The curious case of Jenson Button

[PlatinumZealot]

Agree, Hamilton was crashing like a fool and burning out his tyres like nothing in the races but he was never slow.

[clarkiesyeah]

Here are Alguersuaris thoughts on "Baffling Button":

He has said he is confused about what is going wrong, but I believe one of the problems is that he is misinterpreting the problems he is having with the tyres. At the Spanish Grand Prix, he said over the team radio that he had problems getting the tyres to warm-up, especially on the hard compound. The cars are sliding more this year because some aerodynamic aids have been banned. And in fact, he was misinterpreting the feeling - he was actually suffering from tyre over-heating.
So all the changes McLaren made for Saturday were aimed at curing the wrong problem - and made the problem they had worse.

I'm not sure i'm buying that..

[beelsebob]

Here are Alguersuaris thoughts on "Baffling Button":

He has said he is confused about what is going wrong, but I believe one of the problems is that he is misinterpreting the problems he is having with the tyres. At the Spanish Grand Prix, he said over the team radio that he had problems getting the tyres to warm-up, especially on the hard compound. The cars are sliding more this year because some aerodynamic aids have been banned. And in fact, he was misinterpreting the feeling - he was actually suffering from tyre over-heating.
So all the changes McLaren made for Saturday were aimed at curing the wrong problem - and made the problem they had worse.

I'm not sure i'm buying that..

I don't buy it – I'm pretty sure McLaren know what temperature their tyres are.

[bhall]

Is it possible that his tires were just constantly graining?

[clarkiesyeah]

Button to copy Hamiltons setup for Valencia...

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/new ... n-s-set-up

This will be interesting to see. It shows Sam Michael's PR cover story was just that. They are still as lost as they have been for the past three races.

[beelsebob]

Button to copy Hamiltons setup for Valencia...

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/new ... n-s-set-up

This will be interesting to see. It shows Sam Michael's PR cover story was just that. They are still as lost as they have been for the past three races.

Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen – he simply won't be able to drive it!

[Just_a_fan]

It'll be interesting if, on Lewis' settings, he's as quick as Lewis is ...

[marcush.]

the blabla on setups we have heard is just staggering .

We have heard MGP talking about Rosberg and Michael on similar setups and simular needs for the setup and now the same with button and hamilton who have really diametral opposing driving styles.

If the setup has no impact on performance in relevance to driving style -than it was complete suicide for Button to rely on untested guésstimates for the last race as obviously Hamiltons machine did not eat the tyres and it had speed....
Sometimes I really have my doubts about alll those boffins in F1..Maybe the correlation of their brains to what is actually happening on track or their perception of what is important and what is not is just non existant in reality...

[clarkiesyeah]

Here's a little more on Mclarens plans this weekend visa vis Buttons setup, i really don't know if i like the sound of this
Gray Matter: Can Hamilton help Button?
...With the standard set-ups for Button and Hamilton apparently having deviated away from each other, the support between the two garages is very limited - so McLaren now appears to be looking to steer a more collaborative direction.

By pooling resources between the two garages in Valencia this weekend, they hope to get a more converged car set-up that performs well for both drivers.

This could provide significant benefit — as it effectively doubles the amount of time the team has to work towards set-up on the Friday — but it needs both sides of the garage to be happy to take a steer from each other's findings.

It's generally recognised that McLaren has the best car on the grid — but with only one driver on form, they risk throwing away the potential of a strong constructors' crown.

If Hamilton and his engineers can be convinced to help Button recover for the good of the team, then McLaren could rise to the top as the season heads towards a crucial point.

link to full article... http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/wil ... 22565.html

[GrizzleBoy]

Well it sounds like a lot of compromising.

[clarkiesyeah]

The saga continues. Admittedly, things were a lot closer all weekend twixt the two mclaren boys. Yet again, in Q3, Lewis drags an extra couple of tenths out of the car. In the press conference he mentioned making some last minute setup "guesses" which just happened to be in the right direction. Have Lewis and his engineer got a setup they are keeping secret until the last minute? Or is this just the natural order of things?

[GrizzleBoy]

The saga continues. Admittedly, things were a lot closer all weekend twixt the two mclaren boys. Yet again, in Q3, Lewis drags an extra couple of tenths out of the car. In the press conference he mentioned making some last minute setup "guesses" which just happened to be in the right direction. Have Lewis and his engineer got a setup they are keeping secret until the last minute? Or is this just the natural order of things?

Well the whole thing with that article above is that they were changing the way they went about practice in terms of using both cars to come provide an overall or shared setup as the weekend progresses.

Probably as opposed to both drivers just going out and setting up their cars as they see fit as the weekend goes on, basically limiting the performance of one driver based on the best of what the other can do, even if its not to their benefit.

Lewis commented yesterday about how he felt the fridays that usually go smoothly were more difficult than usual, possibly due to this "compromise" that I called it a few posts ago.

Who knows tbh, its not like this difference in performance is something new.

[wesley123]

The saga continues. Admittedly, things were a lot closer all weekend twixt the two mclaren boys. Yet again, in Q3, Lewis drags an extra couple of tenths out of the car. In the press conference he mentioned making some last minute setup "guesses" which just happened to be in the right direction. Have Lewis and his engineer got a setup they are keeping secret until the last minute? Or is this just the natural order of things?

I think it is quite possible of Hamilton hiding his setup.

If you were in his position I dont think you'd like it if you have to drive a slower setup just because your team mate sucks? That already is something to get angry about yet he is still smiling. I havent even named the chance Hamilton has to become WDC. His team is pretty much throwing Hamiltons chance at WDC away just to 'equalize' things within the team, much like happened to Kubica in 2008.

I will add another thing to this which is a bit off topic; Hamilton will leave this team as soon as his contract ends.

[PlatinumZealot]

He can't hide anything when all the data is accessible to both sides of the garage. The teams are limited to what they can change in qualifying too. Even if Hamilton was holding back, why should Button be spoon-fed?

It is all in Button's head.

[clarkiesyeah]

Lewis is sounding a tad annoyed, i just came across this on F1SA:
Lewis Hamilton's expression gave little away as Formula One insiders wondered if he is happy or unhappy about the current situation inside McLaren.
He is the sport's latest winner and the new World Championship leader, but he described as merely "interesting" the recent realisation his engineers were giving away the game to struggling team-mate Jenson Button's side of the garage.
So lost was Button after being lapped by Hamilton in Canada that McLaren decided the only course of action was to get the two sides of engineers together.
"I went to the factory last week (and) I saw all the top engineers together on one table," Hamilton told reporters at Valencia.
"They had all of my data out, lap by lap, noting all the things I did differently to Jenson to try to understand things. So he has absolutely every detail of what I'm doing differently.
"So I'm sure we'll see a difference this weekend," he said.
It was hard to tell if the 2008 World Champion was proud he was finally back on top of his highly rated team-mate, or piqued that his speedy secrets were the subject of internal espionage.
When pointed out that Button sounds more confident now, Hamilton answered quickly: "I'm sure he does... There's been a lot of work that's gone on with his car."

But surely it's a good feeling for Hamilton to know he's so on top of his game at present that a fellow World Champion is having to copy his approach?

"Not really," the 27 year old insisted. "Personally, I prefer the olden days where they didn't have all that data logging and it was down to the driver. Now it makes it a lot easier."