Hungary Grand Prix 2011, Hungaroring Circuit - Race 11/19

FrankJH said:
Not true at all - end of 1st and 2nd stints JB was beating Lewis hand over fist for about 5 - 10 laps
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http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page=chart&gp=859&graf=3&dr1=Lewis Hamilton&dr2=Jenson Button
so much for button beeing the wet weather man though but you can see he was clearly faster for a lot of the race.

i dont pay to much attention to them so i dont know exactly when hamiltons tyre crap started, seems like once the track was dry button came alive though.,

button faster than lewis on 36 laps
lewis faster than button on 34 laps.
 
It was the right decision to put inters on when he did (everyone was falling off the road), he was just unlucky it stopped raining when it did. Same with Webber.

I don't care what Button says. If he'd been the lead car at that time he'd have put inters on too.

The spin at the chicane was purely driver error.
 
sunama said:
Hehehe.

But even you must admit...you got lucky on this. Hamilton almost won it!

Had it been a dry race, I think Hamilton would've won. As is the norm though, when it rains, Button always seems to be able to get the better of Hamilton.
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so why was button so much slower at the first stint when the track was wet? and only faster once the track had dried
 
EVH said:
I don't care what Button says. If he'd been the lead car at that time he'd have put inters on too.
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Not at all - there are several past incidences when JB has managed to go faster than majority of others on the "wrong" tyres - like Aus last year and his first win in the Honda

At that point in the race there was never enough rain on the track for inters - being so far back at that point Alonso (and Webber) had to gamble anyway - but apart from that it could have been McLaren hedging their bets also

Remember Vettel never stopped (for inters) either so he must have been pretty comfortable - as he ~arguably~ had even more to lose than JB

I guess you know more from watching on telly than the drivers do actually being at the circuit


1) JB seemed to have a much worse 1st pit stop (from what I recall he seemed to lose a **** of a lot of time to LH in the pits (and possibly more due to traffic on the in/out lap)

2) For all we know the car setup (for JB) was geared more to a lighter car at the middle end of the race (on the harder tyres) than to the initial SS setup

3) Vettel held JB up for a few laps also which would have cost him time (cant remember which lap he got past SV)

4) Do we know that both McLaren's had the same amount of fuel ......do they always have the same amount, or does LH's more gung ho way of driving sometmes require more fuel / more economy at certain points in the race?

McLaren timings are interesting but what I would really like to see are when each individual driver set fastest laps (at the time) through out the race - I know both drivers had a few of these through the race
 
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EVH said:
It was the right decision to put inters on when he did (everyone was falling off the road), he was just unlucky it stopped raining when it did. Same with Webber.

I don't care what Button says. If he'd been the lead car at that time he'd have put inters on too.

The spin at the chicane was purely driver error.
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Yep the only reason I think he didn't go to inters was because Lewis passed him and they would have to stack up. It was fortunate for him that Lewis was leading and the 'team' made the wrong call. A good moment to be 2nd to your team mate.

Even when asked on the forum you could see Button knew he was going to come in for inters but then had a laugh about it being another could team decision.
 
arknor said:
so why was button so much slower at the first stint when the track was wet? and only faster once the track had dried
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Nobody says Button is faster in the wet, they say he deals with changeable conditions better than others, and is better on the "Wrong" tyres.

We get it., you don't rate Button, for the most part, he isn't as good as Lewis, but sometimes he does better, and as a massive chunk of his wins are in changeable conditions, it takes a blind man not to see it.

PS. Laptimes are a list of numbers and make no reference to traffic or other incidents such as yellow flags.
 
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Setroc said:
I still dont understand how the hard tyre was faster than the soft tyre
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Me neither.

I think Mclaren and Ferrari put Alonso and Hamilton on the super soft on the basis that it would be ~1 sec faster than those on the harder tyre. If thiswas the case then Hamilton and Alonso would have been well out in the lead as this was with 27 laps to go (27 seconds gained - approx 20 sec for a stop).

For some reason Vettel,Button and Webber were going faster than Hamilton and Alonso?
 
The track was green after the rain, meaning that the wear rate on the option tyres was much higher than seen in the practice sessions. Initially, the option tyre was faster and Hamilton extended his lead over Button (back up to around eight seconds), however this then started to come down again a few laps in to the stint as the primes got up to temperature and started to yield the grip whilst the options just got worse and worse.
 
