11 year old Carl tackles Lewis and Jenson

Jenson and Lewis agreed that they should have a wager on the outcome and asked Carl what he suggested. He said that the loser, “Should flush his head down the loo!” which cracked Button up. Somehow I think they will come up with something less onerous.

There was another funny moment when I asked the pair about their relationship, given that many people seem to think it will break down at some point. I asked if there were any signs yet that the current pairing of two world champions was heading the way of the ill fated partnership between Senna and Prost.

Hamilton said that it all looked so friendly between them because they are such good actors. “We’re going to Hollywood next,” shouted Button.

“He’s going to Hollywood, I’m going to Bollywood,” said Hamilton.

The pair spoke about the race this weekend, about the major upgrade McLaren is bringing in the form of a blown diffuser and about the sense of calm confidence in the team at the moment.

“I think if you saw the last race, a few cars had new parts and mostly this special blown diffuser that Red Bull rocked up with at the start of the season,” Button said. “They have been working on their update kits and they are a race ahead of us. They came out very strong but I still think we did a very good job in Valencia to get two cars on the podium.”

They also responded to Damon Hill’s assertion that Button is the tortoise and Hamilton the hare in this relationship.

“It’s very interesting to know how past world champions talk about the present drivers, ” said Hamilton through clenched teeth. “We’ll see if it’s true or not and if they know what they’re talking about.”

I’ve seen the pair of them behind closed doors and the relationship is good. There is no doubt that they both realise that to feud would be counterproductive. When the pressure is on at the end of the season, then thinsg might get a little more tense, but Button’s laid back character and ability to take it on the chin when a team mate is faster certainly helps smooth things along.

Damon Hill is the latest in a string of people to suggest that the love-in will end soon, but I’ve not seen a trigger for a break down in relations yet.

McLaren will face stiff opposition from Red Bull this weekend – this is a circuit which will really suit the Red Bull car and Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber are both mighty around Silverstone. It should be a fantastic scrap for pole and the win.

It’s video we shot at the Westfield Shoping Centre in London last Thursday evening, a few hours after the Fans’ Forum ended – busy day! The reigning world champion, previews the race at Silverstone for us.

He talks about what he found when he drove the new Silverstone layout on the McLaren simulator, describes the “buzz” of arriving at Silverstone both as world champion and in the thick of the fight for this year’s title and talks about the confidence he feels since winning the world title. There is a nice bit where he talks about how that confidence has helped him to make some of the tactical calls in races like Australia this year.

But he also speaks about his team mate Lewis Hamilton and how, once they’ve worked together through the weekend to set the car up for Silverstone, the gloves will come off on race day….

Jenson is taking part in the London Triathlon on August 8th. He’s raising money for the Make a Wish Foundation, helping improve the lives of disadvantaged kids. To sponsor Jenson go to jb2010

I quite like this latest effort from McLaren and Vodafone. They have done some lame ones, but the one where the two blokes build a remote control device and persuade McLaren to let them use it to drive a real F1 car was funny.

This one shows Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, left to their own devices by their mechanics, building what looks like a 2008 McLaren from a pile of parts.

There is some good chemistry and good humour here, which is what these things should be all about. The link to Vodafone is a bit tenuous, but it’s entertaining. It’s clear that Hamilton has far more of a feel for the spanner than Button, who asks at one point, “Did you do any work on your own kart?” because clearly he didn’t!

Check it out and let me know what you think.

The Red Bull cars look very fast but there are reliability worries. Winner of the last two Grands Prix Mark Webber stopped out on track in the final moments of practice with a suspected engine failure, having set the second fastest time. It will have been an old engine, probably close to its mileage limit, but nevertheless and engine failure is an engine failure. His Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel was third fastest despite time lost to replace a water pipe and some wider concerns about water pressure.

Red Bull trialled their new drag reducing rear wing and will make a decision on whether to race it this weekend, or whether to take the learnings from today forward to the Canadian Grand Prix, where it will be indispensable.

The McLarens looked fast all day. McLaren’s drag reducing rear wing was working well for them, Button and Hamilton were top of the speed trap times at 311km/h.

The afternoon session took place in blisteringly hot conditions, with a track temperature of 52 degrees.

