I'd love it if CD, post Badoer, comes in and argues it's all about the cars...
The F1 Thread 2009 Season
- Thread starter Leg-End
- Start date
I was thinking the same thing!
EDIT: except that the Honda JB was driving for two years was utter turd!
EDIT: except that the Honda JB was driving for two years was utter turd!
Button is obviously shit, obvious innit. Just like Keke Rosberg was when he was champion with 1 win all season.
Fisichella staying in the Force India for Monzo apparently
Surely Ferrari can't give Badoer a third race? In front of the home supporters? Trailing the car miles behind the back of the grid?
Surely Ferrari can't give Badoer a third race? In front of the home supporters? Trailing the car miles behind the back of the grid?
The tifosi will be on his back all weekend if he is, ridiculous with all the possible drivers in motorsport that they put a 38 year old who is 2 seconds off the pace and cant find anyone else.
Indeed, because that's a resonable example.
It is all about the fecking cars. Alright, Badeor has proven that there's skill involved too, because obviously if you put someone really shit in there they'll do really badly - the cars don't drive themselves. But once you hit a certain plane of skill it does become about the car, hence on some circuits the Brawns were brilliant and on others the Red Bulls ran rampant. You can't tell me the relative quality of the drivers changed, and yet the grid order was affected majorly. It was the cars.
If Button wins this championship it'll always leave a bit of a sour taste because he did it purely because everyone else didn't have the car at the start (bar his teammate, but he was very unlucky). I don't think anyone can argue that the Brawn wasn't far and away the best car on the grid at the time, and now suddenly, when the other teams have caught up, Button has choked and started finished in the low points and not at the sharp end where he needs to be.
I swear to God half of the people in this thread defending Button to the hilt are only doing so because he's British. If he were Spanish, or German, or Argentine, or Brazilian, or Finnish none of you would give it a shit, and I'd wager a fair few of you would be arguing on my side of the fence, too.
Got to know, everyone knew when the season began and had been preparing in advance, why does it leave a sour taste if initially Braun prepared better than anyone else? Bizarre notion that
If Button wins the title then he no less deserves it than anyone else really...He was driving flawlessly at the beginning of the season, doesn't make him any less talented just because he isn't winning now and the others have caught up.
I still argue though that that the points system should be changed. IMO there has to be a bigger points gap between winning and coming second than the current 10-8
I still argue though that that the points system should be changed. IMO there has to be a bigger points gap between winning and coming second than the current 10-8
I agree with that Stemmy. Even if it's as simple as knocking a point off for coming 2nd
When they signed the new agreement and whatnot, did they scrap Bernie's idea of medals next season?
A system under which Button would be all but crowned World Champion already...
When they signed the new agreement and whatnot, did they scrap Bernie's idea of medals next season?
A system under which Button would be all but crowned World Champion already...
He did, he did argue it was all about the cars!
Priceless
Eh?
So you don't think the car has anything to do with it? Why, then, was the Brawn the best by far at the start of the season, and the others have since caught up? You think the other drivers have all improved and overtaken Button, or do you think it's more likely that their cars have?
This is like the Hamilton v Alonso thing all over again with you, Brad. As soon as a Brit gets involved you lose all sense of rationality and become a salivating loon in order to defend their honour.
As I felt when Hamilton was racing for those two world championships, I really hope Button doesn't win this one.
This says much more about you than it does me CD
Of course the car matters. But no-one is given the best car. This is a team sport and it's up to the team to make the best car they possibly can, adapting for the different demands of each race circuit, making sure they get their set ups right on there day. Thereafter, it's up to the driver to do the best they can with the equipment they have. And some do this far far better than others. And the blindingly obvious difference between Badoer - no mug, he's raced in F1 before and been test driver for Ferrari for some time - and Raikkonen says it all. But you see it at different scales all down the grid
Red Bull had the fastest car this weekend. Vettel qualified 8th, Webber qualified 9th. The former made it up to 3rd, the latter didn't finish in the points. But they had the best car? Funny eh
Red Bull had nowhere near the fastest car this last weekend... if anything the fastest car was the Force India, beyond that it was probably the Ferraris, and the BMWs were no slouch either coming home in fourth and fifth.
The Red Bulls may have set decent lap times in practice, but so did the McLarens - practice means very little.
