Button says strategy was too aggressive

2014 German Grand Prix

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Jenson Button said eighth place in the German Grand Prix was “disappointing” and felt his strategy was too aggressive.

“I think we pitted way too early in the second stop,” said the McLaren driver. “Aggressive strategy but to do 37 laps on that set of tyres at the end I think was always going to be very difficult.”

Button dodged the first-corner collision between team mate Kevin Magnussen and Felipe Massa, moving up several places before slipping back later in the race.

One of the drivers to pass him was Lewis Hamilton, who clashed with the McLaren at the Spitzkehre. Button blamed Hamilton for the collision, which the Mercedes driver accepted was his fault.

“He drove into my rear wheel,” said Button. “That’s all I’ve got to say, I don’t know much else about it.”

“I guess he thought I was going to let him past but I’m out there doing my race. It’d make it boring if we all let him past when he’s coming through the field.”

2014 German Grand Prix

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Image © McLaren/LAT

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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11 comments on “Button says strategy was too aggressive”

  1. The strategy to open up a corner to someone then cutting them off at the apex? Yeah, it was too agressive ;]

    Funny how hes changed his tune now, in previous races, as Lewis said, he’s let him past without much of a fight, its how Jenson normally races, uses his head and realise that fighting a car thats on a whole other level is pointless.

    No one else find it odd that his mind-set has suddenly changed regarding this inncident?

    My guess his he misjudged it but dosnt wanna come out and say “sorry i messed up in letting someone by”

  2. and McLaren messes up Jenson’s race strategy, AGAIN…. What else is new…sm

    1. That’s how it works yes. When, on a rare occasion, a strategy gamble works it’s Button’s “brilliance” and all the other times times when it fails, it’s McLaren “messing up the strategy”.

    2. I had the impression Buttons relatively early stop was at least partly a reaction to Hamilton driving into him (making sure his tyres were not damaged in it).
      But maybe they just messed up, wouldn’t be the first time in the last 5 years the team got strategy wrong.

      1. Oh yes that was why he had to pit early. But then they chose not to pit him again…. They could have pitted him with RIC(when he was racing him) but they chose not to and he started losing 3-4 second A LAP….. He could have easily finished 6th.

        1. @lexblair @bascb

          I’m not sure if he would have finished sixth, but I do agree, that they could have pitted him 13-14 laps to go. You dont have to be a genius to see that Kevin was losing 1-1.5 sec a lap on old primes compared to others on new primes. 18-20 laps to go, Jenson had almost a pitstop advantage to Hulkemberg, who was trying to fend off Ricciardo, they should have put him on options for the last 15 laps to give him a chance to fight back.

          But I dont think that was intentional, the problem with this weekend was that McLaren gave Button a new race engineer midseason (I know he was his PE before) and they gave him the new rearwing to evaluate only for FP3.

          I mean if they want to mess with him, this was the perfect way to go, but they should have given him the new wing for the whole weekend or not at all. Or if they wanted to pull this off, they should have made damn sure that the man responsible for applying Button’s feedback to the car was someone who could understand him from muttered half words.

  3. Buttons to do list:
    Drive F1 cars
    Complain of understeer
    Talk to Natalie Pinkham
    Jessica.
    Talk about Lewis Hamilton.

    Repeat every week until 36, then take up punditry

    1. It’s a plan of sorts at least :-)

    2. Hey Michael C, you forgot one thing in between steps one and two: Set the car up for understeer before complaining about understeer

    3. let us use the same interpetation as Hamilton fans (often rightly) uses on his statements on this one from Button: If a reporter asks him about a race incident that severily affected the outcome for (at least) one driver, then is he supposed to say “no comment” or say that it was a shunt that happened and then move on?

  4. It’s about time that Button and the team start being aggresive though since Lewis has left the team doesn’t seem like it has a leader. It can be argued that the car itself isn’t good enough, that much is clear but Button nor K-mag seem to be born leaders or aggressive. The strategy was optimised to get the best possible result not to make the car comfortable.

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