I don't think anyone here is saying that Button had a better race. But Button-apologists are just trying to prove that IF Button had an equal fighting chance (i.e. not being stuck behind MS, being told to pit too early, other excuses, etc...), Button could have equaled or beaten Lewis.

I'm not interested in answering a question that is deliberately framed to make my position look unreasonable. It's not about what position Button should have had to finish to equal Hamilton's performance, it's about the fact that at no point did Button look quicker than the Mercs, the inferiority of which Hamilton convincingly demonstrated as he pulled away from Rosberg with authority once he managed to get clear of him at the pitstop.

The minimum Button should achieved in that race is 6th - and please note that I am repeating what I said before, and not saying that in response to your specious question -, because he had the 3rd best car in both qualifying and the race.

It seems to me that all this sophistry of yours is designed to get us all to accept by the back door a de facto Jenson-Button-Qualifying-Incompetence-Teammate-Handicap, which would treat qualifying and race unrealistically as two completely discrete entities that must be analysed separately. In reality both are interdependent component parts of the Grand Prix and must be analysed together, taking an overall view.

The way you're trying to approach things necessarily favours someone like Jenson, who is clearly a below average qualifier. That is because his teammate - whoever it might be - who qualifies his car where it should be, or better, is more likely to hold station or fall back in the race, whereas Jenson, who has qualified in this case two positions lower than he should have, has the opportunity to make up the places he has lost through his own qualifying ineptitude. This could leave us with a hypothetical situation in which someone like you could claim that Jenson has 'beaten' Lewis 19-0 in races, in a season in which Lewis has finished ahead of Jenson on track at every race and consequently established a massive points gap over him partly by virtue of qualifying several places higher up the grid at each race. That obviously wouldn't wash with reasonable people. The question is, are you reasonable?

Your basic point seems to be that Button showed no pace because he was deliberately not pushing, and that his engineers were happy with that approach. I'm not interested in going round in circles arguing the toss with you about it any further. On to the next race - let's see what ingenious excuses you can come up with next time.

These inner team battles this far has been christal clear. The name of game under new rules is to qualify well, because overtaking seems to be quite impossible. Another option is to be alert in the first lap of the race and gain a place or two there.

Button, Massa, Schumacher and Webber failed compared to their team mates. Massa succeded in qualifying but Alonso did his job in the start better. Other were too slow in qualies.

Race pace is more or less irrelevant. Drivers don't seem to destroy their tyres in a way that it would give bad qualifiers and starters chances for overtaking. Cars in front are in no hurry since there won't be any overtaking attempts anyway. Still we see all kind of strange lap time averages to prove the failed ones did alright.

It does, doesn't it. Funny that.

He didn't catch Schumacher?
Looks like he needs a new race engineer then...
Lap 23 : "OK Jenson, pace is good, you are catching Michael ahead, but we need a full race distance on this set, look after the tyres"



He had the third best car in the race - I think that's fair to say.
You think he had the third best car in qualifying?
So you think that Lewis, in a better car, is only 0.12 seconds better than Nico Rosberg on a particularly long lap? Fair enough, although it's at least arguable. Personally I think Lewis is a bit better than that.

Seems to me you're the Sophist here, as you're continually misrepresenting my position. I said a few posts back that I'd soon know whether that was accidental or deliberate. Well now I know.
I also know that apparently, in your eyes, it's impossible to separate qualifying from the race. So presumably it's impossible to say someone qualified well but raced poorly? Or qualified badly but raced well? How very bizarre. No, I'm not interested in your handicap system. They'll be judged on points at the end of the year. Meantime you, I and others will continue to comment on qualifying and race performances, both separately and together. Or will you be reserving judgement next time Lewis qualifies on Pole because you can't possibly comment until the race is over?


My question is, are you honest?
Nowhere have I claimed that Jenson drove better than Lewis in the race.
Nowhere have I claimed that he drove as well as him.
So why your hypothetical situations?


Your basic point seems to be that it's impossible to look at a race separately, and that I'm claiming Jenson matched Lewis. Both of those are wrong, the second is a complete misrepresentation of my position and I'm asking you to acknowledge that.

Hypothetical situation:

Driver A qualifies in Pole, finishes second.
Driver B qualifies in 16th, finishes third, right up Driver A's chuff.

'Driver B drove a great race, he was way better in the race than A,even though his qualifying was crap.'

'Noooooooooooooo. You can't say that! They are interdependent component parts of the Grand Prix and must be analysed together. '

Now that's reductio ad absurdium.

