F1 Fanatic

I think Hamilton and Rosberg will be the tortoise and the hare (irrespectively). If their car is any good, I think Hamilton will finish way ahead of Rosberg, but if the car is troublesome, Rosberg’s consistancy would probably win out. At McLaren, I suspect Perez will make more headlines with fast and flashy driving, but Button will rack up more points.

It is fun to speculate on these things. It’s never as simple as it first appears.

I honestly thought Hamilton would perform a lot better than Button when they joined up at McLaren, but it hasn’t turned out that way. In the near three years together Hamilton has scored 609 points to Button’s 603 points. There’s only a 6 point difference since the start of the 2010 season. That means in the 52 races that Button and Hamilton have raced in identical cars Button has scored over 99% of the points that Hamilton has. Which is incredible.

However I still want to say Perez will be faster than Button. Ha, it will be an interesting year.

“It is remarkable, although a points tally doesn’t always tell the full story. During their time at BMW, Nick Heidfeld outscored Robert Kubica, but I don’t think there are many that will argue Heidfeld was the better driver.”

@AdrianMorse – That’s a great point. It’s similar to Mercedes this year, Schumacher has been the better driver but Rosberg has more points. In the Hamilton-Button contest it’s a similar situation. How many failures has Button had compared to Hamilton this year? That’s why he’s as close to Lewis this year. Lewis has made arguably 1 mistake this season, he could of probably let Maldonado past in Valencia. other than that, he’s been superb and well ahead of Button. The only times Button has out driven Hamilton this season were Australia and Spa.

I think Hamilton will beat Rosberg, I think he’s the ideal number 2 driver, he’ll always be there racking up points but I dont seem him ever regularly competing for Wins if he’s up against Hamilton now that Lewis has got his head sorted. I also think Mercedes will be more comforting to Lewis and he will perform even better if they get a decent car.

I think Button will have Perez covered for the first season because Perez is still a bit inconsistent and JB will have the car development for next season more towards his liking.

@sircoolbeans,

I’d say that is long enough for reliability randomness and other unfair events to be smoothed out due to the passing of additional races.

Not really, though. Perhaps this isn’t the thread to go into a race-by-race comparison of Button and Hamilton, but in 2010 Hamilton lost a lot more points due to unreliability than Button, in 2011 Button lost a little bit more than Hamilton, and in 2012 Hamilton has again lost quite a lot more than Button.

An interesting question is whether the difference in reliability can be attributed to their driving styles. Over the past three years, Hamilton has had a lot of gearbox failures (off the top of my head: Hungary 2010, Japan 2010 – both a grid penalty and a malfunction during the race -, Brazil 2011, China 2012 – grid penalty – Singapore 2012), whereas I don’t recall any for Button.

I hope Rosberg defeats Hamilton – it would be a shame if we were denied the entertainment of Hamilton’s petulant sulks! (You will gather I am not a fan of Hamilton. There is no-one I respect more in F1 than Ross Brawn – however Mercedes GP now have one less supporter). Just to fantasise for a moment – if Mercedes pull out of running the team and AMG take over – RB return to Ferrari a possibility?!
I think Button will have the measure of Peres for a year or two yet.

@kingshark

Let’s see how good these British drivers really are.

I think that in reality, you should say: “Lets see how good Jenson really is.”

And I could give you an answer…. he´ll get squashed by Perez. I also believe we will hear a whole lot more complaining from Button than what he usually does…
I will certainly enjoy next season!

BTW, I think that the skeptics should calm down about Mercedes…. I am positive that we will see a much better team next season and they will be in title contention! Anybody is welcome to quote me on that!

Jason Burton beat Perez. Hamiton is good and Rosburg is worstor so I think Hamiton beate Nick Rosburg as well. I look forword to sea star driver Alexander Rossi in F1

I think Button will batter Perez at the start but as Perez adapts it will become very close. Hamilton will initially struggle before eventually establishing himself as team leader.