The Button Question?

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Bit of a similar posts to others, but....

If you had to name just a few of Hamilton's strengths in laymen terms I would name late braking as one of them. If the car has a problem in this area which is drastically effecting button then its possible that Hamilton is able to gloss over this in his car due to often being closer to the lock up limit anyway, its part of his style. All the top drivers will be very closely matched but in a sport where 1000th's matter a tiny difference in braking style could well have a huge effect.

Drivers don't go bad in a matter of months for no reason so there has to be something on the car thats not to Buttons liking, and that something must be in a area that Hamilton excels in (I'd imagine)
 
Button's problem started in Barcelona which is when Mclaren changed their nose, surely that must have something to do with it.
 
you know what i think it is?
last season because of the tyres lewis was having to drive quite abit slower than he is capable of to look after the tyres.
whereas jenson was able to push a little bit harder during races because of his smoother style being better on the tyres.
this made it look like jenson was just as quick,if not quicker.
but in quali last season lewis was often quicker than jenson,because he was able to go flat out.
he wasnt able to do that during races,so all of a sudden jenson looked quicker at times.
but how can you go from being faster in quali to slower in the race,i mean if your faster your faster.unless you have to drive slower for some reason.
this season jenson started it full of confidence,lewis started in low on confidence.plus i think lewis thought the tyres were exactly like last seasons,so button put in a better performance than lewis in aus.but as the seasons gone on lewis has grown in confidence and is starting to see more and more that these tyres allow you to push harder than last seasons tyres,so now we are starting to see lewis's pace return during races.and because he knew he could push harder in canada we saw the old lewis return the lewis who nails it every lap setting purples,not the lewis of last season.this must be worrying jenson,especially when you consider how tight quali and races are this season.jensons first crash of the season happened because he panicked when lewis came out of the pits right behind him(because of another slow pitstop by mclaren)and then tried that overtake to quickly and took himself out the game.even if jenson sorts himself out,he wont beat lewis in this form
 
El_Bando said:
What are McLaren doing to help Button this year?

I think this pretty much prooves the car was not built round him for this season
Click to expand...

What are they doing to hinder him? What could McLAren do to help BUtton? its been a disaster for 3 races now and neither side seem to be able to find a fix.

What proof is there the car was built for one driver or the other?

Button is just struggling for a bit, like he did at Brawn mid-09. If the car is not spot on he does take time to find the cure.
 
cosicave said:
That is not what I was responding to.
My reply was to the suggestion that Button's and Massa's relative values to their respective teams is comparable –which, as I have made clear above, I disagree with. Besides, your assertion about Alonso is continually thrown into doubt by Alonso himself, who fears Hamilton more than anyone else on the grid. He sometimes appears virtually obsessed by the only driver who's beaten him over an F1 season.
Click to expand...

sea-man said:
Technically Tarso Marques beat him. Alonso's been beaten twice.
Click to expand...


Trulli was also beating him in 2004 when he left Renault.
 
sea-man said:
I would have thought Monza defined circuits requiring heavy breaking?
Click to expand...
You're right, Sea-Man; but its nature is different. I was trying to keep my post reasonably simple but you are right to pick me up on this.
Carbon brakes only perform well when above about 650˚ (and perform rather poorly below about 425˚). Getting them up quickly above 650˚, and then being consistent is not something Button excels at, for essentially the same reason his tyres run cooler. And it is when he is trying to do this unnatural (to him) thing that he can experience problems with both. I'm in danger of going into complications I wanted to avoid, so I really should have left Monza out of that post. (Ughh… silly me)… Carbon-carbon (discs and pads) brakes lack 'feel' when compared to steel or iron discs with their metal-sintered pads: they 'bite' very suddenly but the bite itself varies hugely according to the temperature they are running at. Thus, it is a particular art which Button's style does not naturally lend itself to.

You can probably detect that this is going beyond only brakes now and is a progressively complicated explanation. My apologies; but when reading the next paragraph, it is important to bear in mind the implications which go beyond simple brake demand, but also the importance of 'feel' and consistency –vital parts of Button's armoury.

Monza has one point of mega-heavy braking but also has a lap which is roughly a mile longer than Montreal, giving the brakes and driver a bit more time to recover. Downforce levels are roughly 20% less too, which makes brake ducting far easier, thus increasing their cooling. However, it is true that the entry to Turn 1 at Monza makes the biggest single demand upon brakes of any corner of any circuit on the calendar. This is because it is at the end of the straight with the highest speed, exacerbated by running the least downforce (high downforce aids braking). Conversely, Valencia's longer lap than Montreal has five points of very heavy braking, interspersed with other bits to keep on the boil and very little time for a rest (as compared to Monza), with higher levels of downforce. One of the biggest demands upon brakes occurs when recovery time is reduced, which is not so much the case at Monza, which is part of the reason I feel he will do better there. (There are other factors but I do not want to write a book here).


sea-man said:
Technically Tarso Marques beat him. Alonso's been beaten twice.
Click to expand...
Thanks Sea-Man: I stand corrected! However, my point was that Alonso fears Hamilton more than anyone else, in my opinion.