And Badoer is a mug, that's plain to see. He raced in Formula One over ten years ago before being dropped for not being good enough, he's the oldest driver on the grid and he's not Ferrari's only test driver. Whatsmore, since testing is banned, he's going to do feck all as a test driver anyway, so I wouldn't read too much into that.
For what its worth the Red Bull of Vettel set the fastest lap of the race.
Bingo. And this is precisely why you don't understand what you're talking about CD
Vettel set the fastest lap of the race, a 1:47.263. The reason he was down in 8th was because he made a mistake on his final session hot lap. Obviously starting that far back had an impact on how well he could do in the race itself. He was catching the Ferrari and Force India after the final pit stop
You only go off where cars finish, and that doesn't tell the full story, because that also depends on the driver and how well a job they've done. Plus all kind of other factors
Button doesn't magically have a shite car. They've made some errors with the tyres, and he's not driving as well as he was before. The car still has the pace to feature at the top of the grid, his team mate is proving that
Badoer shows how tough it is to drive in F1. This guy knows how to get an F1 car around a circuit, he's not just some random guy plucked out of nowhere, but he's just light years off his fellow competitors. Ferrari can put someone better in for Monza, but it's a clear instance of how tough F1 is
feck you Brad, I will be an F1 driver one day!
That's bang on.
Oh, and Badoer is as close to a mug as F1 has seen in years.
The guy's last race was 10 years ago for Minardi, and he somehow has managed to be one of the Ferrari test drivers for all these years....how he managed that is unbelievable.
Gene would have been better and at least had more recent experience, with Williams a few years back IIRC.
Hell, Ferrari should have dropped Bourdais or Piquet or even Liuzzi (if they wanted an Italian) into the car rather than Badoer.
I've barely said anything about Button. He's one of the best drivers in the sport, and he's proved that this season with a competitive car underneath himPersonally I'd consider this statement more applicable to someone who'd lost "all sense of rationality and become a salivating loon"...
Count Duckula said:
It's funny how you keep going on about how you wanted Hamilton to lose, and now you want Button too. Couldn't be the Welsh in you coming out could it?
Fastest laps mean equally little, frankly. If you've got clear air in front of you and virtually no fuel of course you'll pump in the fastest lap. It doesn't mean that over the course of the race you've been the faster driver, or had the faster car.
Last season, Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap in nine races. Do you know how many of those he won? One.
And, no, Badoer is a mug. I can't believe you're trying to make out that he's just typical, and that anyone coming in would have those problems. Buemi is new - he's doing fine. Alguersuari is new - he's doing a million times better than Badoer. Even Pique and Bordais, who were so shit they were dropped, did better than Badoer in worse cars.
You cannot use Badoer to prove a point, you just can't. The guy's an embarrassment, an anomoly. He's utterly useless, and God knows why they gave him the drive, but he is no yardstick by which you can judge how difficult Formula One is. You make it sound like he's plenty skilled and experienced, and whilst he might have the latter in abundance he most certainly lacks the former.
Personally I'd consider this statement more applicable to someone who'd lost "all sense of rationality and become a salivating loon"...
It's funny how you keep going on about how you wanted Hamilton to lose, and now you want Button too. Couldn't be the Welsh in you coming out could it?
Not really.
There are atleast 5 others better than him that i can name.
Personally I'd consider this statement more applicable to someone who'd lost "all sense of rationality and become a salivating loon"...
It's funny how you keep going on about how you wanted Hamilton to lose, and now you want Button too. Couldn't be the Welsh in you coming out could it?
Just seen this - if anything the opposite is true. He's a good driver, yes, but he's not "one of the best in the sport". He won at the start when his team was far superior to the others, and yes, he beat his teammate. So Button is better than Barichello.
But as soon as his car isn't better, and the playing field is more even, he's lost it. He's qualifying on the third or fourth row (at best) and barely finishing in the points.
That's not the mark of one of the best in the sport. Hamilton, Alonso, Raikkonen, Massa, Kubica, Vettel and Webber are all better drivers than him.
Button isn't even the best Brawn driver at the moment with Barichello now out-qualifying and beating him.
21-11 in points over the past 5 races.
21-11 in points over the past 5 races.
Bourdais of course a 4 time former winner of the American Champ Car series
Pique 2nd only to Hamilton in the 2006 GP2 Championship
That's the quality of driver we're talking about failing in F1. And it's all about the car is it?
