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He scored the points when he could, then had to watch his rivals, with better cars and better drivers than his teammate (Vettel and Webber) closing in, whilst his own car seemingly got worse, couldn't work it's tyres, and his team didn't seem to be able to run a qualifying session. Yet he still didn't make many mistakes in the races - I think his worst slip up was probably outbraking himself a couple of times in passing moves. Hamilton, when the pressure was on, could barely get through the first turn without crashing into everyone, yet Jenson can, with a championship on the line, drive like he did yesterday. Lewis has, I think matured since then, but he's now not showing that spark everyone seemed to see in 07 and 08.
Quote from tristancliffe :Driving like a clown. Look at the beginning of this year?

And you dare call me a tit!!!

OK, so let's look at the beginning of Ham' season shall we

Round 1 - 3rd (until Macca when mental)
Round 2 - 7th
Round 3 - 6th
Round 4 - 4th


He was one of only 3-4 drivers who scored points in the first 4 GPs in a car at the time which had HUGE aerodynamical flaws, and that's somehow bad? Even in aero dependant Spain he was 1 place away from another points finish!
Quote from BlueFlame :Jenson has deserved this championship for all the other good drives he has had in the past that evolved to nothing because the car was shit or they were using fuel tanks as ballast and not following the rules.

It's amasing who two people can look at the same career and come to such allarmingly different conclusions. It was only after the fact that - inspite of having a really good car, Button ALSO drove well at the start of the season that I could bring myself to acknowledge he had any skill at all, tbh, for years now i've been wondering why the man even had a place on the grid. If we are to take Buttons previous performance as a factor for this years championship then we'd be crowning Barichello the triple champion...

Quote from 5haz :So what if Button was lucky, you need luck to get anywhere in motor racing, and in life in general.

Yes true, also please don't be thinking i'm just attributing his title to luck - far from it. He did very well in the first half of the season, when the car was right - the second half he's survived on luck. What makes a champion is being able to deliver in all sorts of different circumstances and it's my view that Jensen hasn't done this. At times he's been good, and at others he really has not. He is very lucky to be champion, because in most other years he'd have not held the crown away by making such a hash of it in so many qualifying sessions. The boy must have a wallet full of Lepricorns.

Quote from BlueFlame :So Mercedes and Ferrari are now British are they? Audi and Peugeot in Le-mans are now British? Porsche's unbeatable list of Le-mans victories, hmm must be a british conspiracy as to why they won right?

Merc's get their high performance cars built in the UK and their engines are made by Ilmor, in the UK. Britain doesn't dominate motorsport, but as a nation we're certainly strong in most formulae, we have a huge specialist motorsports industry and British F3 is still a popular pedastal into the higher formula. We also have more F1 champion drivers still competing than everyone else...

Yet for some reason half the country preffers to cheer on the football team which last won anything in 1966, and take every opportunity to remind their German rivals of this despite the Germans having won 5 times since then...
Quote from Intrepid :errr.. Mclaren design their cars, and the Merc engines are built in the UK I believe. Also when Ferrari were dominant they had a certain Englishman running the show.

It's just a fact Brits are best when it comes to motorsport.

The Germans occupied Britain in the war, did that make it right? No.
Where something is made, does not change it's nationality, it's designed in Hamburg and it's made for the first time in Hamburg, then it's shipped out, you can't use the basis of objects like people do with humans, an object can't change it's characteristics depending on where it was first created where as a human can, thats why we call ourselves different (culturally) because we were brought up in different environments.

I don't care if McLaren design whatever car, the winning engine this year has been Mercedes, and the second team is Austrian with a French engine, I don't care if Adrian Newey designed the car, look at Toro Rosso, they are nowhere, they are shit with the same design.
Quote from Intrepid :This year Hamilton has been the best driver by quite some margin in my opinion.

I sometimes wonder if you're just desperate to look like an idiot.

Quote from 5haz :And Button outdrove Rubens on Ruben's own setup. Just as Senna would take Prost's setup and outqualify him back in 1988.

Apparently Button can't drive Barrichello's setups because they use the brakes differently. Barrichello can get away with a lower ride height than Button, and I doubt taking Barrichello's setup and raising the ride height a bit would work without adjusting practically everything else too.
Quote from Intrepid :Jenson had a MASSIVE points gap after 7 races. He could chill a lot more. Mistakes happen under pressure. When Hamilton was racing he had two of the best drivers hunting him down in 07 - Alonso/Kimi. Button had an Rubens/Webber/Vettel - hardly world beaters!

