F1 Fanatic

How is it possible to hate Jenson Button? He’s one of the very best drivers, good looking, smiles a lot, has a cool girlfriend, supports charities,doesn’t get involved in controversies, doesn’t like conflicts, doesn’t do mind games, etc. If you hate him, you must be jealous!

@Girts I support him but I have noticed his ability to avoid blame for poor performance on occasion , blaming it on the car or tyres for example.

@CarnivorousPope I think every driver analyses his performance this way, at least in the public eye. For example, this is what Massa said after the last year’s Australian GP:

Already yesterday I suffered because the car was badly balanced and today, it was probably even worse, because after a few laps I was struggling with the tyres. [...] also on the second set of Soft tyres we had the same problems: the car was sliding and the degradation was much greater than for the others. I would not say I was driving aggressively and I was actually trying not to be hard on the tyres, but there was nothing I could do. Even on the Mediums, the situation did not change. We must work to understand why we could not reproduce the right balance on the car, as we had for example at the Barcelona tests.

There is a lot of media attention to Button’s statements, a lot of his team radio gets broadcast so people might have the impression that he is a bigger ‘whiner’ than the others but I think that he simply does what the other drivers do, namely, gives feedback and analyses his performance in a way that’s generally adopted by F1 fraternity.

@Girts I think that is a bad example, Alonso was having trouble controlling that Ferrari in Melbourne, So Massa blaming the car I would think is reasonable.

Button though at the race in canada for example is in the same car as Hamilton who won the race and finishes 16th yet just says It wasn’t him “I have never had a race like it. I am pushing the car to its limits.
That felt like the limit of the car. I am leaving here confused and very lost.” and couldn’t be the tyres “It is not the tyres. I cannot be the only person who can’t drive the tyres. It’s impossible.” So for sure it is something and it definitely seems unlikely it was the tyres and we know it wasn’t the machinery.

@sgt-pepper

Vettel can’t win unless he’s in the best car

I consider Raikkonen, Hamilton and Alonso the three strongest drivers on the grid, as they can drag any car by the scruff of the neck and drive the wheels off it, and do that consistently

In Bahrain last year, Vettel beat Raikkonen in an inferior/slower car.

I don’t see JB as a real team player. Last year when Hamilton was leading, he came out saying that as long as he is in the hunt for the WDC he would not support Lewis. I know he plays the role of the team player but there is big difference between playing the role and being a team player.

It had become obvious to me that JB went to McLaren not to help the team win but just to outscore Hamilton at any expense. I can understand why it was important for him to accomplish that at McLaren on a personal level but it really made him look very weak in most fans’ eyes. If he had really tried to win on the tarmac, I would have had much more respect for him. In 2012 instead of asking McLaren to support Lewis by offering his support, he stole the team’s focus into ensuring that he himself doesn’t get lapped as opposed to Hamilton lapping everyone else…

I always make soccer analogies but it seemed like a soccer player that can’t score demanding equal ball time as Messi. Why do you want equal ball time because your career is drowning? Are you trying to take Messi down with you? What did he or the fans do to you?

@freelittlebirds

In 2012 instead of asking McLaren to support Lewis by offering his support, he stole the team’s focus into ensuring that he himself doesn’t get lapped as opposed to Hamilton lapping everyone else…

Well, I don’t know how did you came to that conclusion, but for the sake of the argument lets pretend that all of that is true. I still have some questions about your opinion.

1) If the updates are working for driver A, but make driver B’s performances miserable, what is the preferable strategy? Make the car even more suited to driver A, so it would make driver B’s performances even worse, or make the car more suited to driver B, which would not affect driver A, but raise B’s performances?

2) Why are you so sour about JB not helping Lewis? Tell me, how could JB have helped him in 2012? The only way he could have helped him if he was ahead and then let Lewis through, but usually it was Hamilton who was ahead. Are you saying that those 2-3 points which he took from Lewis could have won him the WDC, or what?

Last year Hamilton was the better driver, with a lot of bad luck, Button just got screwed with the tyres as Hamilton in 2011. In 2011 Button was better because of the tyres, and he avoided Massa. In 2010 I would say they were equal, someone says that he was out of the game before Hamilton, which is true, but those people forget that Button was taken out in Monaco by a mechanic, and in Belgium by Vettel.