Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is delighted to announce the signing of the reigning World Champion Jenson Button to a multi-year deal. He will be partnered by 2008 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who will be embarking on his fourth consecutive season as a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver.
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"Jenson will not be doing anything at all for McLaren until the end of this calendar year," Brawn chief executive officer Nick Fry told AUTOSPORT. "And if he does, we will be looking on it very dimly.
"Jenson will not be doing anything at all for McLaren until the end of this calendar year," Brawn chief executive officer Nick Fry told AUTOSPORT. "And if he does, we will be looking on it very dimly.
Interesting.
I don't think Ross cares enough for vendettas. Maybe Button was involved at work on next year car and they want to prevent info transfer?
Usually it is know for quite a while that your driver leaves, so you can choose to not involve him into work for next year.
Lewis Hamilton will definitely be delighted to have Jenson Button as a teammate for 2010.
Heikki Kovalainen never stamped dominance over Lewis in his whole tenure in McLaren. There were the occasional one or two races but he never consistently finished the job. It was a game of predatory poker; and Lewis most of the time had the aces in hand.
Enter 2010, Lewis (with the help of Heikki) has brought the team back from their abysmal form. The KERS car number 1 out-scored anyone from the field - during the second half of the season. During this time, Jenson was playing the points game, which I believe is the best approach, sealing his championship one race earlier.
-These are what I believe are accepted opinions (pseudo-facts) by now.-
-Now let's throw the opinions in it-
I think there will be a psychological effect on Lewis that he has the number two car. Remember that Button will be the 2010 champion and he's bringing the number "1" to the MP4-25. Superficially, Lewis will have the number two on the car, but the team will be fully behind him; even if MW is not as pro-Hamilton as RD. For the simplest reason, that they know him more than Jenson: his driving style, his verbal input translated to become technical data and most important is his capability to bring a "dog" (the 24) to a respectable podium finish and furthermore, to a race winning car.
In contrast to Hamilton's edge for 2010, I think Jenson is in a more powerful position to defend his DWC in a McLaren than in a Mercedes GP car. I'm sure Jenson Button has seen the 2010 Mercedes car, and possibly he has seen that it is not up to par with the development pace of the 2009 cars and its 2010 successors. Also, both of them should be able to drive the car at roughly the same amount of time - for acclimatization and development input.
Lewis Hamilton will definitely enjoy a fellow Brit champion by his side. He will also love the pressure of putting the number one back in his side of the garage. Ron Dennis will hopefully return to the paddock (literally or figuratively) and take care of Lewis while Martin Whitmarsh will be on the Jenson side. It's gonna be a pretty interesting McLaren garage next year. I truly believe that McLaren gives the drivers an equal opportunity to shine but the person who shines first gets polished earlier also. So if Jenson leaves Hamilton on the first few races of the season, Lewis will have to play catch up in both development process of the car and the points, obviously.
The question I really wanna know the answer to is... "Will Jenson be able to fend off Hamilton's relentless attack? or Is he going to leave Hamilton in the dust knowing that he has the crown (which is what he took from Lewis) "his cojones?" The answer I hope is a McLaren Driver's and Constructor's trophy.
By the way, another more black/white opinion.
Ferrari will suck next year. Massa got KOed in Hungary while Alonso has never smelled the sweet fragrance of consistent victories for a really long time. So expect them to make a charge on the second half of the season as much as McLaren did this year. Surely the Fisichiella-Badoer-Raikonnen developed car will shock the Massa-Alonso pairing.
"Jenson will not be doing anything at all for McLaren until the end of this calendar year," Brawn chief executive officer Nick Fry told AUTOSPORT. "And if he does, we will be looking on it very dimly.
Interesting.
I don't think Ross cares enough for vendettas. Maybe Button was involved at work on next year car and they want to prevent info transfer?
Usually it is know for quite a while that your driver leaves, so you can choose to not involve him into work for next year.
I see several factors in this:
- Another one of Jensen's messy moves, probably naive management.
- Brawn will need to milk the sponsorship value of the WDC as much as possible while they can.
- Jensen probably knows about the 2010 developments. Insisting on 31st Dec is just like my company insisting on gardening leave when people switch to a competitor.
Joe Saward as usually points out some valid points. This really appears to be a McLaren coup where they managed to grab Button by some clever propaganda campaign in an effort at retailiation for Merc walking away from them. It caught out Ross Brawn and Norbert Haug who were not prepared for the quick and decisive move by Whitmarsh. Even Kimi believed the story that Merc would go for a pure German team - which is complete bullshit. With the facts as they are Merc may have no alternative now but an all German driver pair.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best ..............................organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)
ISLAMATRON wrote:Button will regret his decision and ask to be let out of the McLaren contract and go back to Brawn/MercGP
I agree that Button will regret this but so it is with all the decisions in his long career. There ain't no way back to Brawn/Silver Arrows though. That ship has left the dock and the bridge has been burned.
I would imagine that Brawn/Silver Arrows would most want to strike out towards getting Vettel in a year or two, so this freedom that Button has given them will be most welcome once they come to terms with it.
bidong wrote:
Ferrari will suck next year. Massa got KOed in Hungary while Alonso has never smelled the sweet fragrance of consistent victories for a really long time. So expect them to make a charge on the second half of the season as much as McLaren did this year. Surely the Fisichiella-Badoer-Raikonnen developed car will shock the Massa-Alonso pairing.
dont understand what u mean Fisichiella-Badoer-Raikonnen developed car....
ferrai stopped development of f60 long time ago........so none of the mentioned driver have any contribution in f61 project (luca might have some).
i particularly believe that massa isnt that talent to drive for a team like ferrari or mcca...but anyway....its happening.
but certainly f61 will be developed around alonso...no matter it suits massa or not.
What happens if we have a case for 2010 as of 2009, whereby Lewis got the new parts before Kovi?
What happens if the 2010 is equally as bad as 2009's early on and they rush for development? They bring new parts to the track, but only have enough for one driver, knowing the new part is 0.2s faster - Who gets it first?
Are you even serious? It's Lewis' team. Jenson will have to beat Lewis and McLaren to win again. To become #1 in McLaren he'd have to totally thrash Lewis while being #2. Is that possible at all? I can't see that happening (unless Lewis becomes a worse driver for some reason).