You recognised yourself his main rival Rubens is mediocre by F1 standards. Alonso and Kimi clearly are NOT that and they are the guys that Hamilton has had to deal with over his championship contending years.

And bar a weird bizarre ending in 07 Hamilton was a model of consistency! How many consecutive podiums in his ffiirrrssttt year!

I think its a bit far fetched to say that Button was under little pressure going into Brazil, the championship was anything but decided and I know that I would be crapping bricks if the title was a stake and I'd just qualified 14th. It would be interesting to see Hamilton or any other driver in that situation, would they have done the same?

Quote from thisnameistaken :Apparently Button can't drive Barrichello's setups because they use the brakes differently. Barrichello can get away with a lower ride height than Button, and I doubt taking Barrichello's setup and raising the ride height a bit would work without adjusting practically everything else too.

Well I don't know, different people saying different stuff.

But if Button was using Ruben's setups then he was outdrving him on Ruben's setups, wether its true or not is anyone's guess.
Quote from Becky Rose :
Yet for some reason half the country preffers to cheer on the football team which last won anything in 1966, and take every opportunity to remind their German rivals of this despite the Germans having won 5 times since then...

Which is why I hate british/english pride and patriotism.
Quote from mythdat :Hatemelol's Law: Any internet F1 discussion will inevitably become a Lewis Hamilton discussion

+1

Seems like people never get bored ripping at him....
Quote from BlueFlame :The Germans occupied Britain in the war, did that make it right? No.

Only Jersey was occupied. Britain won the Battle of Britain. There was a whole lesson on it in history class and everything.
Quote from Becky Rose :Only Jersey was occupied. Britain won the Battle of Britain. There was a whole lesson on it in history class and everything.

Yes, my point is, not many people realise that part of the UK was occupied but just because the Germans were there, didn't make it English, as it was ruled by German Law, the bastards forced them to drive on the right for christ sake!
Quote from thisnameistaken :I sometimes wonder if you're just desperate to look like an idiot.

At the start of 2009 the Mclaren car was described as a 'dog' and 'unfixable' as well as being over 2 seconds off in pre-season testing.

Hamilton then went on to score points in the first 4 races of the season, and now sits 5th in the championship behind the vastly superior RBR and Brawn cars.

Had that been Alonso people would be beside themselves handing out plaudits to him... kinda like LAST YEAR!

Ham and Kimi have been by far the best two drivers this season. Anyone who questions that IMO doesn't know motorsport
Quote from Intrepid :Hamilton then went on to score points in the first 4 races of the season, and now sits 5th in the championship behind the vastly superior RBR and Brawn cars.

I agree that Hamilton was truly awesome at the start of the year. Then he seemed to give up for a while until after Silverstone when the new car with the new centre of gravity arrived and since then he's been, well, okayish.

I used to love watching Hamilton race other cars, he was a risk taker. He seems to have "matured" now, and I for one think that's sad. I loved that he used to race with big balls. I hope we get some of that again next season.
Quote from BlueFlame :Yes, my point is, not many people realise that part of the UK was occupied but just because the Germans were there, didn't make it English, as it was ruled by German Law, the bastards forced them to drive on the right for christ sake!

Jersey was British because the people where British (so they claim, we Brits think they're French). Just like the people who build the Mercedese F1 engines at Ilmor. They may now do some design at their central R&D facility, but it still draws on the earlier Ilmor designs.

Just like Red Bull Racing getting the British anthem play on their first win, sometimes the nationality on the official entry is just a corporate token gesture Like the Renault F1 team is based at Enstone, Oxfordshire, France...
Quote from Becky Rose :Yes true, also please don't be thinking i'm just attributing his title to luck - far from it. He did very well in the first half of the season, when the car was right - the second half he's survived on luck. What makes a champion is being able to deliver in all sorts of different circumstances and it's my view that Jensen hasn't done this. At times he's been good, and at others he really has not. He is very lucky to be champion, because in most other years he'd have not held the crown away by making such a hash of it in so many qualifying sessions. The boy must have a wallet full of Lepricorns.

