If its true its good tactics on Buttons part - somehow though I doubt much thought has gone into his visits to the factory beyond he had some free time and needed to get in there to start the ball rolling..

Duh............ Hamilton's father is his MANAGER. When people will finally comprehend this? I wonder how Button's father would be were he his manager too, and not just there for a good time...

Apart from that, gathering a team closley around you would seem rather obvious and not something needed to be taught. And I'm sure the McLaren factory is quite large. If JB is trying to avoid Lewis there, what chance does he have when it comes to race weekends.

Of course the source is a German publication...... McLaren a rival of their new Uber Team........... etc, etc...

Oh please. The author may well talk crap or not, I have no idea.

OTOH, about the crapiness of your above reasoning I've got a very firm idea. And unless I'm very much mistaken in a Murray sort of way, Button is british too, so how would slagging the Hamiltons and praising the Buttons serve any german nationalistic purposes?

PS On top of all that, MSA is located in Switzerland, so if anything they should gather behind the guy who pays taxes in their country....

Excuse me? If anything it's Hamilton doing the avoiding. A month ago he said there wasn't time to meet up with Jense, yesterday he says the same thing. I know he's not interested in anyone but himself, but not even a cursory tour around the factory? Not even a welcome meetup down the pub? What a guy

No wonder those ill manners will be taught a lesson. Because Jenson's likable personality has already won over most of the team. He's a true leader

Seems like you guys have already found the Excuse for Jenson getting his as$ kicked royally

Are you for real?

I would say your comments may come back to bite you, but then you don't really have any confidence in your statement since you're already working on your excuse.

probably by relentlessly going faster.... its good to see hopes are up in the Button camp and Mclaren are taking extra care to make sure there isnt any excuse about favoring one driver more....even though that includes setting Ham back by reshuffling his team..


can't wait for the epicness to begin



like Undersquare said, hope the Jenson vs Lewis competition includes girlfriend mintness.... that would bring everything full circle

Almost exact same article in this months motorsport by Nigel.

He thinks it will be closer than everyone else thinks between them.

I would presume, since Schumacher laid the blueprint a decade ago - of dedication, maximising technical knowledge, working closely with your team, building harmony (especially with your side of the garage) etc, etc, I find it difficult to beleive any proffessional and serious F1 driver with title aspirations would not work like this in this day and age - so I hardly think that scoop from Germany tells us anything revelationary.

I hope and expect Button will do well and despite Lewis' longer history at McLaren, I don't expect that Button will be unduely harmed by that. I don't think it will take Button long at all to develop a strong relationship with the team. He's a likeable guy, british and I think a perfect fit for McLaren.

The difference in speed will come down to the drivers and their ability to work with the cars strengths. Obviously I could be making all sorts of excuses here as I hope Button does well - but I see it as a reasonably fair fight tbh.

I would have expected that too but we see it's pretty variable. Fernando, Kimi, Kubi for example, all top drivers who haven't really built themselves into their teams. Like Kovy though Jense has the right personality and knows if he wants to compete with Lewis he has to compete everywhere.



Yeah I think Jense will get a totally fair chance, the same car and a good team on his side of the garage. If he's as fast then we'll get to see it.

If by the end of testing it is clear that LH has a conistent 3 tenths on JB none of this will matter. Macca is not sentimental or afraid of a little disharmony. They switched focus from FA to LH mid-season when he proved to be faster/more consistent knowing full well that the superstar they had just hired and his very considerable sponsors were not going to be happy.

If likeability mattered HK would have got the better fuel strategies ....

I wont say after testing, id say by mid season if a prominent gap in raw performance is clear, the team will slowly start gravitating towards the better performer.... its only natural.

That's the least surprising thing I've ever read.

a bit cruel, but funny (and true). Of course, if Button doesn't show the speed, all is lost no matter what else he does. But until that happens, reckon it can't hurt putting everything behind your effort, including the off-track stuff. We know it matters if things get close.

On FA/LH: it's pretty easy to risk miffing some sponsors if you're sure the payoff will be even greater. Plus in this case Santander didn't seem been too conserned, they had no qualms about staying and making good use of Hamilton instead of Alonso.

Button is playing a smart game, not talking himself up, remaining humble.

When Button beats Hamilton, it will prove a psychological blow to Hamilton

It reminds of me last years Australian Tennis Open, the press were hyping up Andy Murray as the favourite, Rafael Nadal remained under the radar, and let his talking do on the court.