Most of the running was done on the hard tyre from the Bridgestone range, but the fast times were set on the soft tyre, which has the speed on its first flying lap.

The multi-apex Turn 8 proved a real challenge for the drivers with many of them spinning or going off.

The most spectacular was the accident of Adrian Sutil in the Force India, equipped with a new drag reducing rear wing. He had a heavy impact with the barriers on the exit of the corner.

His team mate Tonio Liuzzi had a big spin there in the afternoon, but he wasn’t the only one; Felipe Massa had three moments there, one of which destroyed his set of soft tyres.

Meanwhile Kobayashi and Petrov also found that the slightest mistake in the early part of the corner, particularly on the bump, will send the car off its trajectory.

In contrast the Red Bull cars looked very fast through Turn 8, the extra downforce they have giving them a very stable car through there. Webber’s fastest Middle sector time was half a second quicker than either of the McLaren drivers. But the McLaren made up for it with its pace on the long straights and in the first sector.

Further back, Lotus showed signs of more progress, Heikki Kovalainen setting a time just 6/10ths of a second slower than the midfield team, the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari. His time was 1.4 secs faster than the Virgin of Lucas di Grassi.

Make sure to follow all the Qualifying and race action as well as the Paddock goings on with our live Twitter service, pulling in feeds from teams, drivers and media. Go to JA Tweets Site

Turkish Grand Prix practice

1. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.280 30
2. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:28.378 + 0.098 24
3. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:28.590 + 0.310 26
4. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.672 + 0.392 32
5. Alonso Ferrari 1:28.725 + 0.445 30
6. Rosberg Mercedes 1:28.914 + 0.634 22
7. Schumacher Mercedes 1:28.974 + 0.694 22
8. Kubica Renault 1:29.225 + 0.945 34
9. Petrov Renault 1:29.501 + 1.221 36
10. Massa Ferrari 1:29.620 + 1.340 26
11. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:29.629 + 1.349 16
12. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:29.987 + 1.707 17
13. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:30.053 + 1.773 34
14. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:30.176 + 1.896 34
15. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:30.386 + 2.106 32
16. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:30.627 + 2.347 28
17. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:30.766 + 2.486 32
18. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:30.933 + 2.653 37
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:31.610 + 3.330 37
20. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:33.013 + 4.733 28
21. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:33.081 + 4.801 11
22. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:33.312 + 5.032 29
23. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:33.420 + 5.140 35
24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1:33.740 + 5.460 25

Button: Wants more from the brakes (Darren Heath)

For Button it has either been victory, gained through tactical plays in changeable conditions, or minor placings this season and his best qualifying has been fourth.

My understanding of the situation has been that Button is quite happy with the general set-up of the car and that the final fraction of a second for him is to come from braking, because he is more smooth on the brakes than Lewis Hamilton and that requires different materials.

Neale said that the team needs to give the drivers a better car. Operationally McLaren haven’t always hit the sweet spot, particularly after the high of China. He confirmed today that the braking revisions Button is asking for are “second order of magnitude” items compared with big ticket items like a different suspension geometry, as McLaren provided for Juan Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen when they were team mates,

“If I am really honest I don’t think that Jenson’s fluctuation in form is anything to do with him, I think it’s us, ” said Neale. “I don’t think we have given him or Lewis a car that will put them on the front row of the grid yet so they have got their work cut out.

“In the early part of the season Lewis found himself in a few difficult positions and then consequently has done a lot of overtaking manoeuvres. We obviously let Jenson down in Monaco by dispatching the car with a piece of support equipment in it which was not great. Jenson and Lewis are working really well and in terms of their drives both of them are leaving nothing on the circuit. The obligation is now on us as a team to get the car to get the job done, and not for the drivers themselves to look at what they need to do next.

“In terms of tailoring the car specifically for him then there is nothing about Jenson’s driving style relative to Lewis’s that says they want to exploit the tyres any differently. They have slightly different preferences for braking but by the time you are into brakes, you are in second orders of magnitude compared to front suspension, wheelbase etc.

