrari being faster is not as clear-cut as it appears. Evidently McLaren got a bit lost on setup, resulting in somewhat strange configs for both Buttons and Hamiltons car. Considering that Button, even with a damaged car, could hold his own against Alonso and further considering that in 4 out of 5 cases Hamilton is a bit faster than Button, one could conclude that the McLaren had the potential to be at least equal to the Ferrari. It just wasn't <cough> "unlocked", which is at least partly the drivers fault.

I agree, I think Mclaren were faster at Monza. They historically go well there too. Lewis should have won that race, as it was a small brain fade ruined the race for him. It was still great to see Ferrari win at Monza though.

I think the Ferrari and Mclaren were about equal over the course of the season as far as speed goes. Reliability wise Ferrari had the edge and i think thats what pushes the ferrari into the second best for the season. There really was not much in though and Fred drove phenonomally well towards the end of the season.