Lets hope Jenson does that

Button beating Lewis? the same guy who couldnt keep up with a grandpa in the same car
The same guy who couldnt beat Lewis on Topgear...man should have seen his face
and BTW this is not Tennis

3 years from 4 isn't enough for you. I don't see Barrichello's 7 wins and WDC while driving for Honda|Brawn. Do you?

Actually he did. Corrected for fuel disadvantages and conditions, Jenson came a clear winner with at least 0.5s advantage. GET IN THERE SON!!!

Sure as heck isn't. Lewis dad wouldn't allow him to play tennis because he's scared of a Montoya type injury.

Read what i posted kid!
He couldnt "KEEP UP"!

Were you the guy who put the fuel in his car?
And for your info Lewis did he lap on Wet and Oil conditions
Jenson was on Moist.

Oh i just love the insecurity in his face
Imagine how will he face look when the season starts



WTF are you talking ?

I've said it before but Jenson trying to beat Lewis is like a dog barking at the tide coming in. Roll on the season cannot wait.

Hamilton is probably two classes better than Button. I don't see them qualifying or finishing next to one another; I imagine there will generally be other cars between them in both qualy and race throughout the season, with Lewis getting the absolute maximum from the car and Button having various set up issues initially. Even when he does solve these issues Button is simply not quick enough to trouble Lewis. This is not rocket science, just look at what they've done in their careers to date. Lewis was special throughout lower formulas, beat Alonso in his first season in F1 and then annihilated the I-think-very-very-quick Kovalainen in his next two seasons. Button was soundly beaten by Ralf in his first season and then was absolutely annihilated by Fisi in his sophomore year. Nothing he has done subsequently, including this year's championship win has dispelled my first impression of Button as a talented racer who (1) lacks the outright pace of the very best drivers; (2) too often flatters to deceive; and (3) lacks adaptability and technical know-how, meaning that when he is not operating in the very narrow wndow in which he is able to show his stuff, is capable of being severely embarrassed by just about any driver on the grid. It was very disturbing to see him being regularly outqualified by Barrichello - who is probably five years past his best, and never was absolutely top class anyway - in the second half of last season. Having said all that, I would say that Button is probably the next best driver after Hamilton, Alonso, Schumacher, Vettel and Massa and I'm looking forward to seeing a handful of really strong performances from him this year.

It's posts like these that make me want the season to start as soon as possible. Are you prepared to say you were wrong the first race Button finishes in front of Hamilton? And for the record, I predict that will happen in either Bahrain or Melbourne.

My big concern with Jenson is not his ability after all he has won a wdc and no matter how you cut it it still means he beat his team mate.
However lets look at last year same team mates in the same car Jenson only scored little more than 1/4 the points of Rubens.
Has he suddenly after 8 years become a better driver than he was for all the years before?
I don't think so IMHO he just was not interested in trying unless he knew he had a chance of winning.
Its my one concern with Jenson will his head go down and he stop trying if as i expect Lewis is faster than him?
If he does he will be back where HK was for the last two years if not i expect him to push Lewis but finish a place or two behind him eight out on nine times and maybe beat him the other time.
One thing i know we wont be seeing from Jenson is the sort of attitude the last WDC to join McLaren showed.
The team will work well together and IMHO car permitting with the driver line up they have they have their best chance of gaining the WCC of the last few years.

I don't know what he's talking, but i know what you're talking

I'll give you a clue, it's brown and reeks

lol, easy... obviously there is a diff of opinion here... from Lewis beating Button to Button edging out Lewis... in a way I can see the merits of both arguments

we will start getting our answers in about 2 months...

I'm lucky in that my two fav drivers are both JB and LH, I'd be over the moon if either win 2010 WDC but if I was pushed to support only one then it would be JB but only because Lewis just seems a little manufactured to me while JB reminds me of racers from the old days.

So here's my opinion on them

JB reminds me of Prost, he's precise in his driving but requires a car that drives and is setup precisely right for him otherwise his lap times suffer badly, his driving style prevents him from pushing both him self and the car that extra 1 percent to gain an exceptional lap to earn a pole position and if he tries it usually all goes wrong and he puts a slower lap time in due to mistakes (unless his car is far better than the rest of course in which case he dosen't need to push for that extra percent, seen many times in 2009), but in the race his smooth consitently fast lap times enable him to finish in a strong point scoreing place and seldomly makes a mistake which takes him out of the points, this is where he could beat LH over a season.