It's very simple. Button is not good enough. His qualifying pace in the second half of the last season, and also some of his race starts were subpar. He might be closer to Hamilton in races, but not close enough to make excuses about "because of the qualifying".

Button was lucky last year, he is not better than Coulthard.

Massa and Schumacher did well against their teammates. They were close to them despite one had a nearly fatal accident and missed the second half of last year, while the other is 41 years old, and missed 3 years. They will give their teammates a run for their money this year.

Webber and Button are a different story. They were dominated and owned by Vettel and Hamilton. No excuses.

If Button manages to win a race this year, then I can guarantee Lewis fans will be singing the same tune.

My signature says it all.

If something like that had occurred on Sunday, then we wouldn't have a problem, and probably wouldn't have wasted so much time arguing pointlessly on this thread. Unfortunately for you Jenson just trundled around for most of the race looking slow, finished behind two even slower cars and 22 seconds behind his teammate, and yet you are telling us the race told us nothing. So as I said before, on to the next race: "Seconds out, round, err....1!!!"

By the way, analyzing race and qualifying together means taking a balanced view which takes both into account, not arbitrarily disregarding one or the other, which is what you did when you initially pretended that Hamilton only outperformed Button on Saturday. You're now (a) denying having done that and (b) accusing me, simply because I mentioned that you can't disregard qualifying performance altogether when assessing the driver's performance in the GP, of the very thing you were guilty of, and which triggered nearly two pages of "push back" by assorted posters. Ok, you win, I'm the dishonest one. Now on to Melbourne.

Button has work to do, says Fry

http://en.espnf1.com/mclaren/motorsport/st...tml?CMP=OTC-RSS

http://www.media.mclarenautomotive.com/modules/user/main.php
Lewis & Jenson driving the MP4-12C

Ach, you beat me to it.

That's the whole point of using reductium ab absurdium. It shows that your argument was invalid.



Everything I've said has been consistent. I'm going to quote Mark Hughes, not because I'm slavishly following his apologist uninformed hack musings but because his conclusions agree with the arguments I'd already put forward on this thread...

That's near enough to my position for me. Nothing I've said has been inconsistent with the above.

Apparently, although that^^ is good enough for the BBC website, and Martin Whitmarsh was quoted as saying Button didn't have the opportunity to show his pace, and Mark Webber said similar, thinking the above makes me an idiot.
It's a shame none of the biased hacks or incompetents that they quote can see things as clearly as you do.

That seems to be a valid conclusion (although based on just one race). It may well turn out to be the pattern for the whole season.

What this will mean is that drivers will change their approach, concentrating on quali setup rather than race setup, and being much braver in the first few corners, not worrying too much about damaging their tyres.

If after several races have gone the same way, Jenson is still saying 'I think I looked after my tyres too much' or 'the setup was better for the race than for quali', then the Jenson-bashing on here would not be quite so pointless.

One thing which has not been mentioned here (or I've not seen it) is that Lewis was given an advantage by pitting first. Of course that was perfectly reasonable on McLaren's part, because Lewis was ahead of Jenson.

Merc were taken by surprise and were unable to pit Rosberg, so they brought in Schumi instead, which immediately put Schumi out of reach of Jenson.

If Jenson had the advantage of surprise, he could possibly have jumped Schumi as well as Webber with a quick outlap on the new tyres.

So McLaren, as well as the other teams, have to ask themselves how their strategy can be worked out so that both drivers will have a chance of a good result.

It may be that they will have to split the strategies, with one driver starting on options and the other on primes, although that in itself might favour one driver more than another.

And they said there was 'too much strategy' when we had refuelling.

If Button beats Lewis fair and square there's no excuse, Alonso beat Lewis a fair few times

They have to start the race with the tyre they set the best time on, so this will only work as a positive strategy if one of the two is better on one tyre than the other. I suspect the car has as much to do with this as the driver so there may be no choice in the matter.

In cases where the option is not expected to last very long in the race, there might be a reasonable case for starting on primes from a lower grid position, and then running much longer, hoping that the option-users will be stuck in traffic because they couldn't make a big enough gap.

It's not going to happen very often, so normally the driver who is ahead will get the better strategy. That makes quali even more important, of course.

Whilst I don't disagree with Fry, it should be noted that Fry took the blame internally for Button jumping from Mercedes and signing for McLaren. He's had a chip on his shoulder all winter, being less than complementary at every opportunity.

Who gives a flying fork around here if its fair and square!!!