Dr Who said:
We get it., you don't rate Button, for the most part, he isn't as good as Lewis, but sometimes he does better, and as a massive chunk of his wins are in changeable conditions, it takes a blind man not to see it.
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I was beginning to think that I was the only one who was noticing the pattern of Button's wins (in a McLaren) all coming from wet/damp races.

I can't believe that people still argue that Button isn't that great in the wet, when the statistics show otherwise.
 
sunama said:
I was beginning to think that I was the only one who was noticing the pattern of Button's wins (in a McLaren) all coming from wet/damp races.

I can't believe that people still argue that Button isn't that great in the wet, when the statistics show otherwise.
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Because in the WET Hamilton is faster than him as shown yesterday. Button had one look into turn one on inters and then Hamilton controlled the race.

Hamilton was faster than him in the WET at Canada by quite a margain until they came together.

Hamilton was faster than him in the WET at Autralia in 2010.

China 2010 I cannot remember exactly what happened on pace between the two in the wet.

They got the calls right fair play but in the wet or on slicks in the damp I think it's unfair to say Button is faster than Hamilton. Hamilton had no problems passing him any time they have been wheel to wheel in these conditions.
 
In general, Hamilton is the faster driver, in all conditions, HOWEVER, when it comes to actually completing the entire race in the shortest time...Button tends to be faster. Button tends to be more "intelligent" in his tyre management and strategy, while Hamilton drives balls-to-the-wall, which seems to work well in the dry, but not so well in wet/dry races.

IIRC all of Button's 5 wins for McLaren have come in damp/wet conditions and not a single win in the dry.

By the way...surely the title race is over now. Vettel is not winning races, but he isn't finishing low enough down the field. On top of which a different driver is winning each race. I was hoping that yesterday, either Alonso or Hamilton would win, to close the title gap...alas, this didn't happen and Vettel opened up an even bigger gap. :(
 
Button isn't "great" in the wet at all. That's just a false image and ego that's being built up for him by the media.

Button is a plucky and lucky in damp/wet races. He is rarely "fast" in such conditions. He is more "reliable" than he is "fast". He drives well within both his own and the car's limits. He waits for others in front to make mistakes (whether driving errors or strategic, like them being on the wrong tyres or having too badly worn a set of tyres etc) and inherits their positions.

Oddly, Hamilton made all 3 errors that Button pounces upon in those conditions. He was driving on worn super softs tyres, he made a driving mistake mostly as a result of the worn tyres, and then to top it off he fitted a blatantly misguided set of inters. Button probably could not believe his level of luck, on his 200th GP.
 
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Okay...so you are arguing that he got lucky in this GP.
What about the other 4 wet race which he won for McLaren? Are they also down to luck?
And more importantly why is he not getting "lucky" in the dry races?
 
dannyjo22 said:
Hamilton had no problems passing him any time they have been wheel to wheel in these conditions.
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I'm starting to think Button doesn't really care any more in these situations. He puts up a token fight to make it look like he isn't a push over but then once things are too tight he just lets him go. It's like "I'll just let him go and I'll get him back later once he's crashed or spun" ;)

I honestly think the incident in Canada was brought about by Jenson trying to keep up appearances of fighting when really he just secretly wanted to let Lewis pass. Unfortunately when you're only "half fighting" you are probably also only "half thinking" as well. Hence the incident.
 
sunama said:
Okay...so you are arguing that he got lucky in this GP.
What about the other 4 wet race which he won for McLaren? Are they also down to luck?
And more importantly why is he not getting "lucky" in the dry races?
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I'm not one of those blind idiots that is just arguing "haaah Jenson got lucky, again."

You make your own luck and that is what I am saying. Jenson made his luck by biding his time in this race.

He wouldn't have won in Canada if there wasn't the incident with his team mate. Which was blatantly a 50/50 incident. The McLaren had extra wing on and was so obviously going to win anyway in those conditions. And since Hamilton is faster than him on raw pace in the wet then it's obvious what the outcome would have been.

Australia 2010 he was going backwards. Made a huge gamble on some inters. Slid straight off. Vettel crashed from brake failure. Inherited the win.

China 2010 he won by bunching up the field behind the SC so tightly that everyone almost crashed into each other at the bottom of Turn 1. Amazingly he didn't get penalised!
 
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