P'raps it was Max Mosley, working behind the scenes, who got him his break with Williams and Benson was referring to that.
KRAVITZ!!!! <shudder> Thank god Benson stooped short at describing his smile when he was talking about how blonde and good looking he was.
it is true that lewis has lost some race pace,but its only because he can't drive the way he used to on these tyres. so basically he has to drive slower to look after his tyres.so lewis has got slower,jenson hasnt really got faster. im sure lewis would be faster on the other tyres,but nevermind. he is currently top of the championship,despite the grid pen,so he must be doing something right. im sure the wins will come,maybe next week,we'll see.
Some quick stats: "big 5" highlighted Speed traps<style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;} </style> <table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>Cla </th><th> Nº </th><th> Driver </th><th> Km/h </th></tr> <tr><td>1</td><td>15 </td><td>Sergio Pérez</td><td>326.1</td></tr> <tr><td>2</td><td>14 </td><td>Kamui Kobayashi</td><td>322.8</td></tr> <tr><td>3</td><td>16 </td><td>Daniel Ricciardo</td><td>320.2</td></tr> <tr><td>4</td><td>17 </td><td>Jean-Eric Vergne</td><td>319.6</td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>20 </td><td>H.Kovalainen</td><td>315.4</td></tr> <tr><td>6</td><td>5 </td><td>Fernando Alonso</td><td>315.0</td></tr> <tr><td>7</td><td>10 </td><td>Romain Grosjean</td><td>314.9</td></tr> <tr><td>8</td><td>9 </td><td>Kimi Räikkönen</td><td>314.8</td></tr> <tr><td>9</td><td>18 </td><td>Pastor Maldonado</td><td>314.7</td></tr> <tr><td>10</td><td>19 </td><td>Bruno Senna</td><td>314.4</td></tr> <tr><td>11</td><td>12 </td><td>Nico Hülkenberg</td><td>314.1</td></tr> <tr><td>12</td><td>8 </td><td>Nico Rosberg</td><td>314.0</td></tr> <tr><td>13</td><td>11 </td><td>Paul Di Resta</td><td>313.8</td></tr> <tr><td>14</td><td>3 </td><td>Jenson Button</td><td>313.7</td></tr> <tr><td>15</td><td>4 </td><td>Lewis Hamilton</td><td>313.5</td></tr> <tr><td>16</td><td>21 </td><td>Vitaly Petrov</td><td>313.1</td></tr> <tr><td>17</td><td>1 </td><td>Sebastian Vettel</td><td>313.1</td></tr> <tr><td>18</td><td>6 </td><td>Felipe Massa</td><td>312.7</td></tr> <tr><td>19</td><td>2 </td><td>Mark Webber</td><td>312.5</td></tr> <tr><td>20</td><td>23 </td><td>N.Karthikeyan</td><td>311.0</td></tr> <tr><td>21</td><td>22 </td><td>Pedro de la Rosa</td><td>310.4</td></tr> <tr><td>22</td><td>24 </td><td>Timo Glock</td><td>307.8</td></tr> <tr><td>23</td><td>25 </td><td>Charles Pic</td><td>307.8</td></tr> <tr><td>24</td><td>7 </td><td>M.Schumacher</td><td>306.6</td></tr></table> Fastest laps<style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;} </style> <table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>Cla </th><th> Nº </th><th> Driver </th><th> Car / Engine </th><th> Time </th><th> Evol </th><th> Lap </th></tr> <tr><td>1 </td><td>8 </td><td>Nico Rosberg</td><td>Mercedes</td><td>1'43.934</td><td> </td><td>2</td></tr> <tr><td>2 </td><td>8 </td><td>Nico Rosberg</td><td>Mercedes</td><td>1'43.610</td><td>0.324</td><td>3</td></tr> <tr><td>3 </td><td>8 </td><td>Nico Rosberg</td><td>Mercedes</td><td>1'43.544</td><td>0.066</td><td>5</td></tr> <tr><td>4 </td><td>2 </td><td>Mark Webber</td><td>Red