Lewis, quit using Twitter you fool!

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Originally Posted by Knock-on

I agree with Rob on this one. Jenson has not benefitted from the tyres this year; quite the opposite in fact. He has struggled getting the fronts and rears matched and McLaren admitted that the setup changes they put in place to fix this was making the problem worse.

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The issues Jenson had were his inability to warm up the tires to optimal operating temperature and keep them there. This is an issue Lewis overcame after Australia. It took Jenson a number of other races, up until Germany really, to adapt his car set up and driving style to manage this. It was a mixture of car set up and driving style. It was also a prime example of how long it takes Jenson to learn how to drive around issues he has. Good driver but not a great one.

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Originally Posted by AndyL

That's simply not true. An average difference of half a second per lap equates to 25-35 seconds per race. Considering races where they both finished in 2010, Hamilton's actual advantage averaged at 6 seconds per race. Out of 13 races where they both finished, in 6 of them they finished within around 3 seconds of each other.

If you're referring only to qualifying pace, which is where the difference between the two drivers appears to be greatest, it's not true there either. Could your memory be a little selective perhaps? You seem to be recalling only the 5 Saturdays where Hamilton was 0.4 or more faster than Button, and forgetting the 3 where Button was 0.4 or more faster than Hamilton (and the 11 where they were more closely matched). In fact the average advantage was 0.16 in Hamilton's favour. If you disregard the chaotic wet qualifying at Sepang (which I would not - it did happen, and as soon as you start trying to strike out "special cases" you're bringing pre-coloured subjective judgment into it again), Hamilton's advantage rises to 0.21.

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If you have statistics to prove these figures somewhere please show them to me and I'll happily stand corrected.

Maybe my memory is being a little selective. I just see a driver of super talent in Lewis and a driver like Jenson then whom, while a really good driver, has been flattered by his team mate under performing last year coupled with bad luck. This year has really shown the gulf in class between the two and Jenson has been nowhere near Lewis for most of the year excepting an excellent driver in Australia and Belgium, which of course shows he can do it when the car is perfect for him.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

If you have statistics to prove these figures somewhere please show them to me and I'll happily stand corrected.

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I looked the results up on Wikipedia. They are available for all to see, you don't have to rely only on your own memory of what happened these days you know!

Here's the list of race gaps Hamilton->Button. A positive number means Hamilton was ahead, negative that Button was ahead. Approximate to nearest second, only races where they both finished considered.
22
-30
14
-1
3
2
7
20
3
-36
75
1
1
average = 6.2

Here's the list of qualifying gaps Hamilton->Button. Where one driver went out earlier than the other, the times are taken from the last session they were both in.
0.455
-0.653
-0.839
-0.055
0.162
0.205
0.348
0.415
0.241
0.581
-0.139
0.415
0.343
-0.539
0.373
0.209
0.669
0.367
0.398
Average: 0.156

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Originally Posted by AndyL

I looked the results up on Wikipedia. They are available for all to see, you don't have to rely only on your own memory of what happened these days you know!

Here's the list of race gaps Hamilton->Button. A positive number means Hamilton was ahead, negative that Button was ahead. Approximate to nearest second, only races where they both finished considered.
22
-30
14
-1
3
2
7
20
3
-36
75
1
1
average = 6.2

Here's the list of qualifying gaps Hamilton->Button. Where one driver went out earlier than the other, the times are taken from the last session they were both in.
0.455
-0.653
-0.839
-0.055
0.162
0.205
0.348
0.415
0.241
0.581
-0.139
0.415
0.343
-0.539
0.373
0.209
0.669
0.367
0.398
Average: 0.156

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Where on Wikipedia are they? I can't find them.

*EDIT* I am not sure about your stats, but if you look at the

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/statistics/

you'll see the gap in 2012 and 2011 the average qualifying deficit was 2 tenths of a second between Button and Hamilton which is what I would expect. I'm not convinced of your 2010 stats. I was pretty sure that the average was 4 tenths of a second in 2010 in qualifying.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

The issues Jenson had were his inability to warm up the tires to optimal operating temperature and keep them there. This is an issue Lewis overcame after Australia. It took Jenson a number of other races, up until Germany really, to adapt his car set up and driving style to manage this. It was a mixture of car set up and driving style. It was also a prime example of how long it takes Jenson to learn how to drive around issues he has. Good driver but not a great one.

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That is the problem everyone has had this year with the tyres and why we had, what, 7 winners in 7 races. Jenson and Lewis were actually very close in Australia, China and Malaysa (up until the point Jenson and Karthikyan came together (whilst ahead of Alsonso and Perez IIRC)), after that the route that McLaren took to optimise the tyres made the issue worse, and you are right it took until GB to improve it (although they cocked qually up), germany was when the improvement showed, although what they did was return to the early season setup and head in a different direction. Lewis also went through a spell of being off the pace albeit slightly shorter, but if you look at the early races and everything since Germany they have again, as was in 2010 and2011, been very closly matched. Jenson has not done anything different, and whislt i partly agree with you, in that Jenson's style if best suited to a car with a narrow perfrmance window, whereas Lewis style is able to extract more over a wider range of car characteristics, I think you are overstating it for the effect of finding a gulf between the 2 drivers that simply doesn't exist. as I said, Lewis is undoubtedly the faster over one lap 90% of the time, but in races there is rarely much difference. I think the badluck Lewis has had this year is equal to the bad luck I feel Jenson had in going down the setup blind alley, that conceivabley lost him as many points

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

Where on Wikipedia are they? I can't find them.