Yeah Button has been very lucky that his rivals went off the boil almost at the same time he did, but his clinching the world championship yesterday was not entirely due to luck, he qualified in 14th which is hardly lucky, he was helped by collisions and punctures which were, but he then had to pull off several passes which he did, that was not down to luck and had it not happened then everything else would've amounted to nought and he wouldn't have taken the title.
Quote from JJ72 :I think it's a mental thing, particulary how he approach the quali, seeing his race pace has never actually dropped throughout the season, and he generally make up a lot of places in the race itself. It's a confidence issue that dawned on him when he realise he can't win every race, and tried to adjust his approach which somehow worked against him.

Well it should also be pointed out that after Turkey Jenson and Rubens stopped setting fastest laps of the race. I think that, together with their downfall of qualifying pace should send a clear message that their car just isn't the fastest. Jenson is very cool under race pressure, something a few of his title rivals lacked. I think that's more of a reason why he always seemed to climb the order.

Quote from CSF :What are your feelings on Fernando Alonso as 2005 and 2006 World Champion then? Both Alonso's title winning seasons are pretty similar to Button's. When he had the car advantage he won, when he didn't he went into point scoring mode, the only difference in my opinion is that there are more cars capable of winning Grand Prix than in 05 and 06.

Wasn't around to watch those seasons, I'll get to them eventually as I go through them year by year.

Quote from 5haz :But at the end of the day, they are champions, end of. If you sit in your armchair discrediting people all day (like you seem to do) then you have no chance of winning the world championship, you have to get out there and race to win it. What I mean is, the F1 world championship does not come to you, you will never get it if you dont earn it.

This is a lot of horrible reasoning, just because I'm not trying to take part in something I can't say something negative about it? That's a bit screwy. I've got my own interests in life, watching F1 is something I do for fun. I can clearly see when people really aren't as dominant as others in their position have been though. Also I did say that Jenson did deserve it more than anyone else this year, just not as much as some champions have deserved it in other years.

Quote from thisnameistaken :Oh man that's told me hasn't it?

I got schooled.

Unless you're someone in one of the teams you have really no idea how much money 1st, 2nd, 3rd in each title championship get. What I'm saying is that it is pretty much impossible to know. You made up some conjecture about which championship has a wider spread with no basis.
Quote from pik_d :This is a lot of horrible reasoning, just because I'm not trying to take part in something I can't say something negative about it? That's a bit screwy. I've got my own interests in life, watching F1 is something I do for fun. I can clearly see when people really aren't as dominant as others in their position have been though. Also I did say that Jenson did deserve it more than anyone else this year, just not as much as some champions have deserved it in other years.

Didin't say you're not allowed to say anything negative, what I meant was that winning the title requires effort, and being an armchair driver wont win you the title.
Quote from 5haz :and being an armchair driver wont win you the title.

Well actually, in sim racing it does... and this is a sim racing forum...
Depends on the title.
Quote from 5haz : and being an armchair driver wont win you the title.

Unless you race these

Quote from pik_d :Unless you're someone in one of the teams you have really no idea how much money 1st, 2nd, 3rd in each title championship get. What I'm saying is that it is pretty much impossible to know. You made up some conjecture about which championship has a wider spread with no basis.

Shotglass said:

Quote :mclaren lost some 80million dollars for stealing ferrari blueprints which would have been the price money for comming in (iirc) second in the constructors

I took his numbers as the basis for his argument - whether they are accurate or not I don't know or care, I was arguing with him about his numbers - and drew the conclusion that if $80M is the difference between second and last place, the difference between second and third, third and fourth, etc. must be considerable smaller.

Then you muscled in thinking facts were somehow relevant, despite not possessing any yourself, and came out looking like a chump.

If the difference really is $80M in prize money (looks like Shotglass got his info from here), and the difference between first and second place is $6M, what do you imagine the difference in sponsorship would be between having the WDC in your team, compared to the guy who came second?

When McLaren took Vodafone off Ferrari, that title sponsor deal was believed to be worth $40M alone. McLaren struck that deal by bringing in Lewis Hamilton. So perhaps just having Lewis in the team was worth half the revenue they'd get from finishing first in the WCC, before you even consider all the other sponsors who wanted to be associated with him.

The commercial side of the sport pays the way for the teams at the front of the grid, TV money is probably a bigger deal for the smaller teams who struggle to attract sponsorship. Which is what I said earlier in the thread and I still appear to be right.
Quote from Becky Rose :
I used to love watching Hamilton race other cars, he was a risk taker. He seems to have "matured" now, and I for one think that's sad. I loved that he used to race with big balls. I hope we get some of that again next season.

