The curious case of Jenson Button

[speedsense]

whatever does the trick...they need to score strongly with both cars.
Mclaren has the capacity to do so.
Hamilton bemoaning Button accessing his secrets ...is as it is..You cannot hide much for long these days...and i´m sure it went the other way round when Button was more successful than the boss...

One has to admit, Hamilton did take Button's setup after Australia and used them as his base for 2012, whereafter their base setups diverted. A very adaptive creature Hamilton, he was operating on Alonso's setups too for the first half of 2007 (up to Monaco?). The good thing is, he not only copied but he actually learned from Alonso how to develop the setup of an F1 car and he never forgotten since.

This would have been true some 15 years ago, when data was in it's infant stages. But now, the driver's input to the set up and how the direction to the setup will, is much more about the driver liking or not liking the changes. Data Analysis has changed this aspect through out all of racing. The DAG's know, (if their good at analysis) literally every aspect of the drivers inputs and even his style and know the changes to be made.
See it's like this, a driver will make about 300 decisions a lap (depending on track length), so in 10 laps, he's made 3000 decisions. In the debrief (if he's real good at recall) he'll remember 15 to 20 decisions he's made, normally the ones where he saved his rear end.... that leaves some 2980 decisions not mentioned, the good DAG, can extract from a good analysis of it a major portion (80%) of the decisions, and remind the driver of those decisions, so he has clarity on what just happened to the car. So the data, has a massive impact on the not only the engineering, but the driver in a big way.
Now having said this, I personally have watched, on tv, Hamilton analyzing his own data while sitting in his car, where I have never seen Alonso do such a thing.
Schumacher never used any data until he got to F1 and Alonso wasn't too far after that. Alonso was in F1 as data was growing in strength.
Take the curious case of Hamilton, who grew up using data in GoKarts and used data his entire time in racing... most of the young drivers like Vettel, Hamitlon, Rosberg, Grosjean, etc. are heavily based in data analysis. It is natural to them. Alonso's feedback on car setup, pales in comparison on the data end, if the driver himself has knowledge of analyzing his own data.
I would be willing to bet that Hamilton's growth around Alonso, wasn't the teaching of Alonso supposed knowledge of car setup, but Hamilton's study-analysis of Alonso's data and his driving technique.
A driver is fully exposed to an expert data analysis, IMHO Hamilton knows how to extract a lot from data. And in that was taught to him long before he raced alongside Alonso.

[myurr]

How are they hampering Hamilton again? Sorry, I'm a bit dense with these things - his qualifying looked pretty good.

Seriously though, the argument I guess is that the team has put a disproportionate amount of resources behind Button and that Hamilton is left with a bag of spanners and two guys from the catering crew.

Well, we should be thankful that those two aren't behind the wheel guns anymore.

Hey, we all know McLaren's MO: they don't play favorites and they put their resources where they feel its most needed. As a McLaren fan for many years, I've seen the good and the bad of that philosophy and have certainly seen the pros and cons debated time and again here and elsewhere.

Actually, mostly what I see time and again is people clamoring on about McLaren favoring one driver one weekend, and then clamoring on about them favoring the other the next. Makes me laugh.

I like Hamilton - he's the best driver out there on most days. But, just like pretty much every other driver on the grid, he can be a spoiled little brat when he wants. I try not to pay attention to that stuff, since it leads to a lot of talk about nothing.

Anyway, like I said - helping Button will help Hamilton in the long run.

If you read my last post I explain why people are saying that McLaren are hampering Button, but I'll explain it again. Starting from this race they've come up with a new system for the practice sessions where they're splitting the workload between the two drivers and then sharing the data with the aim of being able to cover twice as much ground instead of both testing the same things and coming to similar conclusions. If both drivers were performing well then this would be great.

But as we've seen Button is not performing well. He's usually at least three tenths behind Hamilton in qualifying and is struggling to get a good balance in the car which is leading to problems with tyre durability. He's not a good gauge for what Hamilton could or could not do with a particular setup.

