Paul Humphreys rambles on....

I am a fan of this guy. He is a smooth Alain Prost style driver and is also fast. Maybe not so aggressive as Kimi or Fernando but he did a couple of neat overtaking moves in China two weeks ago.

I wonder if BAR have done a simulation of what would have happened if Button had been on a three stop strategy. The two stopper meant while heavy with fuel he did not have the raw speed. He has gone well in Japan and Brazil before so it looks promising.

I think he would admit he has made a few mistakes in his career what driver has not ? His time at Benneton/Renault was difficult but I think he learnt a lot from that and the second year he started to do ok in the car. He was outqualified by Trulli but he got more points as predicted. When he went to BAR everyone expected his to be levelled by JV but it did not happen. There is a funny 'story' of when there was a team briefing at BAR JV arrived late and found Button on his chair. He told Button to sling his hook ( move off it) and Button said no. JV persisted and when Button refused to move said " we will talk about this later". Button replied "about chair ? I don't think so"

What happens to him next year we will have to see. I think that whatever the CRB find BAR will see him go. I think it is a shame as I think they will be a force to reckon with next year, they have stability in their team which is getting stronger every year. Honda seem to be back on form too.

Rain in Japan or Brazil will play into Button's hand, he is quite handy in the wet or changable conditions. Remember Indy his maiden year when it started to dry (a bit). He changed to slicks and did amazing times. Others swapped and started falling off the track. Not long to wait...

Comments:

Sorry, I don't see success coming Buttons way. He's the talk of the town, but I think it'll pass. He's definately a strong #2 or #3 driver, but not #1. If we take Michael out of the equation, you still have Ruben's and Kimi as very strong drivers. David has lost the tought. Juan is falling apart, not that his BMW is helping him or Ralph at all. Sato, frankly, is a driver perhaps better than Button... which is amazing because historically asian drivers have been terrible in high end racing, and Sato is just shattering that old stigma with blistering performance, which is great after he was put into F1 by BAR as a "See Honda? We like Asia!" during the Jorden vs BAR troubles.

Lets not forget about Nick Heidfeld, he was gonna be the next Schumi, and that just didn't pan out. I see a similar fate for Jenson.

Frankly, we need the dead weight removed from F1... David needs to go, Klien and Webber need to come up. Trulli needs to go, he's a has-been that never was, he's pumpous and a jerk and looks like an idiot. If we can get solid drivers into BMW's and Sir Williams can get the cars straightened out by next season we might have some interesting results. I'd cetainly love to see Button put Montoya out of everyones mind as a great driver, but we'll just see.

As for rain, Jean Alesi was the best there ever was in the wet, but lets not forget that if Ruben's is on the proper tires he's really fast in the wet too. I'd much rather had seen Jac Verstapen come back rather than Villie, but thats how things go. There is nothing better than a come back story, so maybe we'll get one.

Posted by benr on October 04, 2004 at 11:01 AM PDT #