*EDIT* I am not sure about your stats, but if you look at the

F1 Statistics | F1 Stats | F1 Results | F1 Data

you'll see the gap in 2012 and 2011 the average qualifying deficit was 2 tenths of a second between Button and Hamilton which is what I would expect. I'm not convinced of your 2010 stats. I was pretty sure that the average was 4 tenths of a second in 2010 in qualifying.

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Surely I don't have to explain how to look up the results of a past race?

Go to the 2010 formula one season page:
2010 Formula One season - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scroll down to the list of races and click on the link for report, e.g.:
2010 Bahrain Grand Prix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On the race page, scroll down to the qualifying results:
Lewis Hamilton: P4, 1:55.217; Jenson Button P8, 1:55.672. Difference = 0.455s.
Then carry on to the race results:
Lewis Hamilton: P3, +23.182; Jenson Button P7, +45.280. Difference = +22s.
Repeat as required.

I didn't make these numbers up. If you can see a mistake please say where. Anyone can check the numbers.

I think Lewis should ramp up his usage of Twitter , and do some Facebooking as well .

This is all about entertainment , and nobody can deny his tittering on Twitter has been very entertaining .

Lewis vows not to be a Twitter twit - IOL Motoring F1 Grand Prix | IOL.co.za
Lewis vows not to be a Twitter twit

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The 2009 champion does follow Mexican Sergio Perez, who joins McLaren next season in place of Hamilton.
Button said he had done so to welcome him to the team but could not now 'unfollow' him.
“I'm not allowed to do anything on Twitter these days. I'm stuck. I can't unfollow anyone any more,” he said

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Originally Posted by Robinho

That is the problem everyone has had this year with the tyres and why we had, what, 7 winners in 7 races. Jenson and Lewis were actually very close in Australia, China and Malaysa (up until the point Jenson and Karthikyan came together (whilst ahead of Alsonso and Perez IIRC)), after that the route that McLaren took to optimise the tyres made the issue worse, and you are right it took until GB to improve it (although they cocked qually up), germany was when the improvement showed, although what they did was return to the early season setup and head in a different direction. Lewis also went through a spell of being off the pace albeit slightly shorter, but if you look at the early races and everything since Germany they have again, as was in 2010 and2011, been very closly matched. Jenson has not done anything different, and whislt i partly agree with you, in that Jenson's style if best suited to a car with a narrow perfrmance window, whereas Lewis style is able to extract more over a wider range of car characteristics, I think you are overstating it for the effect of finding a gulf between the 2 drivers that simply doesn't exist. as I said, Lewis is undoubtedly the faster over one lap 90% of the time, but in races there is rarely much difference. I think the badluck Lewis has had this year is equal to the bad luck I feel Jenson had in going down the setup blind alley, that conceivabley lost him as many points

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That's not bad luck because it was within Jenson's control, he could have gone back to the previous set up or if he had the ability modify his driving style to get around it - he didn't. The 4 DNF's were out of Hamilton's control (though arguably he could have left Maldonado past in Valencia depending on your POV) as were the pit stop errors (I realize Button had one or two bad pit stops as well) for which were also out of his control.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

Well he really should have been champion that year in China were it not for bad McLaren strategy.

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Well, without Kimi having 2 retirements due to car problems things would have been different. And again blaming McLaren strategy, yeah, sure, it was bad, but the strategy didn't go off the track, Lewis went.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

It's embarrassing actually to see the gulf between him and Jenson in 2012. To think that Jenson is a WDC as well. Qualifying ratio of 12-3 in favor of Hamilton and the thing is even though he has had 4 DNF's which were not of his own doing and Jenson has only had one, as far as I remember, he is still 21 points ahead of Jenson in the table. It just shows that the table doesn't always show a true reflection of what is going on as based on performance this year he should be at least another 60-70 points clear. Even worst is that with the car Jenson has had over the last 3 years he has only managed one pole position. That's even more embarrassing from a WDC. He is nowhere near the class of Lewis. Not alone that but I firmly believe these Pirelli tires are flattering Jenson especially the ones last year. Lewis has found a way to drive around them pretty quickly at the start of this year whereas it took Jenson until Germany to finally modify his driving style to suit them better. Anyway, enough said, he is better than Jenson any day of the week and I think few can deny that.

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LOL. What fanboy talk. Sure, in qualifying Button usually can't match Lewis, but when it comes to racepace they are very often quite equal.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

I also believe that the Singapore GP would have finally shown how much ahead Lewis really is but unfortunately Lewis had his gearbox problem. I think Lewis could have increased his pace whenever was required of him as he was clearly only managing that gap to Vettel. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see it there.

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Was Lewis managing the gap also in the 1st stint when Button closed the gap by 3,5 seconds in 6 laps before they pitted? In the 2nd stint Button was also closing down on Hamilton and he too (like everyone else) was managing his tyres.

That said, Lewis is obviously the faster driver overall, but the difference actually is quite small. Before they teamed up I was expecting Hamilton to be more superior to Button.