“So we are very happy that having these drivers doesn’t mean your chief engineer has got to open up two or three development paths which sap the organisation of energy. So we are not looking at different suspension layouts for one or the other and it means that we can then focus on getting more downforce and getting more out of the tyres which is essentially the only way we are going to close the gap to Red Bull. That and be operationally more effective.”

Neale added that this weekend in Turkey the team is feeling quite optimistic as the car seems to perform well on high speed corners,
“The circuit has long sweeping curves, Turn 8 being one of them, and at the moment our car seems to work better on the high-speed circuits. We have more of an issue on the low-speed corners,” he said.

To read a full transcript of the teleconference visit
McLaren Transcript

In two successive seasons we have seen the phenomenon of drivers in the later stages of their careers finding success; Jenson Button and Mark Webber. Both have seen their careers revitalized when it looked like the sands of time might be starting to run out for them.

What makes it doubly positive is that It hasn’t happened for a while and it goes against the prevailing trend of gilded youth in sport.

In the last decade, F1 has been dominated by drivers who were successful pretty much from the start of their F1 careers, drivers like Alonso, Hamilton, Schumacher and Raikkonen.

F1 has always had drivers who spend the bulk of their careers pushing water uphill in uncompetitive cars. Many never get the wins they were so certain they would have on their way up the ladder. Instead they make up the numbers, picking up the odd podium along the way and then get dumped out of the sport in favour of a younger driver.

Meanwhile the hot young things, the Alonsos, Hamiltons and Vettels, are groomed by driver development programmes, come into F1 in competitive cars and leapfrog the older pros.

Drivers like Button and Webber must have felt that their opportunity would never come. The concept of a ‘long in the tooth’ driver, considered a ‘journeyman’ by many who gets a winning car and suddenly dominates provides a nice counterpoint to the ‘thrilling rookie’ storyline we have become used to.

Webber is reminding me of Nigel Mansell at the moment. Both had obvious speed, but struggled for consistency until one day in their early 30s they were given a competitive car and they went out and made maximum use of it.

Like Webber, Mansell was 32 when he started winning races. He won two races in 1985 and then was a title contender the following year with Williams, only losing out at the final race. Webber looks like he may emulate that pattern and who knows where the story might end? The Red Bull is the fastest car out there and he’s got some real momentum going. It will take a mighty effort by his team mate Vettel or someone like Alonso to get on top of him.

Although quite different characters, Webber and Mansell are both old school racers. They share a warrior spirit and now that Webber has unlocked the secret of dominating a race weekend, locking out pole position and leading from the front in the race, not giving the opposition a chance, he has the chance to emulate Mansell and Button and go on to become a champion.

As with both of those drivers, many people doubted that Webber had it in him to do this. What makes it very interesting is that within Red Bull, certainly the Austrian side of the company, the weight is behind Vettel.

He is the product of the expensive driver development programme, he’s the one with the most pictures on the website and Webber is there to push him hard. If he gets beaten by the ‘journeyman’ what does that say about him and the huge investment in his development programme?

The team said this week that it found some damage on Vettel’s chassis after Monaco, which possibly accounts for him not being on Webber’s pace in the last two races. It must have been subtle damage as Vettel managed to set the fastest lap in the closing stages of the Monaco race.

But psychologically for the team the new chassis is a page turner; there had to be some other reason why he was being beaten by the other guy and now the pressure is really on Vettel to regain the initiative.

He outpaced Webber in Turkey and Silverstone last season and I think the British Grand Prix in particular is set up to be a landmark event, as the Red Bull will be untouchable due to its prowess in fast corners and so we will see a battle for supremacy between these two fine drivers. Vettel got the upper hand last year, if he fails to do so this year the pendulum may stick on Webber’s side.

Vettel is a huge talent and his time will certainly come. This is Webber’s one chance and it looks like he’s figured out how to make the most of it.

Button scored ten points for fifth place and retained his lead in the world championship heading into this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, but his comments surprised senior figures in the Mercedes team and many onlookers.

Button criticised Schumacher for his passing move as Button exited the pits,
“”He turned in and if I didn’t back out of it we would have crashed,” he said. “So he didn’t really give me a lot of room there. There you go, you’d think with his experience he would know. It wasn’t really the right move.”

