McLaren are the only team consistently to have the confidence and desire to pair up world champions past, present, and clearly future in their team.
Think Alain Prost with Niki Lauda, Keke Rosberg, and Ayrton Senna; Mike Hakkinen with Senna and Nigel Mansell; Lewis Hamilton with Fernando Alonso and now Jenson Button.
In theory it is eminently sensible - find the very best designers and engineers to create a great car driven by two of the finest talents for maximum opportunity and success.
But it's not easy having two bulls in one field and the resulting fall-out has been easy to observe over the decades - particularly Senna's bitter rivalry with Prost and the explosive 2007 season between Hamilton and Alonso.
Pairing the '08 and '09 world champions, both Englishmen, could have been very testing but so far Hamilton and Button appear genuine friends and very comfortable in the same environment.
The marketing videos they make together are full of warmth and good humour, and the banter within news conferences does not feel contrived.
Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button
Button and Hamilton's relationship has been good so far - will it last?
This is helped by Button's very relaxed and happy demeanour since he won the title, and the fact that they are both genuinely nice guys.
Hamilton is a little more intense, I suspect because he has only been able to convert one of the three potential championships available to him in his four short seasons.
At 26, he is five years younger than Button and does not have such a settled group of people around him.
Hamilton has 14 victories, 36 podiums and 18 pole positions from 71 starts. Button has nine victories, 31 podiums and seven poles from 189 starts. This reflects some of the less than competitive cars Button has driven, but Hamilton's tally is mightily impressive.
They appear to have very different driving styles in that Hamilton likes a 'pointy' car which turns in quickly and he is happy to deal with the back by using an acrobatic driving style.
Button turns the steering wheel like a spoon through syrup and demands a precise and consistent response from his measured input. Significantly, he will be able to achieve those specific demands more effectively in his second year with the team.
They should need different car set-ups and working together technically must demand an element of interpretation from the McLaren engineers.
As a driver it's very hard to have friends in Formula 1, especially when they are on the opposite side of the garage. Hamilton knows this full well
The new-for-2011 Pirelli tyres have much more drop-off in performance than recent Bridgestones, and in theory Button should be better at minimising this aspect given his ability to run longer than most on one set of tyres, and especially his delicacy of style in slippery conditions.
On the flip side, if the tyres just simply wear out through mileage and not because of overheating, Button's style will have reduced advantage and he will not handle an unpredictable and sliding car as well as Hamilton. Time will tell how this works out.
It seems clear that the 2011 McLaren is not initially a front-running car and the team's collective hearts must have sunk at the first test as the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari particularly shone through. Not to mention reliability.
McLaren are, necessarily in recent years, the kings of in-season development.
This is especially difficult now that in-season testing has been banned and all development must take place in the digital world of wind tunnels and computational fluid dynamics along with simulators. Or at the race meetings themselves, which compromises other preparation.
Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton on the podium after the Turkish Grand Prix
Hamilton was not happy after confusion over Button passing him in Turkey
Two heads are better than one in adversity and the combined effort and feedback of Hamilton and Button will be critical in sorting out the chassis and set up in the early races of the season. Another disappointing year will be hard for Hamilton especially to stomach.
How the relationship endures a truly head-to-head battle for races and the championship remains to be seen.
Button was mathematically out of contention after the penultimate race in Brazil last year, and realistically before that. He won two races early in the year, and Hamilton won three races mid-season, ending up 26 points clear of his team-mate and fractionally on top by season end.
The Turkish Grand Prix was most telling in this McLaren love-in. After the Red Bulls had self-destructed by hitting each other, the McLaren boys had an easy one-two in the bag.
Various radio calls and fuel-saving requirements led to a "misunderstanding" and Jenson flashed past Lewis on the brakes. Starting the next lap, Lewis was straight back up the inside with a fearsome move and he was through, albeit perilously close to further intra-team contact. Hamilton's face on the podium said it all.
Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso
Pairing Hamilton with Alonso led to huge friction within McLaren
As a driver it is very hard to have friends in Formula 1, especially when they are on the opposite side of the garage. Hamilton knows this well from his time with Alonso.
When you are trying to achieve the same thing at the same time somebody has to be disappointed and frustrated.
McLaren are well equipped to handle this despite previous problems, and Hamilton and Button are mature enough to participate in that process.
But if push comes to shove there will be friction between these two champions, and you wouldn't expect or wish it to be any other way.
الرئيسية 
موضوع: Martin Brundle on Lewis Hamilton v Jenson Button 
الثلاثاء مارس 22, 2011 1:52 am
