Why is Button always pitted first?

[Raptor22]

button is pitted first so that they have an "Issue" with Hamilton's stop and reverse the running order of their drivers.
Hamilton, like Schumacher, has far too many team induced problems for it to be overlooked as just bad luck. Its engineered

[Maelstrom]

Well Red Bull and Lotus are certainly benefitting from the mistakes. Leaders of both WDC and WCC now.

[waynes]

so are you all saying Mclaren want Button to be more succesful than the driver they nurtured from a young age and are making sure Hamilton cant beat him?

well done, the most laughable thread on F1 Technical

[raymondu999]

Which ironically are the races where Hamilton was leading.

Not in China - There was either the 1st or 2nd stop that Lewis pitted while being 1 slot behind Button on track.

[internetf1fan]

so are you all saying Mclaren want Button to be more succesful than the driver they nurtured from a young age and are making sure Hamilton cant beat him?

well done, the most laughable thread on F1 Technical

You see it all the time. No matter if Button is behind of in front of Hamilton, he always get the optimum strategies and most of the time Hamilton loses out either because he's released into traffic, or since Button pitted first, he manages to jump Hamilton.

[Maelstrom]

Which ironically are the races where Hamilton was leading.

Not in China - There was either the 1st or 2nd stop that Lewis pitted while being 1 slot behind Button on track.

What I find more alarming than them pitting Button first is their atrocious pitstops of Hamilton costing him the race. To be fair they did this to Button too.

I think a good case could be made for a conspiracy theory here.

[Raptor22]

exactly!. It's engineered to work in Jenson's favour everytime.
Lewis will probably be winning the race, an exhaust will fail and they'll instruct him to pull over 10m from the finish line because Jenson is right behind and can win with a healthy car.
And each time Lewis is ahead of Jenson, the pit crew will fumble Lewis pit stop.

[Nando]

He´s had some bad luck that´s for sure.
Not often you see a crew making life so hard for their driver in every race almost.

[GrizzleBoy]

I find it strange how the Sky guys aren't commenting on it at all.

I'd honestly like to hear what Martin Whitmarsh has to say about the performance of the McLaren pit crew.

[Nando]

What really amazes me is that he´s ahead of Button in the standings despite all of that happening to him.

Stay consistent as he says.. a bit more luck on his side and wins will come i´m sure!

[Maelstrom]

He's not going to say anything publicly. Did you guys see Hamilton shaking his head when they messed up the pitstop?

[Raptor22]

He won't say anything publicly thats for sure. But its abundantly clear who McLaren would prefer to be bringing home the silver ware.
WOuld be great to see Lewis and Schumacher in a team together where they received equal treatment.

I reckon Webber must be looking at the situation in other teams (or perhaps he did last year) and saying to himself "Well at least my car doesn't break down and the wheels stay on, and my pit crew delivers almost exacty the same time for a stop as Seb's..."
Lewis stops are on average about 0.5 slower than Jenson's and thats just the wheel change bit.

[ParanoiD]

did you mean on the first 4 races as always?

[Gerhard Berger]

an autosport forum/planet f1 - esque thread.

I suppose they messed up Jenson's final stop in China to try and cover up this obvious conspiracy?

[internetf1fan]

McLaren has screwed up all 4 of Hamilton's races through strategy calls or pit stops. When was the last race it didn't become "damage limitation" for Hamilton because McLaren screwed up. Every race it's damage limitation for Hamilton.

This has been the case since Button joined and they removed Phil Prew as Hamilton's race engineer.