It's not going to happen if the cars in front are quicker. He might be matured not to make silly mistakes, but I'm sure he will drive like a nutter if he gets the reason and the car.

Button made an awesome drive yesterday and really won me over with his driving but I don't think he could have pulled off those moves if his car had been a dog.
Quote from Blackout :Button made an awesome drive yesterday and really won me over with his driving but I don't think he could have pulled off those moves if his car had been a dog.

Yeah he seems to struggle a lot unless the car's exactly how he wants it.

Funny how the last four years we've had champs with really different driving styles.
Quote from 5haz :Didin't say you're not allowed to say anything negative, what I meant was that winning the title requires effort, and being an armchair driver wont win you the title.

I, pik_d, am obviously not going to win the Formula 1 WDC. This is what you seem to be pointing out. I have absolutely no idea how this relates to Jenson being a worthy champion.

Quote from thisnameistaken :Shotglass said:



I took his numbers as the basis for his argument - whether they are accurate or not I don't know or care, I was arguing with him about his numbers - and drew the conclusion that if $80M is the difference between second and last place, the difference between second and third, third and fourth, etc. must be considerable smaller.

Then you muscled in thinking facts were somehow relevant, despite not possessing any yourself, and came out looking like a chump.

If the difference really is $80M in prize money (looks like Shotglass got his info from here), and the difference between first and second place is $6M, what do you imagine the difference in sponsorship would be between having the WDC in your team, compared to the guy who came second?

When McLaren took Vodafone off Ferrari, that title sponsor deal was believed to be worth $40M alone. McLaren struck that deal by bringing in Lewis Hamilton. So perhaps just having Lewis in the team was worth half the revenue they'd get from finishing first in the WCC, before you even consider all the other sponsors who wanted to be associated with him.

The commercial side of the sport pays the way for the teams at the front of the grid, TV money is probably a bigger deal for the smaller teams who struggle to attract sponsorship. Which is what I said earlier in the thread and I still appear to be right.

So you're comparing the official prize money for getting the WCC to title prize money that they get because of what drivers they have and coming to the conclusion that the drivers pull more money? That is almost worse than what I thought you were saying before (that the unknown quantity that is prize money for WDC was a wider spread than WCC).

So McLaren got a new title sponsor in 2007 because of Lewis that was worth $40 Million. They had a title sponsor in 2006 that was giving them money, no idea how much, but that means that they did not simply gain $40M from 2006 to 2007. Who knows, West may have been giving them more than $40M, they didn't switch sponsors because of money, they switched because of the Tobacco advertising ban. I certainly don't know, and unlike you I'm not going to make claims that I can't back up.

Of course there are sponsors that follow drivers, but you'd be foolish to say that the sponsors don't also take into account the WCC as well. It's pretty unbelievable that your argument is that $40M from Vodafone > $6M for 1st-2nd spread and that's basically it. Those are only two numbers in a very huge game that is the F1 economy, you can't really extrapolate anything from them without knowing a lot more relevant information.

You can give sarcastic "oh you sure showed me" comments when I call you out on your baseless claims, you can tell me I look like a chump, but it doesn't make your faulty logic any more correct. Besides, I don't need to possess any fact to point out that you provided none in the first place. Calling someone out for making baseless claims has very little to do with actually taking the opposite stance and arguing with them. If you'll notice I haven't said anything that says that you're actually wrong, just that your logic is faulty and what you're claiming can't really be taken as fact.
Quote from pik_d :I, pik_d, am obviously not going to win the Formula 1 WDC. This is what you seem to be pointing out. I have absolutely no idea how this relates to Jenson being a worthy champion.

It means that not everybody gets to become an F1 world champion, there is no such thing as undeserving world champions, everyone who gets one has worked hard enough to deserve it.
Quote from thisnameistaken :Compared to the other 75% it is.

its still significant
if it costs 400 million to win a championship you wont win it being 80 million short in pocket money

Quote from thisnameistaken :If the difference really is $80M in prize money (looks like Shotglass got his info from here),

actually that was off the top of my head from still being a bit confused how that constituted a fine

Quote :and the difference between first and second place is $6M

well thats certainly enough to force ron dennis to pry his "my other car is also a veyron" sticker off his pride and joy



as for buttons talent
ross brawn recently said that button is unable to drive around flaws in the car and that you have to fix the car for him to make him look good
so thats driving and setup 2 areas that make a good driver that he certainly doesnt excell at (certainly not comapred to other drivers ross has plenty of experience working with)

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