Having been two to three tenths of a second faster in the opening stint than the Mercedes driver, Button was then forced to follow him for the rest of the race. He lined up several passing moves on the seven times champion, but none of them came off. This has brought him in for quite a bit of criticism and unfavourable comparisons with other champions who “would have got past.”

What is clear from the lap times yesterday is that this was one of those days when Button was nowhere near as fast as his team mate in the same car. In the 16 lap opening stint he only matched Hamilton’s lap time once and the rest of the time he was between a tenth and half a second slower. In 15 laps he lost six seconds to him.

Once they switched to the hard tyre, Hamilton was at least a second and at times two seconds faster than Schumacher’s Mercedes, indicating that the McLaren was better on the hard tyre and therefore Button had a significant performance advantage over Schumacher too. But he couldn’t find a way through.

It demonstrates that even with such an advantage overtaking is extremely hard in modern F1, especially when it’s Michael Schumacher you are trying to pass.

“On a track like this you’re not going to overtake him, ” said Button. “He was putting it on the inside, and I couldn’t pass on the outside because he just pushed me wide every time. He didn’t make a mistake, so it was very frustrating.”

Let’s take a balanced look at this situation. Last year he took a big early lead in the championship in a car with a big technical advantage and then had a patchy second half to the season, holding on for dear life to win the title. Nevertheless I put him as ‘Driver of the Year’ because his peaks were very high and on some of his bad weekends he made some great saves, fighting his way back to score important points.

This season he has pleasantly surprised many in F1, who admired his smoothness and were impressed with some of his performances last season, but still weren’t sure about him.

Meanwhile today’s result will trouble those people who dismiss him as a moderate driver, who lucked into his world championship with an all conquering Brawn car last year.

His win in Melbourne, which like today’s win was based on a crucial tyre choice at a pivotal moment, was dismissed by many as lucky because he was forced to pit because his intermediate tyres were worn out. That early call gave him the platform for the win but from then on he still had to drive most of the race on a single set of tyres.

Today he disproved the theory that luck has anything to do with it; he, Rosberg, Kovalainen and the Renault drivers stayed on slicks in light rain in the early laps, while most of the runners pitted for intermediates. When those started burning out after a few laps, they were all forced to pit again for slicks, opening up a yawning gap between the leading group and the rest. That gap was only closed by a second safety car to clear debris.

There was still plenty of driving for Button to do, once that tyre decision had been made, including passing Rosberg and then keeping the pace up on worn intermediates at the end. He made one mistake, near the end of the race, locking up his wheels and going off the track, after which he also struggled to get the tyres up to temperature, which allowed Hamilton to close up.

“For me, it is my best victory – every one you win becomes your best victory but this was was pretty tough conditions,” he said. “It is not luck we came out on top today. We chose correctly in the conditions. The start was the right call definitely but it was slippery and we knew how quickly the soft tyres would be working.”

Button went to McLaren for three reasons; for a fast car, to test himself against Hamilton, but most important of all, to prove that he didn’t just win the title last year because he had the best car. This last point was one of the key reasons he gave to Brawn when he told them he was leaving and it is one even his harshest critics must concede he is proving so far this season.

Button made a lot of bad decisions in his early career, particularly when choosing which team to drive for and it’s great to see that, late in his career, he has found himself realizing his potential and showing people what he can do, which has not always been easy to see.

Of course we have to take into account that he also has off days, when the car isn’t right for him, he can drift out of the picture. But since he’s had a competitive car, those days are noticeably less frequent.

His confidence is sky high after winning the championship and these wins will only add to that.

“You won’t see many better drives than that,” said McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh, who has seen a few in his time. “I can tell you – he was very, very impressive today.”

Button: Nothing to lose (Darren Heath)

But today the difference between them was highlighted in several ways. Button instinctively knew that lap 6 was the right moment to gamble on a switch to dry tyres. His first sector made him and us wonder whether it was the right choice, but he was soon up to speed and from then on there was no doubt.

When everyone dived in for tyres, he moved up to second place behind Vettel and was well placed to take the lead when the Red Bull car failed again. From there he measured the gap to the opposition, trimming the car using the front wing adjuster and showing the same ability to nurse a set of tyres he showed in Monaco last year, the cornerstone of that victory.

