Head To Head Jenson Button vs Lewis Hamilton

[The Pits]

So, at what point in Jensons 13 year career has he consistently been 1-2 seconds per lap off his team mate, for three races in a row?

Also, in 2009, Rubens finished ahead of Jenson 4 times all season, or from Silverstone it was 5 4 to Jenson. That is the same as lewis vs heikki the same year, although qualifying was a different matter.

No one would disagree that there are issues, but to claim that it is not a dip etc seems to me a little premature at least.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

The Pits sure there is an issue, but I dont think its Jensons fault, we see that he can drive well in practice, its just that come quali and the race recently his car for whatever reason does not give him the confidence required to max the right pedal.

And now with a field full of aggressive and hungry young Turks in machinery close to his, the gap between Jenson and Lewis has been vastly exagerated

Maybe a few years ago he would have been a few places behind Lewis on the grid and would have been able to drive pastt the mid grid drivers despite not maxing his car, this year without maxing his car he is unable to pass almost anyother driver, why? not because he is suddenly much worse, but because he doesnt have the confidence in the car to max it.Not having that confidence in the car and not maxing it means that you are never going to be able to overtake others in close cars

Problem for Jenson is a year ago that was not a big issue as his car would have always been one of the best, this year Perez, Pastor, Bruno, Grosjean, even Kovaleinen cant be breezed past without maxing the car.

Maybe there is a dip in his confidence, again caused by the uncertainty surrounding the tyres, balance, grip etc, but I dont think we can blame Button too much, he is driving as he has always done, he just doesnt have a car good enough to allow his particular style of driving to overcome others and so he comes in 10th or so.

I bet once the car is sorted by the team exactly to his liking he will be up there again just behind Lewis Seb and Alonso,

Jenson hasnt crashed, or made silly mistakes, he just doesnt have a car good enough to do him justice

 

[The Artist.....]

Lets not forget that Jenson has had identical issues most of his 13 year career

When?

Button has led the team he has been in for most of his career. In 2001, yes the Benetton was awful and Button couldn't push. You have in the past quoted Barrichello as being superior to Button in the Honda... Well, only in 2008. - Every other season they were together, Button beat him hands down. You really are trying to stir something that shouldn't be stirred!

 

[Cookinflatsix]

The Artist..... Button can beat anyone when he has full confidence in the handling characteristics of his car, when he doesnt, he struggles, as we saw in 2009 when he had the monster Brawn car

this has always been the case

shirley this is not disputed

 

[no-FIAt-please]

One point I will say is about Hamilton's intelligence during the race. On Sunday he had the awareness to know that more or less Alonso could and would stay with him as long as Alonso was doing 2 stops, when Alonso wasn't maintaining pace Hamilton had the awareness to ask him team if Alonso was one stopping (of course McLaren were wrong). After the race Hamilton said when he realised Alonso wasn't staying close he was sure that he wasn't going to pit again.

I think this is important because it shows Hamilton seems to be thinking more during the races, previously this was an area where Button seemed superior to Hamilton, but who knows perhaps Hamilton is making improvments.

 

[F1ang-o]

no-FIAt-please
Previously LH trusted Mclaren too much, he is now making his own presence felt. I am so glad to see this. He will of course still have to rely on their judgement at times, but it is great to see him making demands/asking questions etc.

 

[KekeTheKing]

I think we're definitely learning more about the McLaren car than we are about Jenson right now. There's no doubt that the car was very fast straight out of the box, but with the spread out schedule in the early portion of the season, it's clear that everybody has caught up. Also, McLaren were the only team to carry over their previous nose designs which would have certainly helped them nail the setups for Melbourne and Malaysia. The other teams were definitely still learning.

We've got three drivers in the field right now that almost always out-drive their car. This makes it very hard to determine the ultimate outright pace of their machines. It's better to look at their teammates to see the exact underlying speed. And one thing is clear right now, the Ferrari is getting better, the Red Bull has made advances, and McLaren are still at the phase where they are coming to grips with the stepped nose design. McLaren were the only top team that didn't have upgrades for Canada, and it's clear to me that any car advantage they enjoyed in the opening two rounds has evaporated.

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

I had read somewhere (I forget) that this years McLaren has a tendency to oversteer a lot more than last years model... which favours LH... if that was the case JB would have to be nearly spot on most of the time to wring out the understeer I think he prefers... if things don't improve he can borrow the 30lb punching bag that MW had all of last season... just needs to replace the smiling photo of Seb with Lewis...

