Why did i bother to post this a few posts above?

My bad... I missed a couple of laps on the gap chart. It still doesn't change anything though - He closed up the gap to Schumi pretty easily when he chose to, even though it was pointless since passing was impossible. I guess he could have put in a few mega laps when he had that 4-5 second gap, but what would that have accomplished?

Oh now it's when he chose to...right....

Exactly when would Lewis ever been given his head against a 3, 4, 5 time WDC?

Wow, this thread is going to be very entertaining for the rest of the year. What we need next is for Lewis to have his @rse handed to him by in Australia - it really will be boring if we have a year of constant abuse aimed at the current WDC.

The ideal scenario is the DC/MH partnership where DC was occasionaly faster but MH prevailed in the end

Gold

20 laps

I wouldn't say that was easy

Well he'd have been in position if MS had made a mistake and he wouldn't have left his fans trying to explain away losing 11 seconds to his teammate in only 14 laps

He only closed on Schumi when Schumi started to get behind Nico.

Jenson's a decent bloke but he'll find a reason for being slower, thats the racing driver mentality

Thats what i was thinking as well, why did i bother after finding out you'd already posted it

No he was definitely held up, even Mark Hughes said it

I think what you mean is that you don't want to accept that Jenson was listening to his engineer when he didn't put in any hot laps when behind Schumi.

Unfortunately for your attempts to denigrate Jenson, the engineer's words are clearly audible.

The fact that you don't understand why the engineer wanted Jenson to close on Schumi by going just a little faster than him each lap, is actually rather sad. You really should ask yourself if you understand much about F1 at all, because this seems pretty basic to me.

The engineer had just seen Lewis failing to overtake Rosberg, he wouldn't have assumed that Jenson would find it easy to overtake Schumi. It seems clear to me that he would have been thinking that Jenson would only have a chance if his tyres were in much better condition.

Lewis' case was very different, he had a big gap in front of him, and was in a position to make some real progress.

They can see the tyre temps.

Did you read my post?

Good explanation

Thank you.

Yes I did. It didn't explain why the two RE's looking at the shared tyre temps would give their drivers different advice. Seems to me Lewis could pressure Rosberg and still be within the temperature window.

Did he get past Rosberg?

Yes, he did. That got him in a strong position to jump Rosberg since he was very close and by doing a faster lap when Rosberg was in the pits.

Well he may have helped Nico take a bit more out of his tyres to make him slower on his inlap, to help the pass in the pistops.

And if Nico had made a little mistake Lewis was at least close enough to do somthing.

Generally, the racier way to go racing .

Lewis got past Rosberg in the pit stops because Rosberg was held up by the 50m rule, not because Rosberg made an error.

I'm not having a go at Lewis or his engineer there. Nobody knew exactly how tyres were going to perform last weekend - Lewis's engineer used one strategy, Jenson's used another.
Being close behind in case of a mistake makes sense. So does looking after tyres and saving the overtaking effort for later. As it transpired neither was going to work.

I didn't think the release holdup was decisive, I think Lewis' outlap was faster than Nico's inlap, by enough to get him ahead anyway. I haven't tried to measure it though.

Now steady, let's not forget how Hamilton ended up behind Rosberg in the first place. In essence, he made an unforced error and had then rely the McLaren crew to put him back into the place he should have been after lap 1 already. Big deal that he stayed close to Rosberg, evidently the McLaren was the faster car on the day by about half a second. Of course it happens to all of them to lose places getting a bit over-ambitious during the first lap, but it's not exactly something to write home about.

Actually, Lewis was forced wide by Massa.

Well he ended up 3 seconds ahead after the pitstops, which was about 2,5 sec laptime difference and 1 sec holdup. He would have gotten past anyway.

All this statistic shows is that Button comfortably had the pace to cruise up to the back of Schuey (who was following Nico) as he did over a number of laps as shown by the numbers.

Given that Button KNEW it was impossible to overtake, as he had a faster Webber behind him, what would have been the point of putting the hammer down and closing the gap more quickly? Its harder to keep the faster car behind also when you are yourself under the gearbox of the car infront. If you think Button is alone in this thinking, remember that Webber dropped off the back of Button and Alonso dropped off the back of Vettel, not because they were slower, but because they realised it was pointless to drive in the turbulent air, suffer understeer and shag their front tyres.

The conclusion remains that Lewis was faster that Button this weekend, absolutely no excuses, no question, but Buttons race pace was greatly determined by his track position and the race characteristics, which ultimately was determined by his QUALIFTYING POSITION. I don't think there can be any doubt that if these cars could overtake, Button easily had the measure of the 2 Mercedes in front.

This is squarely about qualifying position, frankly race pace doesn't matter much you could be a second a lap slower than the cars around you and the worst that is likely to happen is you'll lose one place at the pit stops.

Button needs to find a few tenths in the most important lap of the weekend, final run, Q3. Thats the bottom line. This isn't beyond the relms of possibility - and neither is it unlikely that Lewis will improve. But as sure as hens lay eggs the form guide isn't set in stone after one race.

