Button keen to extend McLaren deal

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In the round-up: information/whos-who/whos-who-b/jenson-button/”>Jenson Button hopes to extend his McLaren contract.

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Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Button: Let me sign up (Daily Express)

“Well, if [Whitmarsh] takes up the option… All he has to do is say yes, and I will say yes because I want to be here next year. It’s up to the team as to when they approach me, but for me I’m the happiest I’ve been with the car.”

McLaren didn’t change set-up for tyres (Autosport)

“I think other teams were quite adamant that we should not be allowed to replace the damaged tyres and we should not be allowed to have a camber change without undergoing the penalty of starting from the pit lane.”

Renault encouraged by Senna debut (Reuters)

Eric Boullier: “He needs to improve on this but a good race. If he can deliver like he did this weekend in every race I think he will be good enough to bring points home.”

Analysis and reaction (Ferrari)

“After analysing how the race panned out in the cold light of day: if the Safety Car had not come out on track, second place was definitely within Fernando Alonso’s grasp”

Hats off to Hamilton (Autocar)

“There have been many fine drivers over the years who would rather chew on a light bulb than acknowledge that they were in the wrong, but Lewis clearly is not ranked in that number.”

Bernie Ecclestone looks worse for wear the day after his daughter Petra’s 5million wedding

“The bride and her father were last to arrive, in his vintage Rolls-Royce, with former Formula 1 driver Jean Alesi at the wheel.”

How F1 teams and sponsors aim to drive fan interest (BBC)

“More than 50% of the teams’ external budgets – estimated to be around $182.9m per year per team on average – comes from sponsorship, according to Formula Money.”

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Comment of the day

Becken was not impressed with Red Bull’s stance on tyre problems at Spa:

I didn’t like the way they ? mainly [Adrian] Newey ? treated Pirelli on this issue. For the first time I can see hypocrisy coming from Adrian’s camp, a guy that I respect so much ? [his] crying after the race was pathetic.

I have seen teams winning at any cost, mostly going beyond the sport’s ethical, but no putting their own drivers in jeopardy and, after that, put responsibility in elsewhere.

Shame on you Red Bull!
Becken

From the forum

Raymondu999 praises Vettel’s race craft at Spa.

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On this day in F1

Alain Prost won the Dutch Grand Prix from pole position 30 years ago today.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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62 comments on “Button keen to extend McLaren deal”

  1. No news on the Lewis Hamilton concussion/blackout or was it only ever an unconfirmed Twitter speculation?

    1. my first reaction was that he was knocked out. simply cos he didnt brake before the second impact. If he was ‘with it’ he would of. there was plenty of seconds before the tyre wall come up but he didnt scub off any speed at all. bit like massa’s.

      but that was just a gut reaction at the time.

      1. Same. From watching it live it was immediately obvious that he lost consciousness. Apart from his hands moving limply in front of him, he was completely motionless up to the second minor impact with the tyre wall. If conscious he would have instinctively depressed the brake pedal at this point. Just goes to show you the dangers still involved in F1.

        1. I was a bit worried seeing it ‘live’ (iplayer the next morning before knowing the result). Still surprised nothing conclusive seems to have come from McLaren to explain it.

        2. I was about 200 metres down the track from the impact, at the end of the race i went down Kemmel straight to the impact, he had done some serious damage to the Armco, i got a few pictures, i’ll download them today and link them, i was actually shocked at how deformed the barriers were.

      2. Well, I think he might have been — if not knocked entirely unconscious then at least dazed to the point where he didn’t seem to be controlling the car after that initial impact. Regardless of the fact that he was able to get out of the car and walk away, he would have *had* to have been checked out by a doctor after a crash like that, right??

    2. I agree, he WAS knocked out no question. He wasn’t moving, the Marshal ran over, looked into Lewis’s helmet then started franticly waving others over and the red flag was thrown.

      No idea why McLaren say he was just winded. A thought came into my mind 5 mins later and it was this, could McLaren/Lewis have used the crash to help Button? if Lewis sat there for a min then the safety car would be sent out and Jenson could come back into the race. I don’t really believe that to be true but the safety car certainly enabled Button to make the podium.

      1. whoops, I meant Safety car not red flag :)

        1. Pretty impressive feat to throw a safety car then! Is there a minimum distance it must be lobbed? :o)

      2. He wasn’t sat there that long and they would have brought it out regardless to inspect the armco/remove the car.

  2. In the round-up: information/whos-who/whos-who-b/jenson-button/”>Jenson Button hopes to extend his McLaren contract.

    is this a broken link?

    1. Yeah what happened there?

      1. It should have been ;)

  3. ‘“After analysing how the race panned out in the cold light of day: if the Safety Car had not come out on track, second place was definitely within Fernando Alonso’s grasp”’

    Ferrari, rather than analysing what could of happened, analyse what did and what you should of done better!!! it was cringe worthy and really frustrating to watch alonso race wilt away and as soon as he past the pit lane when SC came out his race was over….it was a slow death but obvious one.

