Let’s take Albert Park as reference point. Button started 4th lost track position early in the race due to the turn one tangle, however, he never really starts well when he isn’t on the front row unless he has a serious advantage in terms of car performance. The second half of 2009 was evidence of that. Do any of you recall any daring overtaking manoeuvres, any wheel to wheel action from the reigning world champion? He did, however, make the call to pit and chance the slicks, I think this was luck rather than judgement as he was in a sh*t or bust situation as his inters had dropped off. His options were, take on another set of inters and risk dropping back even further or gamble slicks when the track was still in the inter phase and perhaps stick it in to the unforgiving barriers of Melbourne. Lucky for Button the gamble paid off.
Hamilton, however, climbed up the field from 11th on the grid made some daring passing manoeuvres that made the race exciting. One example of this was the overtaking manoeuvre past Nico Rosberg on the outside of turn 11. We then saw the attack on Webber while at the same time trying to avoid the sloppy driving of the Australian. Hamilton does take risks some times and they don’t always pay off but when they do its amazing to watch and, they do pay off more often than not. If you watch a driver that doesn’t take risks then i’m sorry but its makes for a very dull race distance. When we look back to 2009 Hamilton finished 5th in the drivers title with a seriously uncompetitive car, winning two race’s and denied of victory at Abu Dhabi due to a failed right rear brake disk. For me this made the driver of the championship. When things went wrong at the Brawn camp mid way through the season Button didn’t have an answer and didn’t win a race after the Turkish Grand Prix but his machinery was still ahead in terms of overall down force. In my opinion Button’s fate was in the lap of the gods in Melbourne and they were feeling very generous on Sunday, lets see how he qualifies at Sepang next week. We must remember there are 17 more races left in the season and one Swallow doesn’t make a summer.
