Button was not waiting or anything he, like Hamilton, just did not have the pace, especially in sector 3.
McLaren seemed to be losing straight line speed, something which used to be their advantage. Is it purely becuase Renualt are now a mtach for Mercedes power-units, or is that just the way McLaren have designed this years car? Downforce at the expense of outright speed? Either way, with teh understeer issues it didn;t help much!
I think he was. Actually, I think he had a bad day all round, especially at the start, though undoubtedly the understeer was a factor in this.
The fight was pretty much the only thing to see so we got enough angles of it to tell. It was clear that onto the final straight Webber would close right up on Hamilton and drop Button. Then the rest of the lap would be spend restoring the balance. Dont think there was much any of them could have done about it.
There is no doubt if Webber had made one of the passes on Hamilton stick he would have been off in the distance. The traction the McLaren had out of turns 1 and 3 was quite impressive though. Obviously looks after its rear tyres well.
Race Best Sector Times : http://fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/kor-race-sectors.pdf Race Speed Trap : http://fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/kor-race-trap.pdf Looking at that doesn't really show us the real story but it does show us at times the pace for McLaren was there, but was on and off at different phases of the Grand Prix. That will puzzle them a lot when they have the debrief later when they have even more info than us and can see on and off pace. Maybe it was because of the Friday Wet weather that caused this, whatever it was they need to look a bit closely because I think it's more than just a simple understeer problem and that they and the others went into the race not knowing how the car would perform with 150kg of fuel onboard.
Whitmarsh has said a Jenson had damage on his car. Which hurt him trying to close on Webber at the end of the lap.
As both Ferrari drivers are not fighting for championship, why not use team orders where necessary to help the faster driver? It would help maximise points in the constructors and Alonso might have finished on the podium today.
But equally, why not use the remaining races to try and build some confidence back into Massa, so he gets more points next season? It doesn't do any harm to Alonso really, he knows he's top dog, and has faith in his abilities.
Why though? No one wants to finsihed 2nd in the WDC. Now its all over let them race. Ferrari are going to finished 3rd in the WCC so as a team they have nothing to gain. I can;t see Alonso being that bothered about whether he finished 2nd or 3rd in the WDC. He wants to win it.
Drivers are racing for pride now, more aggression is going to occur, they have nothing to lose as Vettel has already won. Inter-team battles and relationships such as in Mercedes and Mclaren as well as Ferrari are going to reach boiling point by Sao Paulo, I reckon.
Seems to have already happened at McLaren since Lewis sounds just that *tad* more aggressive towards Jenson and beating him this year.
Benson's blog is out again focusing on Hamilton : http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/10/post_3.html
