Hamilton and Button Sound the Alarm After Silverstone
After a disappointing race at Silverstone, largely due to settings intended for a wet track race, which wasn't the case, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button do not hide their disappointment and question the lack of performance of their McLaren as well as their title chances.
Although the track was dry at Silverstone this Sunday, the McLaren drivers literally faltered. Once a leader of the race due to an offbeat strategy, Lewis Hamilton could do no better than 8th at the finish, his starting position, while Jenson Button barely managed to climb into the Top 10 to earn the single point for tenth place.
In his post-race statements, Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), who was long the leader of the event before having to give way to Mark Webber’s attacks, believed that the British Grand Prix marked an important moment of the season: “This is not where you can win the championship, but everyone can start to lose it here.”
After their disappointing performance on home soil, the McLaren drivers are indeed beginning to question their chances of success in this 2012 season which they had started with a bang: « For the moment, we are far behind but we continue to work hard to try to catch up with the others, » estimates Lewis Hamilton. « We are still in the fight [for the title], but if we don’t find a way to close the gap, it’s going to be hard to stay there. [Sunday] we were very, very slow in the slow corners then Michael [Schumacher] passed me and he was really very fast in the high-speed corners: my car doesn’t seem too bad, but theirs must seem amazing. »
Jenson Button shares his teammate’s opinion: « It’s not just the Red Bulls and Ferraris that are faster than us; many cars are. Our car doesn’t seem too bad, but the others seem really good because they’re much faster than us. I was fighting with the Williams and Sauber and there are places where they fly, and when they make mistakes, they fly again. I don’t understand how they manage to do that. The Sauber is faster than us in high-speed corners, while the Williams is faster than us in low-speed corners. […] We don’t seem strong in any area at the moment, and we thought we would be here. It’s a high-speed circuit, and we thought it was one of our strengths.
Leader of the championship just two races ago, Lewis Hamilton is now 37 points behind Fernando Alonso, while after winning the inaugural Grand Prix in Australia, Jenson Button has only scored 25 points since and is now 79 points behind the Ferrari driver. Naturally, McLaren’s ranking has significantly felt this as long-time runner-up to Red Bull, they lost two positions in a single Grand Prix to Ferrari and Lotus, although they remain in contention. The team from Woking especially conceded 35 points to Red Bull in this single British Grand Prix and now stand 74 points behind their rivals from Milton Keynes: « There will be a lot of unhappy people here, but we are one of the best teams in the world and we can get through this, » Jenson Button remains optimistic.
