F1 » DC: Button a quality driver and great talent

JB may be all of those things, but by his own choice, he has ended up in the wrong teams at their wrong times. This is all part of being great. Knowing where you should be.

MinardiMatt - not taking anything away from your opinion at all but i rather feel that Couthards comments ref Jenson carry a little more weight than some armchair critic.
He was on it in 2006 behind Schumacher , the car has gone down badly since then , so this year he didn't out point Rubens , big deal , i'd still rather have Button on the team than Rubens and if he got a car that was competitive he would be a podium contender.

I take your opinion on board Tim.
However DC has been one of Button's best friends over the last few years. They even parked their motor homes together at races... do you think an underachieving driver like Coulthard who happens to be best pals with the subject that he is talking about can be as objective as some of us in this thread?

I'm sorry, but I'm fed up of reading comments on here saying that Button was blown away by Barrichello and therefore he's not a top driver.

Yes, RB out-scored JB in 2008. Yes, RB had the best result for Honda in 2008. And yes, RB out-qualified JB 10-8.

However, look a bit beyond that and you will find that JB actually finished ahead of RB in 10 races to 7. (JB retired in Melbourne whilst RB was DSQ.)

So yes, RB may have out-qualified JB. But it was JB who out-RACED RB.

DC is right in all of this. JB is a great talent. However, I do agree that after 9 seasons, his championship-winning window has passed.

Saying that, it took Mansell 176 races to win a championship. Button is only on 154.

Yep thats what I mean ten races to seven. This is all opinion and all and I don't go in for the 'flaming' but in my opinion Button, to keep his stock strong, should have done a lot better than that against a ageing driver who's best years were behind him and who at no point in his career has ever asserted himself as a top tier driver (Ferrari included)
Even Ferrari took him on because they didn't want anyone to challenge Schumacher's number one status.

Yep thats what I mean ten races to seven. This is all opinion and all and I don't go in for the 'flaming' but in my opinion Button, to keep his stock strong, should have done a lot better than that against a ageing driver who's best years were behind him and who at no point in his career has ever asserted himself as a top tier driver (Ferrari included)
Even Ferrari took him on because they didn't want anyone to challenge Schumacher's number one status.

Let's remember Barichello didn't " outperform " Button until Brawn arrived at Honda and could help Rubens set up his car like in the "old days" at Ferrari.Button has been a victim of very bad timing and decisions , perhaps of his own making.

iBlaze, Nigel never Publicly screwed People over contracts. 2 different Personnallities. Nigel would have Killed Himself for the WDC. NO way You can compare the 2!

forager 1... I wasn't comparing Button to Mansell. No way. Mansell is one of THE greats of F1. He'd already came close to winning the title long before that 176th race.

I was simply using that statistic to show that, although Button's time has probably passed by now, there is no such thing as a "championship-window". Given the right equipment, you could win it in your first season (as Hamilton almost did last year) or you could win it in your last season (as Schumi almost did in 06) or you could win it in any other season in between.

Unfortunately, Button has never had a championship-winning car. Whether that's his own fault or whatever, it's certainly not down to his driving.

Have to agree with dc i dont think button has lost any of his ambition to win the wdc i just think since his fall out with frank and going to honda he will find it difficult to recover from the situation he has put himself in, he is a good driver but not really had the equipment to deliver even when he worked for frank.