Maybe it's too early to tell if this new system will help or hinder Hamilton, but it's the first race of the year where Hamilton has been unhappy with the car all weekend and had to guess at setup changes to fix things before qualifying. Long term maybe they'll get this new practice system to work, but in the mean time they're in danger of making the mistake of throwing away good points now in the hope that there'll be a long term payoff. They really cannot afford to do that this year, doubly so after already throwing away so many points due to operational issues with the lead car.

[bhall]

I think it's important to remember that neither Hamilton nor Button has engineers. The engineers work for McLaren, who can do with them as they please. So, until we hear on Hamilton's radio, "Button is faster than you..." or "Lewis, maintain the gap," or we see that Hamilton's front wing has been given to Button, I'd say what's going on at McLaren is a concerted effort to improve the team.

[marcush.]

is driving a formula car to perfection an analogy to drawing according to numbers? Some of you seem to have a very static perception of what a driver does .
I don´t think there is any chance of the driver doing much consciously when driving at the ragged edge.Maybe you watch the direct aftermath of a driver receiving a voice message from the pitwall and instantly missing his brakepoint ,apex or whatever..
To adapt from what you see on a readout is well impossible? I´d think it´s more the comparison to your teammate revealing were you find and lose time...
And when extracting information from the driver ..it´s the engineer who has to ask the questions and the right ones in this.
To read anything into a drivers computer literacy when it comes to his driving ability is a bit far fetched ..Alonso is obviously an excellent driver as is Hamilton ..and anyone questioned himself what Schumacher is carrying in his working bag when arriving at the track in the morning -a pillow for the afternoon nap ,perhaps?

[myurr]

I think it's important to remember that neither Hamilton nor Button has engineers. The engineers work for McLaren, who can do with them as they please. So, until we hear on Hamilton's radio, "Button is faster than you..." or "Lewis, maintain the gap," or we see that Hamilton's front wing has been given to Button, I'd say what's going on at McLaren is a concerted effort to improve the team.

I don't think anyone has questioned that, have they? My entire post was aimed at saying that it (the rumoured strategy) is a foolish on McLaren's behalf, if that is what they're doing. Whilst I believe in giving each individual driver their own fair shot, that isn't the issue here. They're potentially throwing points away by compromising their lead driver's running and setup of the car for some perceived payoff further down the line. I would say that given how close the season is right now that it would be better to get points on the board first, rather than hoping you can make up for it in the long run.

[bhall]

I don't think McLaren is striving for a future payoff. I think they're looking for immediate dividends.

It doesn't matter what Hamilton does; if Button is floundering around at the back week in, week out, McLaren hasn't got so much as a prayer of winning the Constructors' Championship. That's still a valid goal in F1.

(And yes, I have seen several instances of people claiming that McLaren is favoring Button by leaving Hamilton without sufficient support. Personally, I'd take it as a compliment.)

[myurr]

I don't think McLaren is striving for a future payoff. I think they're looking for immediate dividends.

It doesn't matter what Hamilton does; if Button is floundering around at the back week in, week out, McLaren hasn't got so much as a prayer of winning the Constructors' Championship. That's still a valid goal in F1.

(And yes, I have seen several instances of people claiming that McLaren is favoring Button by leaving Hamilton without sufficient support. Personally, I'd take it as a compliment.)

It's better to have one driving winning races and the drivers championship with the other occasionally breaking into the points than to have both drivers finishing routinely around 5th and 6th in a poorly balanced and set up car. So either they think they can drag Button up without impeding Hamilton or they are hoping for a long term payoff where that 5th and 6th becomes 1st and 2nd.

And be under no illusion that Hamilton wasn't in a bad place this weekend - he had to GUESS at changes to his setup right before qualifying. Had that guess not worked, or had it taken him in the wrong direction, then he may not have even made Q3.

The huge glaring problem with McLaren's strategy is that they're getting Button to help set up Lewis's car when he's struggling to even get his own car working. That categorically will not work reliably until Button gets on top of his problems. And it really really is not a complement.