What's this clean air drivel? Of course you'll set the fastest lap if you have it?! Where are you making this bollocks up? He either had a fast car or he didn't. He was clearly much faster than his 8th position qualifying suggested, and the times he was putting in, had he started on pole, he may very likely have won the thing. It still took the driver to do it - Webber had the same car and didn't set the same pace - but Vettels machine was very capable and in his hands was the fastest car on the circuit
A 16 point lead over his team mate says otherwise
21-11 in points over the past 5 races.
Button is clearly slipping at the moment. Lucky for him he had such an immense lead to begin with.
Your first three are World Champions. And exceptional drivers. They've had better cars to drive than Button for most of his career of course, but they've made the most of it. You're saying because Button had a better car than them this season, he's not a worthy champion if he victors?! What bollocks!
Massa has never won anything despite having the best car on the grid at times
The last three have proved themselves no more so than Button. If it's your personal opinion that they're better than him, fine, but his 16 point lead in the Championship, with 6 race wins when only Vettel has more than one to his name, says otherwise
Lucky?
The cretins are back in operation it seems
Over the full season, in the same equipment, he's 16 points better off than his team mate. Bottom line
I know what you are saying, but surely the playing field has gone the other way, uneven against Button. I suppose we will never know 100% unless the drivers race around in identical cars for an entire season.
Clean air? It means there's not another car in front of you putting out dirty air and disrupting your airflow. It's a really big deal - it's why cars sit behind each other without being able to overtake. Do you actually watch Formula One?
And I didn't say it was all about the car - it's just mostly about the car. I think it was Coulthard who claimed a Formula One package is 90% car and 10% driver, and that seems reasonable.
Pique, as you say, was second only to Hamilton in the GP2, and yet did really poorly. Hmm... second only to Hamilton suggests he's got bags of talent, what could possibly be the reason to him being slow?
And a blind monkey could be a four-time ChampCar winner - it's a terrible series. Justin feckin' Wilson tore that series up, and the Minardi was one of the best teams on the grid.
Let me just get this straight, as perhaps we're arguing cross-purposes here: are you seriously arguing that the car is largely irrelevant in Formula One?
Fastest laps indicate which car is fastest at optimal conditions, believe it or not a car is not at the optimal condition for the track at every point over a weekend, which is why fastest laps are set at different points in a race for different people.
Raikkonen had well publicised issues with tyre temperatures and this led to a car with a tendency to understeer which clashed with his driving style. He was always stuck low down in qualifying due to not being able to get sufficient heat into the tyres during a qualifying run, and this put him out of sync during the race.
Once running in the race the tyres start to bring to car towards him when the fronts get up to a better temp and low and behold he starts to put in faster and faster laps. In spite of what some narrow minded idiots might try and tell you, this was not because he 'suddenly woke up and made an effort', it was issues with the car, something backed up by Ferrari and Schumacher on a few occasions, they took a wrong turn with development and it took them a long time to get it back.
Fastest lap = fastest raw pace. It just doesn't mean they'll do it lap after lap.
fecking moron. It was your suggestion that anyone who has clean air easily sets the fastest lap. Vettel was setting faster times than those at the front even when he was chasing and passing other cars. He was just much further back on the grid. Judging by the ridiculous arguments you've put forward in this thread, you're the one who needs to brush up on your F1
Of course the car isn't irrelevant, and I've never said that. You said it's all about the car. Well for a start, no one is gifted the best car. It's a team and they have to build it to the seasons specifications and they have to tailor it to the demands of each track. But clearly it makes a huge difference who's driving the car. Some drivers are quicker / more consistent / looks after the car better than others. Your assertion that Button wouldn't make a worthy champion because he had the best car, well it's fecking retarded! He still has to go out there and make it happen. He still has to beat his team mate. His team still have to keep that car up the top end of the grid. And other drivers who might not have as competitive car, but are not far off, might drive better or have better tactics and take the race win off him
As for Pique, he had good credentials for coming into F1. But he barely got his fecking car home each race, while his team mate battered him in performance. You'd expect that, he's new to F1 and his team mate is former World Champion Fernando Alonso. Well, unless your name is Lewis Hamilton, in which case you're lucky and it's all because you've got the best car and a moneky can drive it etc bullshit bullshit bullshit
Take off/put on your glasses Brad, you're being blinded by your own British bias.
You're defending indefensible positions.