LH reminds me of Senna and Schumi without the blatent cheating (don't bring up adelade 2009 it's been done to death and I won't bite the bait), LH can get that extra percent out of himself and the car to get a pp start and has the ability to adapt to a car that does not drive how he would like and still gets the best out of it, but he is prone to over drive the car and makes mistakes that ends in dnfs.

Over all I think Hammy's the favorite to win the battle but I would like to see JB win, but that's going to be a tall order

The only similarity is to the Aus Open scenario is that the press is talking up LH. In terms of what the actual competitors have said its the other way round from the Aus Open scenario.

JB has told anyone who will listen that his aim is to beat LH "in his environment". He stressed the "in his own environment" point so much that Macca had to publicly reassure him of equality, making it the centre piece of the public presentation of their recent reorganisation of the race engineering teams.

LH on the other hand was much more congratulatory when JB became WDC than JB was when LH became WDC (in public at any rate) and since JB became his teammate he has issued statements welcoming him to the team etc. and the references to wanting the #1 back on his car have tailed off and the line is now that the two drivers need to work together to beat the other teams.

Generally LH has publicly tried to appear non-confrontational and co-operative (compare his statements about JB to his recent statement about FA to see how rough LH can play when he wants to) .... but we have had JB say that thanks to the differing quality of their cars in their F1 careers the only time they have shared the same piece of tarmac was when JB overtook LH in Bahrain despite KERS (he said it in a 5Live interview the day after he joined Macca) and we have recently had the revelation that JB has avoided visiting the MTC on days when LH will be there. I think JB needs to tone down the "man on a mission" publicity just a little bit ...

Clearly losing is always a blow and LH has much more to lose in terms of reputation than JB but I am not sure that JB would not suffer a bigger emotional blow as he has clearly and very publicly adopted a "beat LH or bust" approach.

Anyway, lets not dwell on who will suffer more than whom by losing... losing, like winning is a part of any sport. Lets look forward to some great racing between the two and against the others, especially those in full silver and in full Red.

Personally, I believe that Lewis Hamilton will end up getting the better of Jenson and eventually be favoured at McLaren.

One thing that irks me is the belief that because each of the drivers has one WDC they are of equal quality and inseparable.
Lewis Hamilton did not have a lot of support from Heikki pointswise whereas Button was usually tailgated by Rubinho in his wins.
No one would say Michael Schumacher is more than twice the driver Ayrton Senna was despite him having 7 titles to the Brazilian's three.
Similarly, Schumi 7 WDCs, Badoer 0 WDCs implies that Schumacher is ∞ times better than Badoer (although this point is up for discussion )
So that argument is moot.

From watching their driving styles, it is abundantly clear who is more smooth and who is more aggressive. This season, every driver will be adapting their driving styles to the new regulations and I believe it will be easier for Lewis to tame his aggression than for Jenson to be more gung ho. With a pool of drivers (Hamilton, Button, M. Schumacher, Rosberg, Alonso, Massa, Vettel etc.) all vying for victory, qualifying will be integral and this may be where JB will suffer.

Undoubtedly, Jenson trumps Lewis in terms of consistency, but the new points system does imbue drivers to be more aggressive. For example, three 3rd places and a DNF earns more than four 4th places (45, 40) for the first time in Formula one history. Also, three 2nd places and a DNF is equal to 4 third places (60,60). The balance between consistency and aggression has shifted towards the latter.

2010 will be a very interesting season anyway and I impatiently await the first Grand Prix of the season.

Some nice posts this morning .

Lewis has always been the one making the running with Jense, he's a generous person but also more confident. Jense has most people going on about how he's going to get murdered, Lewis has no fear at all of Jense I think.

BTW there are one or two secret Alonso fans attaching themselves to Jenson IMO...

I expect Jenson to match Lewis and probably beat him if he gets equal treatment next year.

Blewis is not good under pressure. We have seen it too many times. And he will be expected to thrash Jenson next year.

If he doesnt his rep will take a bashing, and quite a few people on here will not be able to face life anymore.

