COOPER: Singapore GP In The Books

Formula 1

COOPER: Singapore GP In The Books

Singapore was another great race from Jenson Button...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted September 30, 2011 Balen (BEL)

Jenson Button (Left) and Sebastian Vettel (Right) celebrate after the Singapore Grand Prix. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

The Singapore GP saw another stellar performance from Jenson Button, the 2009 World Champion continuing the streak that began with his Hungarian GP win with a superb drive to second place.

And after his strong drives in Belgium and Italy Jenson once again put his team mate Lewis Hamilton in the shade, bringing the car safely home after a perfectly judged drive while Lewis got himself into trouble and was left with a tricky recovery job.

Jenson is on a real high right now, and it seems that he can do no wrong. Like Sebastian Vettel, he’s extracting the maximum he can out of his equipment. He appears to have mastered the art of the 2011 rules, and everything that the package of DRS, KERS and Pirelli tires throws up. And it was Jenson who – albeit by just a single point – ensured that Vettel did not sew up the championship last weekend.

Singapore was another great race from the Briton. He made his life easier by passing Mark Webber for second at the start, but he could do little about the flying Vettel up ahead.

The safety car gave him a break, but having three lapped cars in between himself and the leader ruined any chance he might have had of taking advantage – and Kamui Kobayashi was especially unhelpful. Then in the closing laps, as Vettel backed off and managed a few things on the car, he caught the leader at a pace that surprised Red Bull.

In the end traffic got in the way (although to be fair Seb also had to work his way through), and he didn’t quite get close enough to really pressure the leader into a mistake. But he certainly kept Vettel and his team on their toes.

“He had a very good race,” McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe told speed.com. “It was a brilliant drive, but frustrating, because he was really damaged a lot by backmarkers, particular after the safety car, and particularly Kobayashi. It just seemed to be countless times he was coming on the radio and just saying, ‘This guy’s been holding me up for a whole lap.’ Effectively the viewing public were robbed of a close race at the end there. He lost more time than the gap that was established at the end.”

Lowe was impressed with the way he never gave up, and tried to reel Vettel in at the end.

“We had to play the long game, and I think we saw that. The trend in the last few races is that we tend to be quicker at the end of the race and slower at the beginning, and that seemed to be played out again.

“Jenson was pushing the whole time, in the sense that throughout you’re managing your tire life, managing your fuel consumption, with it being the toughest circuit of the year it’s a big factor. He wasn’t driving qualifying laps because of that, but he was driving as hard as he could. We weren’t leaving anything on the table.

“I think we felt that we could hunt him down, and we were. There were times when we two seconds a lap quicker, and Vettel responded a bit. We were quickest, ignoring traffic. He seemed to be quite variable in his pace, so whether he was overheating his tires and then having to back off, I don’t know.”

Jenson Button (Right) doesn't plan to reach out to teammate Lewis Hamilton (Left) to discuss Hamilton's recent troubles. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

In the end Jenson was frustrated with a couple of laps to go when he lost a ton of time behind the Williams drivers, who were fighting each other: “It was just the culmination of a long series of such things throughout the race! So, it was frustrating in that sense. But still it was great to get a second place, and Jenson is keeping up that strong form. It was a very mature drive, with very strong overtakes.”

It was a good job too by the team, and don’t forget that Jenson lost a lot of valuable track time in FP2 when he made a mistake and couldn’t get going again.

“The main thing he missed out on was running high fuel loads, that was probably the most penalizing aspect. But as we saw, it didn’t seem to let him down in the race. That just shows what a good job the guys can do to cover that homework without having done the running.

“We were pretty happy. It was a very tough weekend actually, all sorts of things to manage, both through the weekend and in the race itself. Problem by problem, we managed to keep them under control and get two cars home. That in itself is a good achievement around Singapore, with the different challenges that exist.”

Page 1 of 2

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Cooper

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR

F1: No Interest In Taking Over Lola, Says Caterham
A Caterham spokesman says the team is not planning to buy the troubled…
F1: Sauber CEO Kaltenborn Handed One-Third Of Team
Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn now owns a one-third stake in the Sauber…
F1: Race Car Maker Lola Hits Financial Crisis
Legendary racing car manufacturer Lola is in financial trouble...…