Why is Button always pitted first?

[internetf1fan]

Whatever happened to leader pits first? Does it go out the Window whenever Button is concerned? It's like McLaren tries hardest to ruin Hamilton's race while helping out Button get infront of Hamilton at every opportunity.

[Hail22]

Have to wait til after the race, with the political tension, plus this race it seems Karma is starting to nip at everyones heels. Althought I may be wrong, I feel bad for Hamilton.

[internetf1fan]

Yap, Whitmarsh got a dose of karma. They are always giving Button the optimum strategies no matter if he's leading Hamilton or not.

[raymondu999]

I'm not sure that's true to be honest. LH got an earlier pitstop at some phase of the last race - don't remember which stop though. Button was somewhat surprised.

[GrizzleBoy]

It's actually funny because it's bit them in the ass on more than one occasion.

They pit Button first in Malaysia and gave Button track position over Hamilton, only for Button to drive straight into Karthikeyan.

This time they released Button into clean air and put Hamilton behind traffic again, as well as royally screwing up his pit stops, and Button doesn't even get to finish the race.

[internetf1fan]

I'm not sure that's true to be honest. LH got an earlier pitstop at some phase of the last race - don't remember which stop though. Button was somewhat surprised.

I remember in one of the earlier races Lewis was left out on worn tires losing time and he wasn't pitted in because Button who was in front of him hadn't come into pits yet. Hamilton lost a few places because of this. It's clear that Button always gets the optimum strategies while Hamilton has to fight all the time after his team constantly mess his strategy up.

[internetf1fan]

It's actually funny because it's bit them in the ass on more than one occasion.

They pit Button first in Malaysia and gave Button track position over Hamilton, only for Button to drive straight into Karthikeyan.

This time they released Button into clean air and put Hamilton behind traffic again, as well as royally screwing up his pit stops, and Button doesn't even get to finish the race.

Yep, that's exactly what I mean. Button always gets the best strategy no matter if he's leading or not. It's like they do their best so that he can jump Hamilton at every possible moment.

[Giblet]

Whatever happened to leader pits first?

It's never been the leader who gets to pit first, it's the leader who gets first choice of strategy.

Often they will choose to pit first more often than not, but it's not automatic.

If Hamilton and his side of the garage wanted to pit first, they would have.

[internetf1fan]

Whatever happened to leader pits first?

It's never been the leader who gets to pit first, it's the leader who gets first choice of strategy.

Often they will choose to pit first more often than not, but it's not automatic.

If Hamilton and his side of the garage wanted to pit first, they would have.

So if the leader doesn't want to pit, then they should let Hamilton pit. I remember in one of the previous race they left out Hamilton on worn tires losing a lot of time just because Button didn't want to pit yet. Hamilton lost a lot of time.

[Giblet]

Hamilton lost a lot of time, but his pit stop was not stolen by Button as you are implying.

They both chose to stop exactly when they did.

[Giblet]

I also think part of the reason is so far is he has qualified worse, and has had less tire to start the race with as he did more laps during the quali sessions.

[raymondu999]

I'm not sure that's true to be honest. LH got an earlier pitstop at some phase of the last race - don't remember which stop though. Button was somewhat surprised.

I remember in one of the earlier races Lewis was left out on worn tires losing time and he wasn't pitted in because Button who was in front of him hadn't come into pits yet. Hamilton lost a few places because of this. It's clear that Button always gets the optimum strategies while Hamilton has to fight all the time after his team constantly mess his strategy up.

Australia - into the first stop. It's always been leader pits first for the McLarens - they've only deviated in this race and the last.

[GrizzleBoy]

I'm not sure that's true to be honest. LH got an earlier pitstop at some phase of the last race - don't remember which stop though. Button was somewhat surprised.

I remember in one of the earlier races Lewis was left out on worn tires losing time and he wasn't pitted in because Button who was in front of him hadn't come into pits yet. Hamilton lost a few places because of this. It's clear that Button always gets the optimum strategies while Hamilton has to fight all the time after his team constantly mess his strategy up.

Australia - into the first stop. It's always been leader pits first for the McLarens - they've only deviated in this race and the last.

Which ironically are the races where Hamilton was leading.

[Maelstrom]

Well one thing is for certain... McLaren definately need to up their game when it comes to race strategies and pit stops. They currently stink.

[GrizzleBoy]

Well one thing is for certain... McLaren definately need to up their game when it comes to race strategies and pit stops. They currently stink.

It's nothing new, nothing new at all.

Their pit wall/crew have been almost consistently doing their drivers out of points since last year.