    1. Coming in immediately: Giving Alonso the last set of options after just 3 laps of his second stint. That way there will be only primes left and, not knowing how long these will last, possibly more than half the distance on the slower compound.

      Staying out: Having a set of options left in case this set dies on him. Also track position against Vettel who appears to kill his tyres quickly.

      Sure, afterwards it looks easy but when you have just a few moments to make the decision, staying out looks like a valid strategy.

    2. Employing Ferrari’s way of thinking they could also say that

      1. Alonso would have won if all the other drivers crashed. Cudda wudda shudda.

        1. I’d imagine teams tend not to just pull this stuff out of… nowhere, though. All they’re saying is that based on their model Fernando may not have been so disadvantaged by the safety car.

          The accuracy and therefore usefulness of said model based on the wet running on Friday could be spurious though.

          1. I’m sure there is more to it than just words, but it strikes me as being more through the benefit of hindsight than anything scientific.

  4. Wow… Thank you, Keith!

    1. That was an excellent comment. :)

    2. congrats on the COTD Becken

      1. Thoroughly deserved, too. :)

  5. McLaren would be truly mad not to sign Button for 2012. He’s had a pretty good season, particularly on form as of late, and he’s notoriously handy in wet/mixed conditions.

    If McLaren for whatever reason do not sign him again, it’ll be a huge error IMO. Would be mighty interesting though to see who they would bring in, and where JB would go…

    1. Indeed it would be a MASSIVE error from Mclaren not to sign Button for next year.

      He’s been a lot closer to Hamilton this year. He’s the gem that can win you the race at any time or recover quickly from whatever the position.

      If they don’t sign them, I’ll assume someone hit Martin Whitmarsh with a beseball bat very hard on his head.

      1. I’m sure they will sign him, question is, what will he be asking for money wise (Jenson has a bit of a history with this kind of thing!)

        Now he’s closer to Hamilton ‘for sure’ he’ll be asking for more parity.

    2. I think the question isn’t when they’ll sign him up for next year. It’s more how long they sign him up for.

      Didn’t Martin Whitmarsh go on the record earlier this year saying that they’d like to keep both JB and LH around for a while yet?

      I don’t think money will be the issue either…McLaren aren’t exactly short of cash!!

    3. Contract negotiations could be tricky, Whitmarsh wants Button on a Multi Year Deal but Jenson fancies a Red Bull in 2013 so is trying to get a single year deal out of Mclaren and they probably don’t see eye to eye on that.

  6. I think it’s a bit soon to take your hat off to Hamilton for that. Lewis has had a session of bitter comments in the media and I don’t think he is quite at the hats off stage yet. Yes I admire that he apologized, but it wasn’t his first thought was it?

    Look at Senna or Glock for example, first thing they did was apologize.

    … Pity Spa went badly for Hamilton. I think he could have won it.

    1. Maybe its to be admired he did this witout HAVING to do so for the first time?

      It means a change of behaviour that is to be applouded and is promising for the future.

    2. Well, it was nothing like the Senna Glock incidents which were clearly being late on the brakes and obvious to the driver they had blundered.

    3. Couldn’t agree more Mike. I think Lewis is genuinely dejected after that, as I believe that had put paid to any remaining hope of him winning the title. So I think he was in a mood where he was being a bit harsh on himself to be honest.

  7. I am sorry but I thought JB already had a contract for(/through) 2012….wasn´t 2012 also included in his multiple-year contract-deal?….
    Or was it something like….he has a non-binding contract (on the teams part)….like he can´t go looking around for other teams, but the teams has the option to trade him in or break his contract off(every year)….i could swear, i read something like that somewhere…

    1. I think it was just two years with McLaren having the option to retain him for longer.

      1. I think you are right there Matt90. From the article, i gather its again a matter of ongoing contract negotiations where McLaren seems keen to get a longer contract into place, and possibly some “discussin” about the right pay.

  8. Why not for Button both year he have shown that he have the true potential to fight for the title,both the drivers are working well within themselves fighting on track giving entertainment for the fans which other big team like Red Bull & Ferrari are failing to do.

  9. I suspect Button wants to have the option open of moving to Ferrari in 2013. For 2012 he obviously wants McLaren to take up the option in his contract, but he doesn’t want to commit to a longer deal.

  10. Sorry to bring up the Sky/BBC thing again, but after seeing the C4 coverage of the World Athletics over the weekend, we may be glad they don’t have the F1 coverage. Poor hosting and interviews, bordering on amateurish. Adverts extremely frequently, even to the point of asking Michael Johnson a question but then deciding to cut to an ad break… Seb Coe looked terrified that C4 have the Paralympic 2012 coverage!

    Bizarrely, we might even see more of the race in the BBC highlights!

    1. on that BBC subject i noticed they ran a hightlights show on bbc2 at 5.30 was this a test of what is to come?

      and if so did anyone see it? was it anygood or did they waste 20mins of the hour talking?

