Let's speculate a bit

agreed

but more to the point... Button is better than Jaques

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

You're probably biased but I'd concede that overall across their F1 careers Button is probably better than Jacques. The only fair comparison between the two is when they were team-mates at BAR. Button was overall the stronger of the two.

But they have one major thing in common, they both took advantage of a superior car to win the championship.

again, very difficult to judge those drivers. Remeber that jacques was already world champion and had spent 4 full years developing a team (the BAR). Somehow it seems logically to assume his motivation for 1 or 2 points in a race wasnt as big as Button's. The latter had to prove he is still worth for formula 1, whereas Jacques was striving for podiums at least. Again, only my view.
you can easily say that coulthard was faster than hakkinen when the Macca was upper-middle class team, but once they had a winner car, hakkinen was the one who took it to 2 consecutive championships.

Think people are tending to put Jacques down somewhat. He was actually bloody good, and had all the skills and the wherewithal to be a very real threat to Schumacher. The mistake he made was to go to BAR, where years of uncompetitive cars and a then-hopeless team destroyed his confidence.

Also I think it's wrong to say Jenson didn't drive like a top driver last year. He had some cracking drives and dominated Lewis for a good part of the year, as well as being the only driver who looked even remotely capable of giving Vettel a challenge for the title.

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With the Button thing, I think he done a great job last year and raised his game.

However I still feel Lewis and Webber made him look better due to their errors.

People keep saying Button dominated Lewis last year, but if you look at all the races Lewis was actually ahead of Button in all but 3. Yes Button finished more but Lewis was the faster of the 2.

In Canada for example Lewis was so much faster at the start in the rain, he was ahead of Button until MS pushed him wide and then Lewis hit Button.

I just dont see where Button dominated Lewis at all.

For me the best driver last year by miles was Alonso.

One thing I will say for Villeneuve is that throughout his career very rarely could you say that he wasn't pushing right from the start to the finish. He was always giving it full beans each and every single lap. And for me that puts him amongst Gilles and Alesi for sheer pig headed racer awesomeness.

But I digress... We've gone off topic slightly we're supposed to be speculating about the season ahead not retrospecting about seasons gone

I'm every bit a Villeneuve fan as a Button fan (actually, with slight tendency's toward Jenson :p) and anyone who doubted his ability was simply foolish. Just go back watch the 1999, 2000, and 2001 seasons. It was all too easy to blame grooves for a loss of performance, but the reality was that there ZERO loss of performance. He might have hated the grooves but it certainly didn't show until 2002, and 2003 where at times he looked lost.

Silverstone 2003 was something I remember well, I remember Jenson being on a charge, catching JV pretty quick whilst also having Schumacher catch. It took Schumacher about 2 seconds to pass Button but he certainly had to work to pass Jacques!! It was almost as Jacques was asleep until that point, woke up had a race then fell asleep when Schumacher was passed!

I have no doubts that from 1998 - 2002 Jacques was offered not only a Ferrari drive, but a Mclaren drive. Although it has never been a confirmed story, it is no secret that both teams did at the very least look into getting his services during that time. I can only assume he turned them down.

And Marcl - You are right, Lewis was faster than Jenson, he is a faster driver after all but being faster on Saturday, or being faster for say a portion of a race is not good enough. When it mattered he, Lewis made too many mistakes and even wasnt quick enough. Lewis will almost certainly get the job done on Saturday but he needs to learn how to do it Sunday. Button's title winning race is the perfect example of his mental demeanour... He fcuked up on Saturday but made up for on the Sunday, arguably the hard part!!! I dont expect Button to be any closer on speed to Lewis this year, but then I am not expecting the difference in championship standings at the end to be more than the 25 points for a win.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

chet, i dont reallz believe ferrari offered villeneuve a seat. remember, he and schumacher really didnt like each other.


@ J i m. mate, you're spot on we have to look forward and not in the past...in the long gone past actually. This is a quality I ve always admired in Schumacher. He never thinks about the past, and never spends time in nostalgy over the long gone years. I have to work on that as well. We all do, I believe, since there are many forums here related to what was, used to be or had been.

chet, i dont really believe ferrari offered villeneuve a seat. remember, he and schumacher really didnt like each other. Still, for me Villeneuve was very fast driver. Unfortunatelly for him he also got stucked in the Schumacher years, where so many good and super good drivers couldn't achieve something special (fisico, jacques, kimi, trulli, frentzen, coulthard etc..)


@ J i m. mate, you're spot on we have to look forward and not in the past...in the long gone past actually. This is a quality I ve always admired in Schumacher. He never thinks about the past, and never spends time in nostalgy over the long gone years. I have to work on that as well. We all do, I believe, since there are many forums here related to what was, used to be or had been.

tbh, I dont think many drivers would be good friends after one drove into another in an attempt to win the championship.

But this was before the dominance of the team, Irvine was always looking like a second rate driver, and IMO not even a match for DC. I wouldn't dismiss it so easily. I certainly believe there was a Mclaren option for him. However I suppose back then teams were more or less happy to settle for a #1 and #2. Could it be argued the fact that JV never achieved more success was down to him being too good?!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

EC83 Wrote:
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> I still think Ferrari are playing a reverse
> psychology game. I'm not saying they're likely to
> dominate in Melbourne, but I am saying they'll
> probably be much quicker than they're hinting at.

Yes, I agree.

For example, if you read Fry's comments about Ferrari's performance last week, it seems quite negative on paper, but in my opinion, he seems much more relaxed about it in the video of him saying it, and even looks like he's about to crack a smile at some points.

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X (@ed24f1)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2012 03:56PM by SchueyFan.

This kind of what I've been hinting at myself.

During testing they haven't looked dominant and there's been a few issues for them.. They admit that things didn't go as well as they'd hope and suddenly the wider world is t panick stations thinking they'll be fending of HRT... ok I extragevate but you get the idea..

regardless what happens, I am convinced that if ferrari stay anywhere near podiums it will be because of Nando. I dont realistically think they can challenge for wins in the first 1-2 starts at least. ust my moedst opinion

I wouldn't bet against Alonso if he were driving Fred Flintstone's car.

good one :P

I'm split on Ferrari. A week or 2 back I was pointing out that track-side observers were saying the Ferrari looked better than the talk coming out of the team. In the last test, those same reporters were saying it looked decent for a few laps and then turned into a car with both understeer and oversteer in the same corner on subsequent laps. Now there's talk of them redesigning the sidepods to such an extent that the chassis will have to pass side-impact crash tests again.

If they've merely been sandbagging all winter, then I think it's fair to say they've done a very good job of it, but my opinion has swayed to that they really have made a pig's ear of things and are currently buried in the mid-field.

It's rather ironic given that they appeared to have one of the best cars last season when the blown-diffusers were dumbed down at Silverstone. You'd have thought they would have had the evolutionary car rather than the very different approach they appear to have taken.

Christian Horner said that the biggest threat to vettel is button ! I hope he doesnt really mean that, because in this case the title is gonna be decided roundabouts SIngapore again. Nothing personal agains Jenson, he's a great lad, and had a really difficult challenges to overcome throughout his career. I just dont see him possesin something special to win another title, expecially against Vettel in the current Red Bull and hamilton as team mate. If macca has a car that suits jenson (namely a car bein about .5 sec ahead of the rest), then I am sure Hamilton will be a challenge jenson cant match.

Oooh man, Horner also described Raikkonen as a challenger. Maan, what kinda stuff was he on, giving that interview.

Gav, I heard the new chassis was to move away from the pull rods at the front as they are killing the tyres.