Lewis is nice and polite when he is asked about Jenson
Nothing about who will beat who, nothing about the changes which were made (for Jenson)
he is quiet, too quiet IMO
He will give the answer on the track

You know "the calm before the storm"

this should be far more concerning for Jenson (and his supporters)

OSX, "Undoubtedly, Jenson trumps Lewis in terms of consistency"

AY???!!!!! So almost losing an easy world title in a damn good car and struggling to outqualify and outrace rubens in the last half of the year is consistent?
I can't believe anyone that watches f1 can be so stupid to believe jenson is going to worry hamilton.
What was it again 7 podiums from lewis' 1st 7 races in his 1st season....Now that's consistent.

Unless you were meaning consistently slower than rubens half the time

9 opening podiums in fact

Every mistake Lewis makes gets 1,000,000 posts so it seems worse than it is. In that list of race-ending errors that was posted a couple of months ago he's on 4, more or less the same percentage as the other top guys like Fernando, Kubi and Kimi - even guys with a lot more experience.

And on the other had if you watch Jenson in previous years you see plenty of errors, Silverstone 08 for example went off into the barriers at Bridge, though they slipped under the radar at the time because he wasn't in contention.

Someone who was there was on here the other day, he/she said that Jenson was getting out of the way of other cars and went off track to avoid an incident

I don't recall struggling to outrace rubens on race day? also your showing u know nothing about f1 if you think jenson was struggling, most of the problems in qualy was car/tyre related a clear mistake by driving was in Valencia when jenson accidently shifted incorrectly in qualy. why don't u comment on he was the most consistent last season compared to HIS RIVALS IN THE WDC! you win wdc by finishing in the points not qualy.

But you do realize that Jenson had it relatively easy when it came to his rivals in the championship. Jenson WAS struggling often in the second half of the season, how can you say any differently?

They was wrong. Or fibbing . On his own on full wets and flying he just pushed a bit too hard.

nice excuse

Who said it was an excuse ?

I'm just relaying what someone said.

yeah its an excuse, coz we all saw it on TV what really happened
Until you can find a video to show us otherwise, it will remain as an excuse

you can give us examples why you think he was struggling, he was struggling to get the car to do what he wanted he cannot be 100% to blame for that, if he cnt for example get tyre temp for 1 qualy lap thats a inherant flaw in the car. COme race day he was the best out there, he never lt up and maximised all opportunities we cannot say that for the others vettel, webber, rubens. If he had a chance for a higher position he put the fast laps in to make it happen. If he had to overtake to get more points he did that. I cant fault his race day performances so i dnt agree he struggled.

give the guy a break and lets see how close he gets to hammy

Are you blind ?

Read my post, someone else said he went off to avoid other cars

I can't even remember the incident in question

Jenson was flying, 5 seconds quicker than RB. Then fell off.

Ross said his racing was exemplary -- I concur. The quali performance issues were mostly in his head.

I agree, the day started well.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to have observed something odd. Some people appear to me to be using Button as a stick to beat Hamilton with. Button has seemingly gained a large number of supporters since the announcement that he is joining McLaren, yet many of these supporters only seem to care about how he will perform against Hamilton, not the rest of the field. I don't recall Barrichello being treated like this in the past.

some fans of other drivers are clearly worried that the followers of Lewis and Jenson are not going to end up in an all out slagfest unlike we have seen already with some of the other drivers fans.
IMHO the McLaren fans are not only heading for a great year on track but a very funny one watching some fans of other teams on this board.

Actually he WAS in contention, although not many people noticed. Jenson was trying to win a race in that dreadful Honda.

If you look at the laptimes for the 2 laps before he went off, Jenson was several seconds faster than anyone else.

Rubens was very fast at the time too, Ross having put them on full wets, on course for 2nd before his fuel rig problem. Jense is quick in the rain, as we know, but before 09 he often used to blow it somewhere, like Fuji 07 was another one, where he half overtook Heidfeld into Turn1 and lost his front wing, after being 4th on the grid. I guess it's all different in a bad car, the focus isn't the same. Still, he's not going to beat Lewis with consistency.

Lewis did cut it fine in 2008 didn't he?

Really, Go Jenso, Go Lewis, Go McLaren, may the best driver be fastest and hope theres no discord sown. All the matters is both of them to be infront of the others.

but the Brawn gp car was fastest almost like ferrari 2002
Lewis' mclaren in 2008 only as fast as 2003 Ferrari
Go figure