It was ok at monaco, Hamilton was good, but by trying to wring 110% out of it he went off.
Mediocre? It was plum last at some points in the first half of the season. The only reason it scored points was because hamilton was driving it.
We can argue the quality of that car till the cows come home, but the two explanations Hughes offered are still contradictory.
Maybe it was me over precising what he said- i didnt want to write a book about it. I'll dig the article out and see if thats the case.But i think the cars relative performances are very relevant. Dropping points in a top car is not the same as not being able to score because the car is incapable. Therein lies the difference .
It's fine to say Hamilton did a better job, it's all about opinions, but the explanation is poor - Button was consistently peerless when the car was good, and consistently did enough when it was less so. I don't see why Hamilton's first half gets written off as irrelevant because the car was not up to snuff, but Jenson gets judged harshly for being merely "okay" when his car was not the best. The two things are basically the same, it's just Button's car at its best and worse was better than Lewis's at it's best and worst respectively, hence JB got the points. And this is a question I have generally for everybody whose criticised the backend of Jenson's season, but praised Hamilton purely because of the backend of his.
Did I sleep through a meeting where it was decided races 1-7 were just practice?
Jens did great in the first half, no one's saying he didnt , he beat his team mate and got enough of a cushion to keep his lead. He's now world champion and no one can argue with that. But I thibk your arguement is flawed when you compare the two and the relative performances of their cars. Hamiltons first half doesnt actually get written off, he gained respect in that first half for getting the car where it had no right to be, I believe he was praised as much for that as for delivering when the car got in sniffing distance of a win; Jens still had a race winning car in the second half but didnt perform in it. (You can argue he didnt need to and thats a fair arguement).
EDIT: Ok I found the Hughes article, Im sure the discrepency was down to me being too brief when quoting him. Here's what he says(he's actually praising Button highly-he puts him second)
2. Jenson Button
Jenson Button at Monaco © LAT
On the form of his first half-season, he'd be comfortably number one. But his latter half was too often compromised by mediocre qualifying efforts as the pressure of leading the championship began to tell on him. He would invariably then rescue himself with some sparkling race performances and he made some quite stunning passing manoeuvres throughout the season, almost all of them critical in gaining him the required result.
His silky style was devastatingly effective when the Brawn was at its best and several times he seemed to gain access to an elevated level of personal performance – witness his stunning pole lap of Monaco or his savagely relentless stint in Barcelona that overturned his team-mate's superior strategy. There were races in that first half-season – Bahrain and Barcelona – where the Red Bull was at least as fast. Button won those races only because he out-drove his team-mate and the Red Bull drivers.
But with a less competitive car and the prospect of a world title on the horizon, he dropped to a less consistently brilliant level. Furthermore, that minimum-input driving style worked against his overcoming the car's Achilles' heel of not being aggressive enough with its tyres.
1. Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton at the Hungaroring © LAT
Once McLaren gave him a car that was almost there, Hamilton was able to do the rest. His spectacular skill set was on full display from the moment the MP4-24 was given the Nurburgring update that lent it respectability. But bear in mind the team was quite honest in admitting it was still significantly lacking in downforce and aero efficiency.
There was nothing in the data, either the team's own or that from the various indicators of performance on track, that suggested it was in the same league as the Red Bull or – when it was working properly – the Brawn. Yet Hamilton won two races with it regardless and was only prevented from dominating a third (in Abu Dhabi where he had more than 0.5s on the field) by a brake material problem.
In the car's hopeless early-season form, Hamilton's qualifying speed was not notably better than team-mate Kovalainen's, as both could find its modest limits quite easily. Even so, he somehow contrived to get it up to fourth in Melbourne and Bahrain. The moment the car's performance window widened, Hamilton was consistently brilliant. There were also fewer mistakes than in 2007 and 2008, though Monza showed he was still capable of them
(as soon as the car could perform he was consistently brilliant- Monza showed still capable of mistakes)
