beelsebob wrote:marcush. wrote:what now`?
Perez getting the upper hand on Button when Hamilton never managed to master Button?
Your premise is flawed. Hamilton had one down season against Button, other than that, he beat button trivially in their first year together, and would have finished more than 100 points ahead of Button in their final year had he not had serious team --- up issues.
How come 2011, Hamilton's down season, shouldn't count in this?
I could actually argue Button had a down season in 2012 considering his overall performance compared to Hamilton. If we exclude that one instead (blaming the Pirelli tyres for giving bingo races where even Williams could end up winning), we have two seasons where they performed more or less equal overall. Hamilton scored 26 more points than Button in 2010, and 43 less in 2011. These differences are pretty small in the big picture, considering the performance fluctuations that we see between teammates in general.
But of course, it can't be justified just excluding one season because the results don't support the desired conclusion. Overall, I would agree that Hamilton probably was better than Button, but the difference wasn't big. The difference was actually very small. Button scored more points overall, but it is true that Hamilton lost more points than Button in 2012 without being at fault himself. But even if we put Hamilton ahead based on the points he would have scored in 2012, the overall difference isn't more than around 30 points per season on average. That is no more than the difference may change from one season to another. I have actually started a little study of this fluctuation, just to get some idea of what can be considered a significant difference between two drivers (but I am not quite done yet). For example, Webber and Vettel appeared to be pretty similar in 2010, but not in 2011. That means if one driver beats his teammate one year, but by a small margin, it may well be that he is beaten by his teammate the following year.
I understand perfectly well why many people consider Hamilton to be the better driver: He usually beat Button. The problem with Hamilton is what we saw in the last race of 2012 (in addition to some bad luck earlier on). Hamilton was quicker and was fighting for the win, while Button was a bit behind. But as Hamilton was fighting for the win he was also taking higher risks and then he got together with with Hulkenberg and suddenly Button inherited the lead, while Hamilton was left with nothing. So in a race where many people would rate Hamilton in front of Button, blaming Hulkenberg for the crash, Button outscoured Hamilton with largest possible margin 25 - 0. I am not saying it wasn't Hulkenberg's fault that Hamilton retired in Brazil last year, but Hamilton didn't really reduce the risk actively either. I feel that some people underestimate the value of staying out of trouble. Even if you are a bit behind, staying out of trouble is often worth more than the points you are currently looking at, because the drivers ahead of you won't necessarily do the same. When it comes to staying out of trouble there is not doubt that Button is better than Hamilton over the 3 years they raced at McLaren and it was actually worth more points than Hamilton could make up by being quicker, although he can't be blamed for all the trouble he got into.
