Funny how all the button bashers have gone quiet.

[xpensive]

As someone stated earlier "Come Barcelona, Jenson's fifteen minutes will be up."

[nudger]

They are so close, they run laps with differences of tenths of second in a total of over a minute (even with cars that have different advantages and weaknesses) that I think there is a difference in ability around 0.1%. Besides, those abilities change with time, sometimes up, sometimes down.

0.1% ? with respect, i think you need to re-evaluate your argument. while the difference in pace between two drivers optimum laps in the same equipment may be small (but not that small) its a case of who manages to achieve that optimum pace. compare lewis and kovy. kovy can be very quick over one lap, but he has trouble stringing a few laps together. and then we have race craft. compare a alonso/lewis/schumacher to a webber/coulthard/andrette. Even if you can argue which names rightly belong in which category, the essential truth is that the driver makes sufficient difference for a formula one wold champion to be about the car/driver combination...as has always been the case.

my inherent feeling about button is that he will be beaten by marginally slower cars if they are piloted by one of the "racier" drivers. I am prepared to let him prove me wrong.

[waynes]

As someone stated earlier "Come Barcelona, Jenson's fifteen minutes will be up."

hahaha!!

[modbaraban]

They are so close, they run laps with differences of tenths of second in a total of over a minute (even with cars that have different advantages and weaknesses) that I think there is a difference in ability around 0.1%. Besides, those abilities change with time, sometimes up, sometimes down.

0.1% ? with respect, i think you need to re-evaluate your argument. while the difference in pace between two drivers optimum laps in the same equipment may be small (but not that small) its a case of who manages to achieve that optimum pace. compare lewis and kovy. kovy can be very quick over one lap, but he has trouble stringing a few laps together. and then we have race craft. compare a alonso/lewis/schumacher to a webber/coulthard/andrette. Even if you can argue which names rightly belong in which category, the essential truth is that the driver makes sufficient difference for a formula one wold champion to be about the car/driver combination...as has always been the case.

my inherent feeling about button is that he will be beaten by marginally slower cars if they are piloted by one of the "racier" drivers. I am prepared to let him prove me wrong.

I'm with Ciro on that one, but let me throw in another point. It's also about how the car fits the driver. That should always be considered when comparing team mates. Alonso was on fire in 2003, but then in 2004 he was consistently beaten by Trulli up to French GP when Trulli's career in Renault took a turn...

[alexbarwell]

Can't imagine I'm the first to comment in this way, but lets wait and see - with a quicker car he's doing a nice job so far and he will have led the championship for a couple of months at least.
Massa looked like he was trying to lose his seat at the beginning of last year and nearly won the championship - it wasn't so much hamilton winning at the last minute, the seeds were sown at the start of the season where even a poor points finish instead of DNF would have clinched it.
Isn't it nice to mix it up a bit with last years front runners looking like amateur night - BMW one-stopping and screwing their tyres on an obviously hot track. These are the guys that need bashing as they DO know better.