With 5 races left!

If you'd asked before the start of this season of "Wacky Races", in which Button won regularly, (what?) Vettel won twice, (huh?) Webber won at all (yes!) and Hami, Barr and Raikk nailed just the latest crumblets, I'd answer you were looking at donating to the bookies.

But now, I'm willing to bet the champ gets an even wackier finish.
Just don't ask who's Butt will Barr the Vett from the Webb.
I beg your imagination.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2009 03:04PM by mcdo.

marcl Wrote:
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> I think Button will win it as no one is really
> closing the gap, all he needs to do is get the gap
> back to 20 points and its his really.
>
>
i agree. a 20 point gap, even after monza realistically should be enough with 4 races left.(on the basis of no more DNF's)

looking at the remaing races, who do people fancy for each one? its really getting interesting now mclaren and ferrari are also back involved.

monza, - although Vettle went well in the wet there last year its a power circuit in the dry, maybe that renault engine in the red-bulls will struggle a bit here compared to the Mercedes and Ferrari. I guess the question is will brawn be able to capitalise

singapore - a lot of people are suggesting the brawns for this one, though i think a KERS equiped Lewis is also in with a very good shout here.

japan - Red bull. sweeping and fast suzuka is very reminisant of the 2nd sector at spa, (where the red bulls were awesome)

brazil - Red bull or ferrari?

abu dhabi, looking at the circuit map, it has a bit of a singapore/valencia feel to it (some fast straights followed by some fiddly stop start sections), so i guess your looking at brawn or mclaren here.


i think the one thing jenson has going for him, is i cannot see any 1 of his rivals winning 3 of the remaining 5 races. so if he's able to finish 3rd of 4th for the rest of the season, he's probably got enough of a gap already.

I think we can expect 5 cracking races, whatever happens.

The circuits we have coming up are damn good ones, and are all different from each other, so should all suit different cars in different ways. We have a brilliantly competitive field, and no way of knowing for sure who will have the best car at a particular track until the weekend itself gets underway.
The way this season has taken off since Silverstone has really been awesome.

The only thing stopping me from getting excited about this championship now is the big lead JB is somehow managing to hold onto, and the mess his rivals seem to be making of closing it up! We need Jenson to have at least another couple of bad races and Rubens to catch him right up before this title battle can really catch fire IMO. The RedBull drivers catching up too would be an added bonus, but they don't seem consistent enough to be a realistic threat anyway.
I'd really love for Rubens to win this, but I'll struggle to get excited for him until he's closed that gap to under 10 points. He needs more races like Valencia.

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Button should take it, simply because no-one else is going to be consistent enough to take points off him (Unless he has another DNF and Barrichello or Vettel score big, which alters the situation somewhat.) There's two many interlopers at this stage, Ferrari and McLaren will probably be pushing for wins at some stage or another and you get an inkling that if Force India are eyeing up Monza like they eye'd up Spa, they could be in with a shot too...Button's probably just about done enough with 5 victories and if he manages to take a 6th, in the second half of the season, he will be the most deserving in my eyes too.

Yeah, I'd like to see Rubens or Webber to take the title, but like Marwood pointed out, the tracks left are quite a mix, and you can't really expect any of the remaining teams to be consistently competitive.

A Miracle will happen if, Button will be consecutively outside on top 10 , whlist rubbens is sturggling while the redbulls are dominating then suddenyl a consecutively engine blown outs for them

Rubens and luck don't go together much, there's the special occasion where luck accidentaly stumbles and falls across Rubens' path. In Spa he had the perfect chance to get to 1st or 2nd place but the clutch played a part in his start again. He could have ended the race 8 points behind Jenson, not 16. However I am content he finished the race, his engine would have exploded shortly after Eau Rouge if he had another lap!

Guimengo Wrote:
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> However I am content he finished
> the race, his engine would have exploded shortly
> after Eau Rouge if he had another lap!

His engine didn't expire at all - it was merely the oil from the leak catching fire when the car slowed down. Of course the engine would have died eventually, and might be damaged anyway from oil running low (do the team know yet?), but it wasn't an engine problem.

I don't know if they know, they said it looked like an oil leak over radio but the large fire in the pitlane made me think otherwise.

But oil leak could cause a fire due to it leaking around the exhaust. But there hasn't been an official report on it yet so we'll see what happens

It could be that the fire in the pit was caused because there was no driving wind anymore to blow it out.

Guimengo Wrote:
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> Rubens and luck don't go together much, there's
> the special occasion where luck accidentaly
> stumbles and falls across Rubens' path.

The best test for this will be when he gets to Interlagos

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X (@ed24f1)

We could open a side predicitions' contest to guess the lap and reason for his DNF.

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Um dois três quatro cinco seis sete oito nove dez
Eins zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht neun zehn
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten
Один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять

Lex Wrote:
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> We could open a side predicitions' contest to
> guess the lap and reason for his DNF.


Lap 42
Why? Bruno said so. :P


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Just curious about that brawn car. because the chief designer Jörg Zander of bgp001 has left the team last june 19, 2009. The same month that the brawn car made its last win at turkey, and then the brawns begin to struggle to get its pace until now. i mean, maybe the development of that brawn car now, isnt good as before when Jörg Zander left the team?

well he still designed it, after he left, it was still his car!


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

He's come and gone from a few teams spanning rather short periods.

To me it points out either he's not great to work with, or he's just not great. Rumour around is that it was a younger nobody who came up with many of the BGP001's concepts, and that he's been promoted to a higher posistion.

The same way RBR had no use for Willis I think has happened here.

Jorg was dep Tech director wasnt he? In a budget capped F1, is his posistion really needed? Ross Brawn will still undertake much of that role? Nick Fry is doing the donkey work running the team at the factory, leaving Ross to do what he's good at.

Brawns lack of performance can be explained by a slow Button, and simply general team errors adn not getting it right when it counts. In terms of performance they and RBR have stayed in a similar posistion. Mclaren and the others have just caught up. That had to be expected, we knew at the start of the year there was alot of time to be found in terms of development. Brawn and RBR had obviously found that time alot earlier, and so when the other teams eventually discovered various paths which would find them the time the gap would be closed significantly. This is logic and was bound to happen.

As a matter of fact the development has been no worse than before, and perhaps maybe even better.

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

Its between three for the title now. Vettels engines hurt him too much with the lack of FP and also meaning he maybe cant push as hard as possible. I would still expect him to take a penalty at one race before the end of the season.

Webbers inconsistency performance wise looks like it will be his downfall. If he can pick it back up though i think he would be Buttons top contender.

Barrichellos starts are the thing that are troubling me. In many respects hes Buttons main rival, but poor starts are hurting his race chances and also his engines.

This is Buttons title to lose now. One more win, or even just points finishes 3rd - 5th for the rest of the season mean with the field as competitive as it is i cant see him losing it now (hope not anyway!).


Constructors though is different, its going to be a very tight thing on who wins it. Red Bull may push Brawn to the end, but could we see a Ferrari comeback if they keep showing so strongly? Unlikely but vaguely possible even with only 5 races left

I had a dream last night that Button crashed out at Rouen... so I guess the chances of that one coming true are quite slim. Damn red wine.

gav Wrote:
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> I had a dream last night that Button crashed out
> at Rouen... so I guess the chances of that one
> coming true are quite slim. Damn red wine.


nightmare Gav, nightmare.

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