You're seriously going to sit here and say that Button hasn't been off form for the past 5 races?
Despite his own 38 year old teammate out-pointing him and out-qualifying him over the past 5 races.
You still won't admit Button is at least in a slump?
BTW, I didn't say Button was lucky to be leading, I said he was lucky that he had that lead. Button no doubt earned those points but all he had to do at the time was beat Rubens. Now that the field has leveled, he's being beaten, even by his teammate with equal equipment.
p.s. My favourite F1 memory is of Schumacher smashing that twat Hill and winning the drivers title. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Er... needless much?
No, I merely said that Vettel had clean air and thus that aided him in setting the fastest lap. Raikkonen was slower than Vettel; he led only because of KERS. But cars that were potentially faster than Vettel's (like Fisichella) couldn't show that because he was bunged up behind Kimi. On top of that, you have no idea what sort of tactics the other teams are using. Vettel set that lap right near the end when he was chasing the leaders. For all we know, the BMWs behind him had already turned their engines down - no point stressing it when you won't gain a place, but you won't lose one either. Teams do that all the time.
Also, I don't remember Vettel passing a single car outside of pitstops. And his chasing tended to be conducted in clear air on a clear track that he could almost treat as one long qualifying session. The laps are so long at Spa he didn't even have to worry about back markers.
You're right, the best car is a reflection of the team's effort. Which is why they have a constructor's championship. The best team ought to win that, and that's a worthy reflection of who has the best set-up, the best engine, the best tactics, etc. But the fact remains that sometimes drivers win purely because their car is faster than their competitor's. I don't care how good you are, if your opponent is driving away from you on every straight there's feck all you can do about it.
Again, the team should have very little to do with the driver's championship. The team is represented in the constructor's championship (something they care more about, incidentally, because that trophy they keep forever unlike a driver's trophy which is the driver's. They also get their costs paid for the next season, which they don't with merely a driver's championship).
So my assertion is that, given his car was far superior to everyone else's at the start of the season, he had six easy wins. No one could touch him. The only person he was really racing was his teammate, whom he is better than. Those six wins have meant that when the other teams have caught up and he is therefore actually battling them, even when he's choking and losing (ie, at the moment) he has a huge cushion. It was a massive headstart that had very little to do with his driving prowess, and much, much more to do with his far superior car. I don't deny he has to be of a certain quality, because if you stuck someone who didn't have that Formula One "flair" in the car - like Badoer - then you'd do terribly. But as long as he was able to keep it on the road and do the things you expect a good racing driver to do, the car would do the rest.
Agreed. Although the setup at Renault didn't help him, I'm sure, with Alonso being the top dog and making sure that everyone knew it.
Er... no. Hamilton actually lost the first championship he raced in. He had the exact same car as his teammate and they tied on points, despite his teammate being the two times world champion and Hamilton having never raced a Formula One car before. I don't think I've ever claimed that Hamilton was lucky or had the best car, because (a) he clearly matched his illustrious teammate, and (b) I'd not call losing the championship on the last day by a point "lucky".
You unashamedly admit that your favourite F1 memory is of Schumacher winning because he cheated? Wow.
Just trying to rile up Brad due to his undying love of British drivers.
It was a "racing incident" after all.
I do love how people throw the bias card whilst talking absolute arse.
Brad never said Button hadn't had a poor few races, he said he wasn't lucky to have had such a lead in the first place. After you read the words on the screen try and take the time to understand them before pressing 'reply'.
Just trying to rile up Brad due to his undying love of British drivers.
It was a "racing incident" after all.
No, it was cheating. Schumacher's a nasty piece of work and the number of people out there who ignore his blatant acts of cheating or try and pass them off as something else is frankly staggering.
Funny, Schumacher won the drivers title that year, I guess it wasn't seen as "cheating" by those who matter.
Really?
I said earlier that Button was slipping and lucky that he had the big points lead to fall back on.
Brad jumps on my using the word "lucky".
Button was in a class by himself at the beginning of the year (beating Rubens handily) when the Brawn's were the only competition.
Rubens is getting the better of him as of late though .
Well, yeh, but you clearly think it was cheating or you wouldn't have phrased it the way you did.
Then its not lucky is it, which is exactly the point he was making. There was no bias in his point, nor was he wrong. So what exactly is your argument?
Jenson had a big lead because he did a better job than everybody else, simple really.