Bull/Renault</td><td>1'43.010</td><td>0.534</td><td>8</td></tr> <tr><td>5 </td><td>1 </td><td>Sebastian Vettel</td><td>Red Bull/Renault</td><td>1'42.732</td><td>0.278</td><td>11</td></tr> <tr><td>6 </td><td>3 </td><td>Jenson Button</td><td>McLaren/Mercedes</td><td>1'42.677</td><td>0.055</td><td>13</td></tr> <tr><td>7 </td><td>8 </td><td>Nico Rosberg</td><td>Mercedes</td><td>1'42.551</td><td>0.126</td><td>15</td></tr> <tr><td>8 </td><td>8 </td><td>Nico Rosberg</td><td>Mercedes</td><td>1'42.503</td><td>0.048</td><td>18</td></tr> <tr><td>9 </td><td>2 </td><td>Mark Webber</td><td>Red Bull/Renault</td><td>1'41.466</td><td>1.037</td><td>23</td></tr> <tr><td>10 </td><td>3 </td><td>Jenson Button</td><td>McLaren/Mercedes</td><td>1'41.391</td><td>0.075</td><td>26</td></tr> <tr><td>11 </td><td>17 </td><td>Jean-Eric Vergne</td><td>Toro Rosso/Ferrari</td><td>1'41.205</td><td>0.186</td><td>30</td></tr> <tr><td>12 </td><td>17 </td><td>Jean-Eric Vergne</td><td>Toro Rosso/Ferrari</td><td>1'41.104</td><td>0.101</td><td>31</td></tr> <tr><td>13 </td><td>3 </td><td>Jenson Button</td><td>McLaren/Mercedes</td><td>1'40.908</td><td>0.196</td><td>32</td></tr> <tr><td>14 </td><td>1 </td><td>Sebastian Vettel</td><td>Red Bull/Renault</td><td>1'40.601</td><td>0.307</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr><td>15 </td><td>18 </td><td>Pastor Maldonado</td><td>Williams/Renault</td><td>1'40.563</td><td>0.038</td><td>35</td></tr> <tr><td>16 </td><td>18 </td><td>Pastor Maldonado</td><td>Williams/Renault</td><td>1'40.482</td><td>0.081</td><td>36</td></tr> <tr><td>17 </td><td>14 </td><td>Kamui Kobayashi</td><td>Sauber/Ferrari</td><td>1'39.960</td><td>0.522</td><td>40</td></tr></table>
It's the name of the game, adapting to every change thown at you, no advantage lasts forever. Michelins and Mass dampers got taken away from Alonso and he got beat by a Rookie in McLaren. Lewis loses his Bridgestones, he gets beaten by Jenson and has his worse season to date. Vettel has lost his EBD and he is under pressure from Mark already in just 3 races. Yet they adapted and something new came of it.
Traffic affected a lot of drivers, but at no point did Hamilton look like he could finish ahead of Button. What makes it worse is that before the race he said "Iâve set my car up to be at its strongest in the race". Would Hamilton have done much better than Button if they both had a clear track? I'm not sure - since the second half of 2011 they've been very close in terms of outright pace, with Button arguably quicker. Maybe without the penalty he would have started and then remained ahead of Button, but then was Button qualifying time representative of his true pace? IIRC Hamilton got his best lap in at the start of Q3 whereas Button did his lap at the end of Q3 (where track temps were lower).
Ted said on his video blog that Hamilton was suffering from thermal degradation of the tyres which is why he can't extract the same pace as Button in the races.
He may have had a uber-boost in the race but even in qualifying he was only 0.7kph off the fastest McLaren. Alonso seemed unhappy with his race in general so maybe it was just a post race strop kind of comment most drivers make from time to time. Ignoring the Saubers and STRs theres very little in the speeds.