 

[KekeTheKing]

Whitmarsh did say that Jenson is having a devil of a time turning the front tires on. Not having the fronts up to temperature in a car that likes to oversteer sounds like a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what the last 3 rounds for JB have been.

 

[Brogan]

Interesting article: http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/22058/7808830/Just-why-has-Button-become-undone-

He decided he was going to take a new-broom approach to the Montreal weekend and had the team remove a key piece of what is described as 'electronic trickery' that had been on both cars all season. The team is very secretive about what it might be, but Jenson felt that the system may have been confusing his senses in the feedback he was getting from the car, and that this may have been causing him to make poor set-up choices.

For Montreal he would get back to basics and he also decided to forgo the new Montreal-specific rear suspension that would be fitted to Hamilton's car, which had less anti-squat built into its geometry. This would allow the Hamilton car to squat (under acceleration) and dive (under braking) a little more, mainly for the benefit of traction. But it would also mean the car wouldn't be kept in as tightly-defined a ride height window, with potential resultant aerodynamic losses.
...
So why was this much less of a problem for him in the earlier races? Jenson and McLaren would probably love to know the answer to that too. But there is at least one key rival convinced it has something to do with an FIA clarification made during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend regarding the McLaren's splitter aft of the nose.

It's believed McLaren was taking advantage of the production tolerance allowed for the floor - which has to be flat but which is allowed a few millimetres tolerance - by considering the splitter as part of the floor. The clarification put a stop to this. McLaren insists this had no serious impact upon the car's aerodynamic performance, but others are less sure. Could it have allowed just enough rake on the car for even Jenson to get the front tyres up to temperature? It's only a theory. But at the time of writing, theories were all even Button and the team had.

I've highlighted a couple of interesting points.

So the suspension was the same as before, it was Hamilton who had new suspension fitted.

I don't normally cross-post, but I've also posted this in the Button thread so any discussion specific to Button stays there.

 

[Quintessentially]

Bottom line - when you're not fast you're not fast and all this gadgetry amount to 0.000001 of a second( ok an exaggeration ). Jenson was lapping in the region of 1.5s-2s per lap slower than Hamilton in Canada and it is possible that driving style was a major contributory factor. This was the second time he's suffered the indignity of being lapped in the Mac. He has this occasional habit of descending into absolute mediocrity but clearly something is fundamentally wrong at the moment. At the same I don't agree with the opinion of piling all the blame on car. Feline Massa was given the same benefit when he was struggling to keep up with Nando

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Seb drove around with a cracked chassis, he didn't end up 2 seconds slower than his team mate

I truly think McLaren are no longer pushing the car in the direction Button needs as the penny has dropped that it's too difficult to provide a car suitable for two top drivers with completely opposite needs

McLaren have let Button down here as they know what he needs and haven't provided, it is freakin ridiculous to know how much Button needs a car perfectly balanced for him and to not provide such a car

The new nose was introduced at Mugello and Jensons first go with it was on a race weekend, I wonder if McLaren regret not sending him along to the test

 

[tranquility2k9]

Brogan, I found that Mark Hughes article on Sky about JB absolutely fascinating. Of course some of it is speculation, but it sheds a lot of light on why the issues he had on Friday did really have a large effect on this intended plans. It also shows that when Ted Kravitz for instance has said that both drivers had the exact same setup for this race - that was untrue by what Hughes is saying. He suggests JB ran same suspension from Monaco whereas Lewis ran new suspension for Canada.

What is interesting is that at Monaco McLaren blamed their qualifying especially, but somewhat overall poor performance on not getting their tyres working under braking. The changes to this new suspension for Canada seem to be working on changing how the car behaves under braking and initial acceleration, which could possibly be to counter those issues at Monaco. Now, JB also suffered at Monaco so it's strange that he wouldn't want the new suspension also? Unless this was actually nothing to do with Monaco and was always planned for Canada. It will be interesting to see if they use this suspension at Valencia - possibly so with long straights and the point and squirt nature of that track (apart from high speed in sector 3). Although I imagine for Silverstone they would want to revert to the original suspension setup that seems more aerodynamically efficient - which makes sense as McLaren's strongest point seems high speed corners.

