Or, as Murray would say, "Catching is one thing, getting past is quite another"

 

But the 'trying to' get past them is the best bit of motor racing (even if the outcome is not an overtake).

The boring aspect of F1 has been where cars (and bikes in motoGP) are so far apart that there is not even the hope of seeing some wheel to wheel action.

I don't know how to ensure we get more 'wheel to wheel'.

As has been said before many times, the best races have always seemed to be ones where rain has been a factor.

Bring on climate change, I say.

 

Junior punted him as his manager - that's thanks for all the effort he put in after all these years...

 

And Formula One is IF backwards.

 

I find oval racing in the US incredibly boring since it's generally fairly EASY to overtake.

I want to see a car sitting behind another ducking and diving, trying to distract the driver until they make that mistake and you have the opportunistic nail biter of an overtake that takes your breath away when it sticks.

I think the trouble Hamilton was having was him having taken the best out of his tyres getting to the Ferraris in the first place. Loose the aero and you have to rely on mechanical grip more. If you've burnt your tyres out going hell for leather then you can't rely on them to give you the drive out of the corners you need to take advantage under braking.

My gut feeling is this is something we'll see between the Mclarens all season. If the track isn't aggressive on tyres then Hamilton can go for it and I think be ultimately faster than Button. If the track burns out the tyres quickly or something happens like today when you need tyres for an abnormally long time then Button will take it

 

It's worth remembering in the Button/Hamilton comparison that JB didn't actually have to do any racing today (thanks mainly to his good qualifying performance and punting Alonso off at the first corner, which was enjoyable), and was therefore able to preserve his tyres more than Hamilton who was having to do all the overtaking, some of it very impressive indeed.

Webber was handed an official reprimand from the stewards, although no points penalty or grid reduction was part of that.

 

True but if you look at the Bahrain performance it shows similar trends.
During Friday practice Hamilton came on the radio complaining that he was wrecking tyres after only 3 laps. At the end of the race on Sunday Button commented in his interview that he was amazed how much meat was left on the tyres.

Means either Hamilton is better at reading the condition of his tyres (China 2007 anyone?) or Button was overly cautious (and Hamilton was just going for it an the tyres happened to last) and Button did spend a fair amount of time in traffic.

Also if you look at past years (Hamilton 2008 & Button 2009) when pressed Button is less exuberent than Hamilton. Hamilton is very much chuck it in the corner and catch it on the exit (dramatic and effective if done right but hard on tyres) where as Button is far more surgical/traditional and takes less out of his tyres doing it.

Anyway, be interesting to see if it plays out like I think for the rest of the year

 

with that analysis, but there was at least some excuse for it today.

In fact, the China incident may have contributed to the caution exercised by Mclaren today.

 

What I thought was interesting is that it was Button that made the call to change to dry tyres before everybody else, yet after the race Hamilton was bemoaning the team telling him to change tyres. Which perhaps says something about the differences between the two of them and the difference in the way they work with the team.

You can imagine Hamilton having a "I'll do the driving, you take care of the car" attitude whereas Button works more with the team and his engineer, and ultimately they trust each other more.

 

Reduce the grip and increase the power and you get closer racing.....simples!
Just need to learn the lessons of the past.
There were faster drivers than Jim Clark,but non better than him and he knew how to get the best out of an overpowered car on skinny rubber in close racing.