Jenson Button

Arguably the best ever driver in mixed conditions, all his wins at Mclaren have come in those conditions. His last race win in the dry came at the 2009 Turkish GP.

Button is known for his smooth driving style and is normally seen in must races doing one less stop than his rivals for tyres.

Buttons also know to be a bit of a practical joker and will take part in anything fun.

Since his debut in 2000 Button has won the majority of hearts in this country. But what is your favourite JB win?

Mine has to be Hungaroring 2006, in argubly a midfield team and he won the race in those mixed conditions to take his first win. I can remember James Allen been in tears almost and that was the first race Anthony Davidson ever commentated on.

 

[Il_leone]

Mephistopheles

Perez may have awoken a fire in Jenson at least for this season

 

[KekeTheKing]

Button was actually better in Canada this year than he was last. JB was completely lost in Montreal last season so there is plenty of hope for him to turn it around moving forward.

 

[teabagyokel]

He couldn't have been much worse, though, could he?

At least he was at no risk of his team showing him up by winning with the other car...

 

[Bill Boddy]

No, no, it is all Button's fault. Had Hamilton stayed there he would have won every race so far this season. Or would he?

 

[The Pits]

It is a double edged sword. I believe it to be different from last year, as there has been a consistent struggle from the start of the season, including testing. Last season, JB won the first race, and did well in the next two for pace, albeit with a nudge. He lost it for a few races mid season, but came back to win in Spa.

Could/Would Lewis be doing better in the car? as a JB fan I would have to say that it is likely, however, I think this is a different situation to last year, and I do not believe that Lewis would be winning races.

I also think that FB could be correct, and that they could end up winless this season, because the momentum that Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and even Renault have is going to be difficult for them to overcome, they will need to get a lot better very quickly, and I have seen little evidence that will happen, although I am ever the optimist!!

 

[Brogan]

It matters not who would be driving the McLaren this year - races can only be won if the car is capable of winning them, no matter how good the driver is.

 

[racecub]

I doubt he'd be winning races either. But I'd lay money on him dragging it well up into the points at Canada.
Also who knows how the car would have developed had Lewis stayed there? Maybe they wouldn't have been so radical? JB said he had a lot of input into the car, maybe it was the wrong input? Maybe they tried to change the car to more suit JB's style and somewhere along the way it went wrong? It may have ended up a different car and it may have been capable of winning races....on the other hand it may not, and now we won't ever know.

 

[The Pits]

Maybe, Lewis was fairly complimentary of the McLaren car before he left though, and he would likely have seen the initial designs. A lot of the fundamental decisions would also have been made before he signed for mercedes too.

As for the direction, who knows? I am not sure that the issue is anything other than the car is not what they thought it would be, or what the data said it would be!

 

[teabagyokel]

Despite Button's struggles to beat Perez, I suspect that situation would be vastly different if the car was capable.

 

[Mephistopheles]

From everything I've read neither Lewis or Button are much cop at car development so saying Lewis would develop the car better is nonsense.....

 

[ExtremeNinja]

They have tended to find themselves developing the car into cul-de-sacs in the past through following Jenson's requirements. They are certainly not recovering at the rate they had become well known for in previous years. It's a reasonable opinion that Lewis might be a missing link for them. I add the caveat that that is also an assumption but I don't think it's reasonable to say it's nonsense. The Merc has certainly improved since Lewis got there, too. Is that coincidence? Possibly. Perhaps Jenson is not able to provide the team with enough quality feedback to work and find direction with.

 

[RasputinLives]

Can you give examples of when they've gone down cul-de-sacs chasing Jenson's requirements? I'm not sure how to tell this and would like to ne able to spot it in future.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Middle of last season where they got lost in half of the garage and reversed out of it to take direction from Lewis' side.

 

[siffert_fan]

Button is one member of the gang of 4 (himself, Fernando, Kimi and Massa) that are, in F1 terms, getting rather long in the tooth, being in their mid 30s. Of the 4, neither Button nor Massa were known for their blazing speed, unlike the other 2. The simple fact is that all 4 are nearing their "sell by" date to make way for the next generation of young chargers. The question is, can any of the 4 really be considered at the top of their game anymore, and are they as capable of developing a chassis as a younger driver might be (or are they so hidebound that they HAVE to have car set up "just so" and are no longer able to drive around a car's problems)?

 

[The Pits]

I wouldn't call that a tendency, I would call that an error. And they have made plenty of those before.

 

[Fenderman]

The only way to tell whether a development favours one driver over another is how they perform when a new part has been introduced. New front wings were often the best indicators. If it was an overall improvement to the car then both drivers would perform better. If the part favours one over the other we often see the performance gap between the drivers increase. The most obvious clue that it is not necessarily a general improvement to the car for both, is when one driver inexplicably falls way off their previous performance whilst the other inexplicably steams off in the better direction.

Interestingly when Button won for McLaren in the 2011 Canadian GP, it was one of the few times that he visibly changed his driving style to wring the neck out of the car, driving it in a similar way to Hamilton. Unfortunately, he has shown that he struggles to use that style very often.

I would also suggest that the current Pirelli tyres actually don't allow very flambouyant or aggressive driving because of the excessive wear and degradation resulting from it. We know that the Mercedes engine is at least on a par with the Renault and probably slightly superior to the Ferrari, so I doubt that Jenson's issues have anything to do with the power train. The car still looks to be one of the stiffest on the grid in terms of set up which we know doesn't go well with the low durability Pirellis. We also know that Jenson's preferred driving style is one of the smoothest in F1.

Part of McLaren's and Button's problem, then, may well be a combination of the car still having handling characteristics that suit an aggressive driving style, drivers with smooth styles and utterly incompatible tyres. Their attempts to fix the problems appear to have been to bring in aero' upgrades that may not be dealing with what could be a problem due to mechanical grip and traction issues. The wind tunnel and simulator might not be showing this up, particularly as teams are not allowed to use full size models in the wind tunnel in-season.

Of course, I have to add the usual Mephistopheles caveat that I may be talking a load of bollocks, but it's just a thought.

 

[racecub]

From everything I've read neither Lewis or Button are much cop at car development so saying Lewis would develop the car better is nonsense.....

I didn't say Lewis would develop the car better, I said it may have evolved differently if it were designed to suit his needs. MAY being the operative word.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Fenderman if the front wing is the best indicator of new parts working or not working how come on plenty of occasions when a driver loses part of his front wing he often doesn't lose any lap time and sometimes actually goes faster, In Canada Webber was putting in fastest laps with a damaged front wing and yet teams often spend millions on adding a little winglet here and a slightly different end fence there.

I'm more inclined to believe that a good car is a good car because of its overall design and a bad one is a bad one for the same reason, it isn't the driver that can turn a crap car into a good one it is the boffins back at the factory that do that, with the drivers input being of only minor significance at best....

I could just as easily claim that if Jenson was driving the Mercedes he would be doing a better job than the current drivers because he is kinder to his tyres which the Merc seems to need and the braking characteristics of the Merc would suit Jenson more than they suit Lewis at the moment.

 

[FB]

I could just as easily claim that if Jenson was driving the Mercedes he would be doing a better job than the current drivers because he is kinder to his tyres which the Merc seems to need and the braking characteristics of the Merc would suit Jenson more than they suit Lewis at the moment.

Nah!

 

[Mephistopheles]

Well that's my claim, I have no proof whatsoever to back it up as that doesn't seem to be necessary and so I'm sticking with it....