How good a racer is Button now?

[loneranger]

In the French GP he started on 12th and finished 8th getting past Heikki, Ralf and Nico.

In the British GP he started 18th and finished 10th getting past Coulthard, Nico (again) and Wurz.

[spectatorsam]

bloke is ok not sure if he is great, but once again that car is a dog
it killed JV's career, and is in danger of doing the same to JB
he should bail!!
perhaps do a prost and have a sabatical and court some demand for his services, or even just go back to renault coz fizzi (the most charmed of any f1 driver (except alex worst) is not good enough for a front running team.
or perhaps he should go to the states and win the indian championship or whatever its called

[johnph]

He's the same racer he always was its just that

1) He kept getting moved from team to to team and never settled properly early on

2) Silly contract disputes in the background.

3) Manangement/Staff changes at Honda (ie. losing Richards & Willis)

Also Button was saying that Honda had relapsed this weekend, but he managed to finish 10th from 18th on the grid, gaining the most places of everyone save for Massa.

Honda look like they are finally getting sorted out and next year when TC is banned Jenson should do a lot better due to his smooth driving style

Edited by johnph on Monday 9th July 09:43

[rubystone]

They didn't look that good this weekend - were edgy into Club, not particularly swift either. Any idea why Barrichello was wearing a black helmet? Anything to do with the death of the guys in the Bridgestone helicopter at Magny Cours?

[FourWheelDrift]

rubystone said:

Any idea why Barrichello was wearing a black helmet? Anything to do with the death of the guys in the Bridgestone helicopter at Magny Cours?

He was trying out a new coating on his helmet, the livery appears as the temperature goes up. Heidfeld has tried it too, I think Rubens used it at Monaco as well during qualifying.

Here it is, just starting to appear.

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Monday 9th July 10:55

[MrKipling43]

I think Alan Henry's assesment of Button has been the most accurate yet "A huge talent currently being sacrificed on the altar of Honda's baffling inability to build a decent racing car".

Only one of the current top four has ever had to really struggle with a total dog of a car (if we discount appearances in Minardis) Massa comfortably mid-fielded in a Sauber - no one ever really expected a great deal more; Alonso went straight from a hopeless Minardi to a championship-leading Renault; Hamilton has been dropped straight into one of the two best cars on the grid with no need to adapt to the new tyres and Raikkonen's McLaren just exploded all the time, rather than being fundamentally slow, which made it far easier to blame the car.

I'll finish with another quote from Alan Henry, since I think we can all agree that he's quite an authority!

"[Rubens Barrichello] was the guy who could give Michael Schumacher a run for his money at Ferrari. Either Rubens <i>was</i> a genius, or Jenson is as good as Schumi"