Silly Season 2013/14

[stefan_]

It's official. Heikki will drive the E21 for the remainder of the season.

http://lotusf1team.com/Heikki-Kovalaine ... -Team.html

[PlatinumZealot]

McLaren confirms Magnussen for 2014. And hails Buttons development skills.

http://www.mclaren.com/formula1/2013/Un ... -for-2014/

It's Whitmarsh-speak. lol

[Holm86]

McLaren themselves have confirmed Button. So not just Kevin.

http://www.mclaren.com/formula1/2013/Un ... -for-2014/

Martin Whitmarsh must not have read the informed opinions on F1technical...

Jenson’s race-winning speed, intelligence and racecraft have long been a crucial advantage to McLaren, but it’s his skill as a development driver and his peerless technical feedback that will be equally valuable as we make the transition into a new and complex technical formula during the winter and new year.

Or perhaps he has. Since he feels the need to elaborate these exact features

[Richard]

McLaren themselves have confirmed ....

McLaren confirmed something????

Now that is the shock of the silly season!

[SectorOne]

I´m in the process of doing a small infograph on the driver swaps and realized that Mercedes might be the only team that will run the same drivers they ran this year.

That has to be a small advantage for the team as a whole. No new stuff except the car.

[Phillyred]

Premature to say, but I think signing Magnussen sets up an Alonso/Magnussen pairing in 2015 at Mclaren. Then perhaps a Button/Kimi pairing at Ferrari??

[JimClarkFan]

McLaren themselves have confirmed Button. So not just Kevin.

http://www.mclaren.com/formula1/2013/Un ... -for-2014/

Martin Whitmarsh must not have read the informed opinions on F1technical...

Jenson’s race-winning speed, intelligence and racecraft have long been a crucial advantage to McLaren, but it’s his skill as a development driver and his peerless technical feedback that will be equally valuable as we make the transition into a new and complex technical formula during the winter and new year.

lol, ironic indeed after a thread being made on that exact issue just yesterday

[Manoah2u]

yeah if JB was such a good development driver, they would not have slumped so far back this year, and he would not have had so much trouble getting performance out of the car if the setup isn't perfect to his preferences. Well, little choice.....it's not like mclaren would seep out in media that button sucks in that department so they could ditch him easily......

[marcush.]

bollocks.
If Mclaren was not happy with Button -you have to look no further than towards Sergio Perez ..he got fired ..could not match Button constantly and did not gel with the team -bye.

I ´m very sure button would have been long long gone if the team was not absolutely sure about his qualities.Maybe Jenson has good connections towards Honda -but I rather doubt this would be enough weight to keep his seat .

If it were Honda behinf those decisions why only an atention for one year?

[SectorOne]

yeah if JB was such a good development driver, they would not have slumped so far back this year, and he would not have had so much trouble getting performance out of the car if the setup isn't perfect to his preferences. Well, little choice.....it's not like mclaren would seep out in media that button sucks in that department so they could ditch him easily......

I don´t even know how to respond to this.

[Pup]

Well, what we know about Button is that he can go down setup dead ends, only to become aware of it after his performance begins to suffer relative to his teammate. He's done that multiple times in multiple teams, and was very open about it when it happened, so at least that much isn't speculation.

So even if he is capable of giving good feedback (I'm sure he is), we know as fact that he's also capable of giving very bad feedback.

The question is whether anyone could know the good from the bad without a decent teammate to compare him to. Within limits, I doubt if anyone could.

Take Whitmarsh's comments with a grain of salt. He's not exactly going to tell the world that his only experienced driver is an unreliable source of feedback. I would only be worried if I learned he actually believes what he's saying.

[Manoah2u]

yeah if JB was such a good development driver, they would not have slumped so far back this year, and he would not have had so much trouble getting performance out of the car if the setup isn't perfect to his preferences. Well, little choice.....it's not like mclaren would seep out in media that button sucks in that department so they could ditch him easily......

I don´t even know how to respond to this.

it was sarcastic. i think JB actually is a very well driver. even though i don't think he's at the level of ham/kimi/alo

[SectorOne]

it was sarcastic. i think JB actually is a very well driver. even though i don't think he's at the level of ham/kimi/alo

Nice, i did not pick up on that lol.

I´m actually glad i just wrote that small line because at first i had like a massive paragraph but decided last minute to just write something else.

[Manoah2u]

it was sarcastic. i think JB actually is a very well driver. even though i don't think he's at the level of ham/kimi/alo

Nice, i did not pick up on that lol.

I´m actually glad i just wrote that small line because at first i had like a massive paragraph but decided last minute to just write something else.

lol, yeah on hindsight it could've used some smileys to make the sarcastic tone more apparant......

[marcush.]

setup blind alleys.
I´d rather think the team is responsible for keeping the car inside the correct setup windows.In todays world of aerodriven setup windows I tend to believe a driver has very very limited influence on the actual setup decisions apart from minor random i like and I´d prefer..
What you imply is -Button would try or be able to make his prefered setups look better as they really are with the effect of actually putting obstacles into the way of the team finding the correct setup .
But this really is in stark contrast to Buttons legendary inability to drive around a cars behaviour not to his liking.