ErnieBecclestone said:
Perhaps Jenson, had better hot foot his McLaren down to Kwik Fit get a set of new discs and pads, and whils't he's there, put on a set of Goodyears.
Click to expand...
Ha! You may be closer to the truth than might be suspected Ernie! Button has always preferred the 'softness' of non-carbon discs, and has sometimes run a quite different, more 'forgiving' brake set-up when Hamilton is running the most severe! Again, this is a natural consequence of the difference in style.



Nazara said:
Trulli was also beating him in 2004 when he left Renault.
Click to expand...
I stand corrected again! Thanks Naz. I think it was a shame Trulli did not appeal to Briatore in the manner of Alonso and Schumacher; but I think it should be said that he was more the 'established' driver at the time, and Alonso was the relative newcomer making his mark, without being expected to outperform a team-mate. More to the point: he did not fear Trulli as he does Hamilton.
 
I couldn't help but think what if Schumacher started this season in Buttons seat. No1 in the standings.
 
cosicave said:
I really don't think there's a lot to choose between their cars and McLaren seem equally adept at creating difficulty for their drivers.
Click to expand...

I think Mclaren are more complete in the calender than Mercedes this season, but you are right about creating difficulties.
 
EternalMSC said:
I couldn't help but think what if Schumacher started this season in Buttons seat. No1 in the standings.
Click to expand...

Because Button has had no bad luck at all?

1) Depending on your interpretation, hitting Karthikeyan in Malaysia
2) fluffed pitstop in China
3) DNF and fluffed pitstop in Bahrain
4) Depending on your interpretation, ending up stuck behind one driver or another for the entirety of Monaco
 
It's time for James Allen to come up with ideas, What’s happened to Jenson Button’s form?/

.... The problem, as always in F1, is not one thing. Button has struggled recently with this generation of Pirelli tyres to get heat into the front tyres, especially for qualifying. He has lost the “feeling”. McLaren runs its car very stiff at the front for aerodynamic reasons. Button has tried on several occasions using different brake materials, partly to generate more temperature from inside the wheel, as he did again in Montreal. But in trying to solve this front grip issue, his set up has moved away from the planted rear end of the car which his driving style requires.

Last year’s cars, with their exhaust blown diffusers, generated huge amounts of rear end downforce which gave Button the stable rear end he needs. This year’s F1 cars, without the EBD, move around a lot at the back, which Hamilton can live with but Button can’t. The McLaren seemed in winter testing and in the opening races to be reasonably strong at the rear relative to the others in this area, certainly enough for Button to feel good with it in February and March. But perhaps the development of the car since then has taken it away from what works for him. In Montreal he was particularly unlucky that some new directions he was trying out, including in rear suspension didn’t get the long run testing they needed on Friday as he lost most of the day with a drawn-out oil leak and gearbox change saga. So his problem with heavy tyre usage didn’t really show itself until race day, where he suffered high degradation. ....
Click to expand...

A rear end that likes to move around, another one of Hamiltons strong points I guess (and yes I can see the innuendo in that comment :) )
 
Some of these comments seem to make me think that the first few races of the season, where Jenson had greater pace than Lewis in races on Pirelle tyres, didn't really happen and were all figments of my imagination.

How McLaren have adapted the car to work with the Pirelli tyres (that seems to suite Lewis down to the ground) appears to be the problem. Since the circus returned to Europe and the first big update came along, Jenson went from winning Australia and having a good chance of winning in China (before the final pitstop) to being pretty far off of the pace of Lewis, while Lewis has gone from a strong but not spectacular also ran to race winning pace.
 
EternalMSC said:
Haha, both have massively different driving styles your right haha, both of us are going through tough times.
At the end of the storm, the sun always comes out.
Click to expand...

As it used to shine out of his arse, I guess it will have to come from somewhere else...........
 
Thanks Cosicave, yet another interesting read there.

I had indeed not thought about braking materials and recovery times, just long straights and heavy braking.

I guess thats why Singapore is the worst on brakes, kind of heavy breaking zones at turns 1, 7, 10 and 14 with continual minor breaking for the rest of the lap with no recovery time. Combined with high temperature, high humidity and a 2 hour race.
 
To be frank, that stinks. RBR exploited the tolerences to create a flexi-wing, I'm not old enough to remember 'water cooled brakes', but no one can say that wasn't an exploit. F1 is littered with exploits, that's part of the game, so why can't McLaren?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back