      1. The highlights show is always good. I usually watch it as well as the race but this time it started so close to the end of the race I didn’t bother.

        Better get used to it with Spa. Sky will have Spa no question as they get to pick the next 3 races after the BBC.

    2. Indeed… but it won’t be live.

  11. Ooo it’s ‘no nonsense’ Boullier taking the hard line again. It was a decent first result for Senna, who was a replacement for a replacement. Get some perspective, Eric.

    1. …perhaps a little harsh of me. But any excuse to have a little jab.

  12. Are we forgetting that button doesn’t have the best of loyalty to the team he’s signed to. He bought himself out from Williams a few years ago. Would he do it again?

    1. yes his loyalty was iffy for a while 2 yrs running getting in a mess with BAR vs Williams, though he eventually stuck with honda(bar) through 2 dark years….but did he have any other options at the time? not sure to be honest.

      1. Williams have never deserved any loyalty from their drivers because they were never loyal to any of their drivers.

        1. Pretty much agree.

        2. Well said, Williams has never treated its drivers well. But no ambitious driver can afford to put loyalty in front of results – they have short careers.

      2. Or sticking with BAR/Honda/Brawn from 2003 to 2009 whilst taking a pay cut to help keep the team afloat in that final year could be seen as staunch loyalty. The debacle with Williams has two sides to it. I believe in 2005 Williams were invoking an option they had on Button. In 2006 Button was backing out on a deal that he’d signed on the understanding that the long term Manufacturer Support from BMW would still be in place when he was driving, which it would no longer have been. You can’t blame him for sticking with Honda as at that time being with a manufacturer backed team seemed to be the be all and end all for a driver. Jenson has put up with his fair share of ill treatment from team bosses over the years and with the exception of a couple of badly reported indescretions he’s responded admirably. I don’t think it’s reasonable to paint Jenson as disloyal because he managed to negotiate a change to a business deal. It’s life, certainly in F1 and doubt anyone, Frank Williams included has an axe to grind with Jenson over 2005/6.

    2. No such thing as driver loyalty in Formula 1. A driver will stay with a team as long as they think it is their best or only option.

      1. true, but he made a right pigs ear of it those 2 years.

    3. Where would he go? Ferrari and RBR seats are taken, and Mercedes have promised (and failed) to deliver for two years now. Unless he knows that some team like Sauber will do a winning car next year, there’s really no point leaving McLaren.

      But contracts in F1 mean nothing, so we could well see MSC and Button in RBR next year. :P

      1. He’s not going anywhere next year. He wants to stay put for now and try and shuffle into Mark Webbers seat for 2013. Mclaren have a one year option on JB for 2012 which if invoked will see JBs Mclaren days come to an end at the end of 2012 unless JB and Mclaren decide to extend. As Jenson is somewhat out on a limb in that he has nothing in place for next year until Martin uses the clause, you can’t blame him for sniffing out other opportunities. The other side of the coin is that of course Martin wants to nail him to a 5 year deal that will probably see JB through to retirement but JB thinks his reputation as a harmonious team player stands him in good stead for a drive at both Red Bull and Ferrari and given his performance against Hamilton I’d think SV and maybe FA could be good matches for him too as team mates. Also, his dad wants to see him in a Ferrari.

    4. Loyalty? No such thing. Button had his BAR/Williams problems, and he also had his Brawn contract terminated early when he took a tour of the McLaren factory while still a Brawn employee. But he’s far from the only driver to have had such issues – Fernando Alonso signed with McLaren without even consulting his manager (admittedly also the boss of his then team), for instance.

      From the sound of things, though, Button wants to stay with McLaren and it’s up to McLaren whether they want to keep him. When the team hold all the cards like that, I don’t think Jenson’s “loyalty” will be in doubt.

  13. 2 years ago today Kimi took his last win in F1 in Belgium

  14. The time is looming, when Mclaren are no longer Mercedes powered, and they have their own engine which Ron is currently developing.
    The reason for the Virgin Racing tye in, to help develop the Mclaren engine.
    Who will partner Lewis?? Will it be Button or will this be the return of Raikkonen?
    Ron just needs to include ice cream into his contract !!

    1. why would they want kimi back? JB is much better for the team.

      Kimi was a better driver. but overall package hmmm not sure, esp as he has been out of the car for 2 years. why risk it?

  15. Do you think if you’d had a smash into the barrier luke lewis Hamilton you’d be able to jump out of the car straight away? I don’t think so, being hit in my car from behind I didn’t get out immediately I was stunned. I juust thought *** happened then!

    1. depends on the situation and on the person. When i first fell off a motorbike the shock was much greater than the next time when a car went into the back of me. That time i remained quite calm really. So perhaps you get used to it a little. Though you can never fully get used to it! and if you do it probably happens to often!

      Though on both occasions i instantly got up and its the getting up i dont remember. But it was a natural reaction to get to your feet as fast as possible despite being in a bit of pain

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