The confidence that Button now has since winning the world title is there for all to see. It’s in the way he walks through the paddock, conducts interviews, greets people. He’s achieved his goal, he is loving life as an F1 driver and whatever happens from now on is a bonus. Fear of failure is no longer part of his game and that is a mighty powerful weapon.

His mechanics love him already. He comes in and thanks them for their work at the end of every day and they appreciate his honesty on the days when he doesn’t get it right.

If Button is about swagger, mixed with savvy and subtlety, Hamilton is all about the warrior spirit, but the fear of failure is still there. He was aggressive from the outset and pulled off some stunning moves. He was never going to beat Button because he didn’t take the early tyre gamble but a podium was there for the taking.

Hamilton: Painful lesson (Darren Heath)

McLaren’s decision was partly informed by the belief that Hamilton would struggle to make it to the finish on a single set of tyres, unlike Button.

Realising the decision had been wrong he criticised the team in a radio transmission which was heard by the world, which showed a lack of composure.

“All I know is the guys do, always, a fantastic job, but the strategy was not right,” he said after the race. “Everyone else in front of me did one stop and for some reason I did two.”

It’s the “for some reason” part of that sentence which rings hollow in comparison with Button’s decisiveness.

It reminded me of China 2007, where Hamilton lost the world championship by staying out too long on a set of tyres that everyone could see were destroyed. He slid off into the gravel trap on his belated way into the pits.

On that occasion he was led by the team, which was trying to win the title that day, rather than take a safe podium that was there for the taking and which would leave him with a simple tap-in at the final race. That was McLaren hubris at its most extreme.

Yesterday Hamilton showed he is still dependent on them for decisions, but unfortunately for him, Button showed what leadership from the cockpit is all about and the contrast is painful for Hamilton. He will be stinging.

It comes at a time when he is coming out of the protective cuccoon of his father Anthony, facing the world as his own man. The lesson of Melbourne is that as a driver he clearly has some life skills to learn.

He has exceptional skill behind the wheel, of the kind which could make him one of the greats, but until he can add that extra dimension of leadership and racing intelligence from the cockpit he will not be the complete package.

He seemed very upbeat after the testing and clearly believes that he has a competitive car. However he said that the last few weeks have proved to him that the first few laps of the race are going to be vital,

“It’s like an endurance race, like Le Mans, ” he said. “The car works very differently from high to low fuel loads in terms of balance. It is a different way of driving from last season. We have to look after the tyres a bit more, it’s tough on the tyres. If you damage the tyres on lap three in the race you’re screwed for the whole stint. So you have be gentle with the car.

“You have to work them the right way. They are on a knife edge, either they work or if they get outside the temperature range they fall off a cliff.”

Button confirmed what we’ve been saying on JA on F1 for some time, that the adjustable front wing is proving a crucial tool this season. Ferrari had theirs before McLaren and made good use of it, but it was interesting to note at the final test in Barcelona when McLaren fitted theirs for the first time, how much it helped in preserving the tyres over the long runs.

Hamilton’s race simulation on Sunday afternoon showed the lap times coming down nice and gradually, from 1m26s to 1m 25s in the first stint, then from 1m24s to 1m23s in the second stint and then from high 1m23s to 1m22s and low 1m 23s in the final stint.

“The way the cars work now with high fuel you really are adjusting the front wing a lot,” said Button. “Having it at the last test, you play around with it a lot as the fuel load comes down and through every stint and it’s key. The reliability of that front wing is key.”

Button also said that it is clear that the way the races will run this season will be quite different, things will be far less planned and much more reactive,
“I think the top teams will have similar strategies, although people will be looking to stop two or three laps before their rivals so they can get out and jump them,” he said. “You will also have the teams that aren’t so competitive trying crazy strategies like pitting on lap one and then hoping they can run to the end of the race.

“There will be lots of different strategies which will make it very exciting for the viewers but will make it very difficult for us. You cannot plan in advance really. All you can do is go through every scenario and hope that you are ready when you have to jump on a strategy change.”