What gets me is that all this stuff goes on behind the scenes and we have no idea about it and it's a big shame because I personally love all this "techy" stuff. I understand they have to keep a certain amount of information under wraps for competitive purposes, but all this stuff Mark Hughes has come out with, I don't see why teams couldn't get closer to the fans and reveal more of this sort of information. Hopefully in the future they may do.

I'm also intrigued by this technical clarification that seemingly banned McLaren's splitter at or after China. If indeed this did happen after China then that would make sense as the were not so competitive in Bahrain.

Plus the explanation as to why JB was going on about having understeer and oversteer at Barcelona. We now know it's because the front tyres were initially not warmed up which induced understeer and then the rears overheated, which meant oversteer by the end of the lap! Doh, why didn't I think of that

 

[tranquility2k9]

Jenson was lapping in the region of 1.5s-2s per lap slower than Hamilton in Canada and it is possible that driving style was a major contributory factor. This was the second time he's suffered the indignity of being lapped in the Mac. He has this occasional habit of descending into absolute mediocrity but clearly something is fundamentally wrong at the moment. At the same I don't agree with the opinion of piling all the blame on car. Feline Massa was given the same benefit when he was struggling to keep up with Nando

To be fair there were several times towards the end of last year, for example in Singapore, Suzuka and India where JB was lapping over a second a lap faster than Hamilton and finished way ahead of him. In-fact im sure Jenson lapped Lewis last year at some point. Also take into consideration that the tyres this year seem way more sensitive than last year and so you'd say that could make the gap even bigger than it would normally be, so I don't think this 1.5 - 2 seconds is actually so strange. I couldn't believe what was going on with Lewis in those races last year as it was the first time in his career that he just didn't have the pace and he didn't know why. I wonder if it was due to the car or the tyres because there's not much else it could have been.

I personally feel a bit sorry for Jenson, although most knew or accepted it already, this proves once and for all that he needs a car set up right and struggles without that and that Lewis on the other hand can drive around most things. But this is nothing new - I still do not like to see someone who is a class driver (lets face it,) struggling so much. Lets not even get comparing this to Massa. Felipe Massa has been a complete shambles for over 2 years now and he has never shown any sign of dominating Alonso over a period of races as Jenson did to Lewis last year. Jenson is not as fast as Lewis over 1 lap but has consistently shown he can be within a tenth or so. Look at the first 2 races this year and several last year. Over a race, usually, they are pretty well matched and Jenson as a racer is in the top 3 or 4 drivers. I would say as a racer, him, Lewis and Alonso are the best out there. Jenson is more than capable of doing a Seb and controlling from the front as he showed in 2009 but he has also showed far more overtaking and racing ability than Seb in what is often a less competitive car.

All I'd say, and this is not specifically to you Quintessentially, but just in general, I'd give the guy a break for now because in a few races time he could be back to dominating a race again.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Ahh, you have to love it. I've been away for a couple of weeks and still all the talk is Lewis V Jenson.

 

[Brogan]

Well it is the Button vs Hamilton thread

 

[Quintessentially]

tranquility2k9

I'm not sure where you're getting your lap charts from. Not that it is in doubt who has in the upper hand in terms of outright race. You mention Suzuka but Hamilton was on pole in the following race. I thought it had long been established that Hamilton's problems last year had nothing to do with speed or the lack of it. All the races you mention - he finished comfortably in the points and for the record was never lapped last year or even the year before. Not by Jenson or any other driver. We are having a justifiable debate about Jenson's performance issues, nothing wrong with that. Other drivers have received far more scathing reviews. It's a long season and I'm sure he'll figure out how to switch tyres on eventually. It's far too easy to blame the car.

 

[MCLS]

This has got to be the most commented thread now

 

[The Pits]

An interesting point for me, and something that goes some way in addressing some of the points in the last couple of posts, in 2011 at Monaco, lewis was as far behind the leaders as Jenson was in 2012 (or thereabouts) and was just about to be lapped when the incident which caused the red flag occurred. Lewis finished sixth, and won valuable points, Jenson was well out of the points. Without going into the why's and wherefores of how they got into those positions, it does go some way to show how much greater a penalty there is this season for falling behind. I may look at some other races later, to see if a similar difference in field spread occurred.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

But didnt Lewis have a clear and quantifiable reason for being in that position?