Edit: In regard to your other point, although it isn't important, I don't think anyone was saying that McLaren didn't have a right to take engineers away from Hamilton and give them to Button. People were questioning the wisdom in doing so. Certainly that was my angle on it.

[bhall]

McLaren obviously disagrees. That's probably because they don't have two drivers bringing home 5th and 6th-place finishes; they have one driver who's been on the podium four times, once at the very top, and another driver who's finished 14th or worse just as many times. That's not a recipe for Constructors' gold.

And I wouldn't worry too much about Hamilton's guesswork. I think his quote has been taken way out of context here. But even if it's been accurately portrayed, he has more than enough data on-hand to make reasonably educated guesses, don't you think? His P2 performance in qualifying bears this out.

[myurr]

McLaren obviously disagrees. That's probably because they don't have two drivers bringing home 5th and 6th-place finishes; they have one driver who's been on the podium four times, once at the very top, and another driver who's finished 14th or worse just as many times. That's not a recipe for Constructors' gold.

Further hindering the lead driver won't fix that...

And I wouldn't worry too much about Hamilton's guesswork. I think his quote has been taken way out of context here. But even if it's been accurately portrayed, he has more than enough data on-hand to make reasonably educated guesses, don't you think? His P2 performance in qualifying bears this out.

Has it? He looked off the pace all weekend and is now talking about being unable to win this race with his focus being on keeping second. The whole point is that he's not getting the data he used to, he may have more of it about a wider range of circumstances but half of his data is coming from an off the pace team mate. If that data is pointing to the wrong solution for Hamilton then it is going to hinder his choices.

You have to remember that the crunch a huge amount of data over Friday night and make changes based on those calculations. From what the drivers have been saying the car was better after that but Hamilton still felt off the pace and made a further guess. That is very much a less than ideal situation and one that you are underplaying or not fully understanding.

With Red Bull getting back on song, at least in Vettel's hands, McLaren really cannot afford to drop even a tenth of a second a lap otherwise they can kiss the driver's championship goodbye.

[bhall]

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. On one hand, you say that McLaren's fixation with Button is hampering Hamilton. Yet, you also say that Hamilton is being hampered by Button's poor data, which implies a need for Button's performance to improve quickly.

Hamilton won the last race is starting from P2 today. I can think of many drivers who would love to be hindered like that.

[myurr]

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. On one hand, you say that McLaren's fixation with Button is hampering Hamilton. Yet, you also say that Hamilton is being hampered by Button's poor data, which implies a need for Button's performance to improve quickly.

Hamilton won the last race is starting from P2 today. I can think of many drivers who would love to be hindered like that.

You're missing the point that the team changed their procedures for this weekend, making Hamilton MORE dependent on Button's data!

[bhall]

That's all the more reason to get Button up to speed.

And it should be said that having different data sets isn't always a bad thing, because it makes what works and what doesn't work much more evident as the team narrows in on the optimum setup from both sides of the equation.

[myurr]

That's all the more reason to get Button up to speed.

And it should be said that having different data sets isn't always a bad thing, because it makes what works and what doesn't work much more evident as the team narrows in on the optimum setup from both sides of the equation.

If both data sets are good. That's certainly the intention from McLaren but time will tell if it will work. In the first weekend that they've tried it Lewis has had one of his more difficult buildups.

Consider the team disregarding a certain setup direction because Jenson was assigned to try it and couldn't make it work. Perhaps that direction would have worked perfectly for Hamilton, but because Jenson couldn't get a good balance it looked like the tyres wouldn't last. McLaren are far cleverer than anyone on this board, but they're not perfect and sometimes they are too focussed on the data and miss the bigger picture.

[myurr]

Hamilton is 2 seconds a lap off the pace at the moment. Whatever has happened to the setup of that car has really not worked!

[GrizzleBoy]

He stated yesterday he felt he overqualified in the car yesterday and his race pace is definitely showing that.