Button fails to improve on Top Gear lap
Jenson Button failed to improve his best lap time around the Top Gear track.
He set a 1′44.9 lap in the Suzuki Liana – two-tenths of a second slower than his previous effort. The track was wet whereas it had been dry for his first attempt.
But his 2010 team mate Lewis Hamilton had previously set a 1′44.7 on a wet track.
Button told host Jeremy Clarkson about how he was looking forward to joining Hamilton at McLaren next year:
This is a massive buzz for me its so exciting I’ve been in F1 for ten years, to get a chance to race Hamilton and Alonso at McLaren.
Jenson Button
Commenting on a selection of highlights of his overtaking moves during the Brazilian Grand Prix, Button had this to say about his over-steery pass on Sebastien Buemi:
I did that on purpose – a bit of oversteer makes the guy nervous about getting close. It gives him less room.
Jenson Button
He later revealed he had driven his Bugatti Veyron around the Top Gear track – while the cameras weren’t around.
David Coulthard also appeared in an F1-heavy episode, using the Red Bull show car to create ‘art’ with Jeremy Clarkson.
F1 drivers’ best lap times on Top Gear
1′44.6 – Nigel Mansell
1′44.7 – Jenson Button
1′44.7 – Lewis Hamilton (wet track)
1′46.3 – Damon Hill
1′47.1 – Mark Webber (wet track)
F1 drivers on Top Gear
I could start with the button/ hamilton comparisons but im not going to bother.
1 min 44.9 is still a good time. But if it’s anything like the rest of Top Gear these days, it probably isn’t real
*like*
Hamilton’s lap is a lot better, check him out in the second to last corner and compare it with Button.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpUQY-zoFnE
It’s a sign of things to come I tell thee.
They should have got Button and Hamilton in together that would have been more interesting. He just came in to let everyone see how great he is now he is world champion but just went slower.
wow! that must have hurt! you could see the dissapointment in his eyes when Jeremy announced the time.
where can i watch it again?
anyone? can you help out?
If you’re from the UK it’ll presumably be up on the iplayer by now. If not, it should be on youtube before long anyway
http://bit.ly/5S3kFi
i knew Jensen button would be slower every 1 knows lewis is better.Jensen did look pretty mad at the end tho lol he will get used to it as he will be behind lewis most of next season
top gear has said wet laps suffer by about 4 tenths, so if he was 2 tenths slower, wouldn’t that make a 2 tenths improvement?
I thought the said 4 seconds.
yeah, that sounds right.
It adds four seconds for a normal driver.
But I guess that for an F1 driver the limiting factor on the laptime is the horsepower of the car, not the challenge of driving it in poor conditions (which for them is no challenge).
Off topic: Is it me or are the comments being moderated much more over the last few days?
On topic: This is a tv program, while the drivers obviously want to beat each other they’re doing the laps as a bit of fun. It’s not really an indication of who is or isn’t the better driver.
Not sure I believe his comment about the oversteer in Brazil. Surely you’d just run a little wider if you wanted to make the other guy lift (like Sutil tried on Trulli
), not put the car on the edge of spinning?
i dont like Hamilton and Button but who cares who was faster in Top Gear one of them went a long time ago on this track and second one put also a fast lap now but always conditions are different and the time difference is minimal. We will see in few months in quali and races who is fastest you just have too wait thats it. Schumi will be better
I wonder when we will see Hamilton back to set another lap as after he set his time he said he wanted to come back to set a dry time to see if he could beat The Stig, but obviously he his schedule will be pretty full when Top Gear is on when the track is likely to be dry.
When they fired paintballs through the Red Bull airbox and out the exhausts I wonder what that did to the engine?
Hamilton was set to come back in the dry. A date was set but it rained again
That was so funny you saw the first one rip clean through the canvas then the second one caught Clarky square in the plums
I just loved how Jenson kept calling himself JB round the lap. I thought he was funny and chilled out!!
There are so many variables when the two laps are that far apart in time, not to mention things like weight, air temperature etc etc.
Rather than being negative about Lewis and Jensen I prefer to look how far adrift Webber is from their almost identical wet lap times.
Webber’s lap time was properly wet, whereas the track was merely damp for Lewis and Jenson.
You could see how much it hurt when he didn’t match the time.
The dissapointment on his face was painfull to say the least.
“The dissapointment on his face was painfull to say the least.”
More of that will be seen next season
Anyone expecting Lewis to trounce Button all the time nest year means they know very little about F1. Lewis will but not all the time
True, Hamilton might have a mechanical failure or an accident …
All of these thoughts are missing one crucial detail: both laps were in the wet. Lewis is spectacular in these conditions, and Jenson is average to say the least. This conclusion wasn’t exactly a shock to me, because it (allegedly) confirms Lewis is better in the wet… which I knew already.
Someone better sign “The Stig” for F1 next year his time in the Suzuki is quicker than the both of them
Of course his time is better, practice makes perfect. Remember The Stig drove that car around that track for every one of the Star in Reasonably Priced Car to teach the star how do do a competitive lap. So figure that he has probably done hundreds if not thousands of laps in the RPC, and that doesn’t even count all the supercars.
It’s a shame the program would never in their collective creative history invite Alonso on the show.
All I can say is the the driving conditions matter on these runs, to compare drivers time it would be best to have all driver lap on the same day withing 5 mins of each other.
The Top Gear “Hot Lap” is useless and conditions change from one show to the next, and is not a true representation.
Very telling figures up there. Not just the Button / Hamilton comparison.
Amazing how they reflect almost exactly how I would personally rank those drivers.
I’d love to see Shumi, Alonso, Kimi et. al. have a go too.
hmmm….meaningless times. A normal road car on normal road car tyres. Something as daft as making sure that the tyre pressures were the same could have a big effect on the outcome, regardless of other outside influences.
Also, try folding back the door mirrors to gain that vital tenth of a second. LOL
And what were the fuel weights?
Meaningless
it wasnt wet either it was damp for JB and cold…dont engines work better int he cvold? Lewis’ lap was wet and more fluent. JB is a fine racing driver. Lewis is an all time great in the making.
I still think it’s pointless. It’s a road car not a Formula 1 car so how does it proove anything?
Maybe Lewis looked after the Liana tyres better
proves lewis is faster in a road car. seems pretty straightforward to me
guys before u draw a conclusion sayin lewis is a better driver than jenson , listen to what jeremy says at the end , he was slightly slower than hamilton b’cos of his showboating drifts on the last two corners . also dont forget in F1 jenson never had a car gud enuff for his talent until last year . these top f1 drivers are very close in terms of driving talent and its the car which gives some of them the edge .b’fore u guys holler at me , i said close not equally talented
lewis hamilton will not be considered an all time great until he does something spectacular with an underperforming car . remember lewis had a brilliant car in his first and second seasons of F1 and in his 3rd where he didnt he cocked up , didnt he . schumacher has earned hi greatness by some brillint driver in apalling conditions , just google his greatest drives and u will see .
yes lewis will have to cheat far more to be considered anywhere near MS…..btw- 2008’s star car was ferrari not mclaren
There may be a few, but not to that extent. For the record, I prefer Lewis Hamilton to Jenson Button, but I don’t let this cloud my judgement of him