Yes. He came across as happy with the result and the teams performance over the weekend and didn;t rue the missed podium. I'm sure it will get twisted to be arrogant, self congratulatory etc etc
I'd love to see it. I surprised myself yesterday, finding myself rooting for him but I did seriously wonder if he might be in a strop for missing the podium; I mean, he does have previous! If he turns out to be better than we thought, I'll be pleased for him but I'm not keen on arrogance and his past propensity for expressing his superiority to his team was not very attractive, IMO.
Was on the beeb's highlights show. I was more struck by the bitterness shown by Jenson towards Perez. Don;t think he was particularly happy about having his arse handed to him by 'Checo'.
The way Jenson ran out suddenly to join Whitmarsh for an interview on Sky was very telling to me. It appeared that he knew he'd made a fool of himself and was trying to limit the damage to his image caused by the radio transmissions we had all heard. I can understand that it would be hard to take, especially as it was the first time and he probably didn't expect it, but Pérez went way up in my estimation yesterday and Jenson just made himself look a bit old and bitter.
Just as I was warming to Jenson again he had to have a bit of a moan about Perez. Fair enough it was aggressive stuff but what Perez was doing down the straights did not seem any worse than what Webber was doing when battling with Hamilton. And for Jenson to complain about 'aggressive' moves when racing against a team mate is slightly hypocritical considering what happened at Canada in 2011.
Great stuff! The photo was brilliant. Seriously though, kudos to Whitmarsh for letting them race and for his responses afterwards.
Autosports driver ratings: Vettel: 10 Webber: 6 Alonso: 9 Massa: 5 Button: 5 Perez: 8 Kimi: 8 Grosjean: 8 Rosberg: 8 Hamilton: 8 Hulk: 6 Gutierrez: 5 di Resta: 9 Sutil: 7 Maldonado: 7 Bottas: 6 Vergne: 4 Ricciardo: 6 Pic: 8 Van der Garde: 6 Bianchi: 7 Chilton: 7
Perez was clearly the faster driver and to me Jenson was telling Mclaren to make him hold position. If Perez continues this form throughout the season then I can see him beating Button. As I have said since Australia.
the joint 8 score for nico and lewis doesnt make any sense.nico did battle well,but at the same time it was a foolish thing to do.i would say the same if lewis did it too.you cant get a 8 after starting on pole and finishing 9th,which is where his team mate started. so i would score it 5-nico 8-lewis. the perez vs button battle was great to watch.i think button is just mad because perez got the better of him. button should of just said"perez got me this time"but hopefully next time i'll get the the better of him"
Rosberg -Nobody gave Rosberg much thought heading into Q3, leading to much headscratching when he stuck his Mercedes on pole. Quite simply, he had driven a brilliant lap, not taking too much out of the tyres early on and banging in the best time in all three sectors. The race was always going to be tough, but Rosberg was robust in battle. That played its part in him having to stop four times, which was ultimately an unintended consequence of his superb Saturday lap. Hamilton -Headed into qualifying knowing he faced a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change, but a scruffy Q3 lap didn't do the best job of mitigating his losses. Was utterly anonymous for much of the race, but this was largely down to his playing the long-game effectively, pulling off a three-stopper that his team-mate could not. This put him in the position to attack Webber for fifth late on, a place he snatched on the last lap.
Grosjean deserved a 9. The ground he made and many clean overtakes to get 3rd I would have loved to have seen Paul on the podium though just so hear him mutter about the old days when he beat Vettel in F3
Nothing happened in Canada 2011. Button was obviously super aggressive taking the racing line like that. You're being stupid if you think he closed Lewis off deliberately. JB went overboard with his comments, but he was frustrated and Checo hitting the back of his car was never going to get a good reaction. He'll calm down and racing drivers have said worse about each other. Presumably you were pissed off at Hamilton & Raikkonen for criticising Perez's aggressive driving in China? He was faster, not sure about clearly given that when Perez jumped him in the stops Button was able to pass him, but obviously Perez had the better race and in sharp contrast to the last race looked after the tyres better as well. Kudos, but it is still 4-0 in Qualifying, 3-1 in the races, and Bahrain has never been a strong track of Jensons. Only as good as your last race i guess. I'm not going to start panicking just yet...
It's funny what people are saying about Di Resta, he seemed a bit deflated to me and seemed to be trying too hard to be positive, I guess he thought he had the podium and to miss out on it hurt a bit, he had a good race though. In fact the whole race was great, it's a shame the fighting that went on wasn't at the front after the first few laps, but you can't have everything. Loved watching Perez, don't think he did much wrong except the tap, which helps understand Button having a bit of moan, a bit harder could've ended both races, although 'dangerous' is a bit far.
It's funny how people say di Resta was good only when Sutil is taken out. After the first round of stops Sutil was over a minute behind him and finished 50 seconds behind him, Sutil could have got the podium and only 0.011 behind in qualifying on di Resta's best track.. Sutil has just been stupidly unlucky since Malaysia.
Yeah Button was the faster driver up to and including this point of the race. Perez was fortunate at the stops in that McLaren were trying to cover Rosberg and inadvertently gave him the jump on JB. Button then reeled him in pretty quickly and passed, and then the way I saw it was that Button was slightly faster but Perez was able to hang in and attack thanks to the two DRS zones. I can understand Button getting frustrated, I'd be the same if I felt I was faster than someone but couldn't shake them because of a gimmick, especially if they then ran into the back of me. That said Perez came on stronger as the race went on and undoubtedly had the better of Button this weekend.
Why should he effectively lose marks for his own brilliance on Saturday? He outqualified arguably the fastest driver by over 4/10ths, and went backwards in a race he started from pole in what was perhaps the fifth fastest car in the race.
Bearing in mind eveyone came in their pants when Sutil lead in Australia then faded to finish only just ahead of di Resta, I'd say di Resta's performance was just as good (he lead after all which had you all foaming at the mouth for Sutil) and he finsihed higher up. All i see is you making excuses for Sutil.