Must've been weird for Shovlin seeing the driver he worked with for 7 years closing in.

For the rest, McLaren simply had a better racepace than Mercedes.

Very nice, just 2 questions, how much, and wheres my cheque book?


Which ever driver is in front gets the advantage, you dont give the advantage to the slower driver


You not saying that Jenson cant win fair and square, are you?

That's what I said.

Yes i know but theres no real point of saying if Jenson had been given the advantage

Hopefully we will see Lewis and Jenson lining up together in Australia and then we will see whats what?

People have been comparing Jenson's race with Lewis' - I'm just pointing out a relevant factor.

Also I was reflecting on how it highlights a problem for the team when it wants to treat the drivers equally.

There's no rule on the forum that says you have to be argumentative all the time.

I read his comments and thought they could have been said in regards to the whole Merc team.

I was reading an artcle by Ted Kravitz......is he a reliable journalist??? He has written on BBC on-line about the race and it seems jensen is blaming this....



a.k.a Bumps!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...one/8572060.stm

Iam sorry, but Lewis drove on the same track! I would love JB to do well, but iam tired of him blaming everything else except his driving. It is still one race so no need to write him off. Give him a chance as long as he stops this blameworthy culture.

No, you're wrong!

*sigh*
So when does a 'blame' because a 'reason' in your opinion?

There have been all sorts of excuses bandied about by all sorts of people to excuse his performance and the man himself said categorically that he needs to do better in qualifying but did what he could in the race. Seems pretty clear to me that he's making no excuses and knows he has work to do, but nobody can say he didn't do everything he needed to do in the race. Except of course the armchair racers.

Because theres only one pitstop area you cant pit the drivers on the same lap unless theres a sizeable gap, its the same for all the teams, its always going to be a problem for Jenson if he runs behind Lewis and could compromise future races for him

I beg to differ.

Do you get extra points for arguing with the mods?

Stop being arguementive

Yeah, why not

I'm sure whatever driver is in front will get the ideal pit lap. So Jenson won't be able to complain - if he wants the better pit timing he just needs to make sure he's ahead of Lewis. Sounds fair to me.

That's how every team handled it in Bahrain.

Well except Mercedes, but Ross is excused. Old habits die hard...

Quote from Mark Webber about the Australian GP:



No mention of Button - maybe he doesn't rate his chances.

Saying things like that only causes flamefests.

Yeah there was the same thing from Alan Permane, almost like there are 2 different teams. Well the T6 bump in Bahrain was evidently particularly bad for Jense, he even had to lift over it someone said, so let's see if he can go better in Oz.

I think it's more down to the fact Lewis got in clean air, and could demonstrate his car. He wasn't having a go at Button, as Webber himself couldn't overtake either. Lewis didn't overtake Rosberg, but was just fortunate in the pits.

I read that quote as a reflection on the McLaren rather than Lewis or Button.

Good, if that's the case...

He was faster than nico on his outlap (while nico was doing his inlap), so he gained valuable time that proved to be essential to overtake nico...

I've heard that somewhere before. Now let me think...

That people now really seem to believe a position change in the pits deserves to be called overtaking shows precisely what damage 15 years of sprint racing have done to F1.

Well, what's wrong with saying you overtook someone on strategy. How else to describe it?

Swap position? English is not my native language, so I'll leave that to the brits. The main point is that it should be distinguished clearly from a proper on-track move. "Overtaking on strategy" reduces racing basically to a time trial like downhill skying. As I see it, driving fast is only part of motorracing. Finding a way by the guy in front respetively defending against the guy behind being the other integral parts.

Yeah there should be a distinction I agree, and a Lewis pass coming up in a Lewis thread is the ideal opportunity to kick off a discussion about it. Maybe in general we could call overtaking in the pitstops "overtaking in the pitstops" or something, and then for Lewis we could call it "Hammy swapping position and getting lucky again" .

Button, on his best day, will not beat Lewis.

Really? I think it means that Webber thinks that both the Ferrari drivers are evenly matched and in a competitive car, but that the only rival in the McLaren is Hamilton, reminiscent of last year. The McLaren is only competitive as driven by Hamilton is what Webber is saying as far as I can see.

Well, regardless of what he meant, it's obviously what you are thinking.

When did this become another Lewis thread? What about that other guy in the thread title?

So indeed, to stay nicely OT, lets discuss whose "pass" was more exciting to watch, Lewis or Jensons? I really can't decide, it all happened so fast...