Exactly. I read one poster comenting that Button lost 11 seconds to Lewis in this phase - forgetting to mention the presence of Schumacher in the way, so since cars can't overtake, Button was always going to lose whatever time the Mercedes was slower than Lewis.

OK, think for a minute: Stint 1 was much shorter than stint 2 so obviously the tyre issue would be more accute in the longer stint, and also Hamilton pressuring Rosberg achieved nothing.

You are normally much better than this, Underquare!

And were there anymore stops in the race when Button was behind MS from lap 17?????? Fairly fruitless then...

Come on Button bashers, raise your game!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorspor...race-debut.html

lol 2010 - the year of silky smooveness...

. We only know Lewis achieved nothing by pressuring Nico after the event. He did pass Rubens for position after all. And actually Nico might have nursed his tyres better and had a faster inlap, without that pressure, so perhaps it did pay off.

The second stint was on Mediums on a rubbered-in track, and (my original point) both drivers could drive to their tyre temperatures. Jense was miles behind Schumi and getting all sorts of pressure from Webbo, at risk from a wild dive up the inside possibly, so I just don't see it as a considered policy. Especially as Lewis was getting away and that surely was Goal No 1 - look good against LH.

Re Schumi being in front and holding Jense up, that 14-lap set I mentioned where JB lost 11 seconds was all between 3-5 seconds behind MS.

So I think the argument that Jense chose to stay at risk from Webbo and too far from Schumi to capitalise on a late braking moment is worthy support but a bit creative .

So the smooth talking has already gotten into Hamilton's head it seems. How long before he'll claim that he blew Jenson away with his smoothness?

No, he's so far only blown one driver away; nando

A year and a half?

No, it was because Lewis had faster sector times in his outlap than nico (minus the first sector)...

Schumacher in the way?
Did you see the gaps?
Did you see the gap lewis had to massa in those laps?
Quit trying to excuse button with traffic.
He was SLOW. End of discussion...

Jenson did catch up with MS though, so he was, ultimately, held up by MS, so I don't see what the difference is between being held up for the last 10 or so laps of the race or the last 20 odd? Even if your right and he couldn't catch MS earlier in the stint, it changes nothing - we already know that Hamilton had the measure of Button in Bahrain anyway. That's admitted, accepted, no excuses given. But I still don't think you can extrapolate from any amount of analysis of the Bahrain race, that the difference in performance is set in stone for the season. Its simply 1-0 to Lewis, that's all we can say after one race.

"Killing him softly..
with smoothness"

I want to see racing not this smoothness competition

I keep reading here that Lewis somehow outraced / outdrove Jenson in the race. I've read the arguments as to why and, frankly, I think they're simplistic and silly.

Maybe I've missed something, though. So, perhaps someone who's promoting this could find, post, link, whatever, to an opinion from a 'proper' (ie paid, professional, recognised expert however you'd like to define it) source, as opposed to a 'forum expert', that says that JB needed to do faster laps, or needed to be closer to Schumacher, or was outperformed by Lewis in the race, or anything else vaguely along those lines.

That shouldn't be hard if it's not just fanboy flanneling.

Yeah, normally the facts are simplistic and silly...
Oh here's another fact for you to ignore:
"I didn't think, going into qualifying, that Lewis would be fourth on the grid and I would be eighth," Jenson admitted to the British press. "I thought it would be very close - but Lewis did a better job and he was quicker.

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/formula-1-news/2...r-in-melbourne/

Look from my posts on this tread it should be obvious that I hope Jenson does well.

But, I'm not going to pretend, Jenson was beaten by .4 of a second in qualifying and Lewis was quicker in the race and finished a few positions ahead. I'm not sure your going to find too many experts stating the obvious, to be honest.

The bone of contention is how much quicker could Jenson have gone, had things panned out differently, i.e. there weren't 2 Mercedes between them in the second stint. My view is that he could have been quicker, and the fact that Button did ultimately catch and follow MS proves it. But even in completely clear road Lewis still had the edge by a few tenths in my opinion. Clear as day.

I don't really see what the problem is in admitting that. Its 1-0 to Lewis, big deal, plenty of things can happen over the course of the season.

Maybe you missed this?

Bye then.

I've highlighted the word that makes your post irrelevant.

Does that mean you can't find anything about the actual race?

As for the race i've put, along with others, plenty of evidence about it, you just chose to ignore it...
If you can't read or can't compute, that's your problem. I'm not going to teach you...

true, nothing is set in stone just yet

To be fair to all the drivers, I think they were told to go out and drive very conservatively. they were nowhere near their qualifying times - why some teams didn't run 2 stoppers and play the 'hare' rather than the tortoise amazes me... its as if they all got together and agreed to take it steady and 1 stop.

Button was outqualified fair and square but as for the race, its a bloody mystery to me. Look at JA in the Toro Rosso, he banged in a fastest lap... if HE can do that speed I think its safe to say most of the grid could have.

I'm hoping the teams mix their strategies up a bit, burn some tyres, take a few chances in the next round.

Hamilton is a great driver but don't underestimate Button, he can be extremely quick too, and these days he doesn't make mistakes.