Bored of Button

Not really no. When someone shoves a microphone in his face and asks him what the problem was he's going to say what he thinks. If Jenson Button or any other driver says they had too much understeer or whatever I tend to believe them, rather than someone elses view. He's the driver, you're not.

As for 'allegiance', what a strange concept. They're racing drivers, not football teams. Do you have a Mclaren paddock jacket and cap too?

"Strange concept"?

Really? Don't most F1 fans have favourite teams and drivers? I don't have ANY of the memorabilia actually but I wouldn't be so bold as to condescend or patronise the tens of thousands of fans who do wear that stuff.

You're point about them being drivers not football teams is irrelevant. Some of the fans I saw this weekend, particularly the Tifosi, are every bit as passionate as those in the Chelsea, Man Utd, etc, terraces.

You're right about the him being the driver and me not, and having watched him go backwards all weekend, I wouldn't expect him to be particulary positive. My point is that he never seems to be able to transcend the slightest issue with the car with driving ability. Drivers like Alonso and Hamilton can.

The slightest issue? You don't know that at all. I'm sure he's won plenty of races by working his way around understeer, oversteer, grip, fuel issues, whatever. You have to agree with that at least?

You assume you know what all the drivers talk about to their teams after the race just because you've watched the GP on telly and read a few magazines/websites. Do you think Alonso and Vettel don't moan after a race to their engineers about why they struggled in a race? Of course they do. You just hear it more from Button as he's vocal about it.

Hamilton moans a lot on the radio too, especially when he's not winning. All of them do, they're human.

As for your 'I used to despise schumacher' comment...despise? Really?

You may well be right on your first and second points. I guess if he was winning he wouldn't be whinging over the radio, "Great win guys but the car is still under/over-steering". Also, it may well be that Vettel and Alonso are far more vocal when they're not being recorded by the press or on the radio.

None of us have all of the information about the car, drivers and teams, and even if we did, we wouldn't understand half of it. We just build our support about what we're fed by the media and what we see on the track. Having appreciated the fact that Button was drivng pretty well and behaving like a decent bloke over the past few years, I've found it frustrating to watch him fall apart over the past few months and not 'appear' to attribute some of that to himself.

Normally when he crashes or makes a mistake, he holds his hands up. At the moment, all we've heard is that 'I'm not 2 seconds a lap slower than Lewis', implying there are car problems. If that was just the car, it would surely be evident where the issue was. The one in the garage next door is identical and is flying.

Hamilton lost the plot last year but i don't remember him rolling in 16th, miles off the pace. His issues appeared to be his own and there was recognition of that on his part. I don't expect Button to come out and suddenly claim that he's not a great driver, he is, it's just frustrating that he's becoming more and more uncompetitive.

And, yes, I couldn't stand Schumacher. He stole the title from Hill in Adelaide and I found that pretty disgusting. I understand he was willing to do anything to win but I resented the fact that it wasn't seen or punished as blatant cheating. Exactly the same as Senna/Prost but that was before my time.

No. Not that I saw much whinging. I saw a driver who didn't know why his car wouldn't perform, is there anything more frustrating for a racing driver? If he gets beaten in a fair and square then he'll come back stronger next time. If he doesn't know why he got beat I'm not surprised he's despondent.

Yes, it is fickle to switch. As a Button fan you'll know what he can do in cars that are not perfect and in conditions that are not perfect. He doesn't hustle the car like Hamilton or Alonso and, sometimes, that's going to be to his detriment. But wasn't that part of why you were a fan in the first place?

When you say you want 'your driver' to earn your support - it sounds like you want them to win. Is it a case of 'no win, in the bin'? I'm frustrated by his recent performances too, as are you, but I'm going to stick with him.

He absolutely isn't 2 seconds a lap slower than Lewis, that's pretty obvious. Losing the whole of friday pretty much to gearbox probs caused major issues. Interesting story here, if you fancy reading it, with Mclaren saying it was a 'failure to tune a revised suspension set up' as the culprit:

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/180772/1/mclaren_were_100_behind_button.html

Nice way of putting it Bomb. Just because someone's struggling and gone off the boil doesn't mean you have to switch 'allegiance'.

Although Hamilton's accent is becoming annoyingly Americanised. It happens though, I lived in New Zealand for a few months and developed a Kiwi twang.

Good post.

It's certainly not a case of 'No win, in the bin'. I'm a Portsmouth FC fan so if that was my style I'd have binned them a few years ago.

Maybe it is just a bit of a frustration hangover from the weekend because Montreal 2011 he was incredible. He is slick and perhaps I'm inferring a lack of effort on his part because he's not hammering the car into the ground to find that two seconds. Point taken.

I do now have a higher degree of appreciation for Hamilton though. He seemed to geniunely appreciate the considerable support he got in Montreal and he was very impressive into and out of that hairpin.

It was my first trip to the Montreal GP, I really recommend it if you ever fancied going. The whole town is a street party and it's very quick, easy and cheap to get to and from the circuit.

I think it's a confidence thing. If the car isn't doing what you want and you've tried things to make it do what you want, then it's hard to take it to the maximum.

Would love to go to Montreal. Did you see the naked student protest? I'd have paid to see that!

That was a good article. Hopefully we'll see a resurgence next time out.

I didn't see the naked protest, no. From the students I saw protesting, seeing them naked doesn't seem appealing. All hair, no hygiene.

As usual, the media played the whole thing up. We saw some protests but very little trouble. The students were certainly trying to provoke the police but I never saw them succeed. I thought the police did a great job all weekend.

General admission on Friday was $40, about 30 GBP. That was a great day. Saturday and Sunday I was in the grandstand right at the end of the hairpin. Unfortunately that's now a little too far from the track, the grandstand into the hairpin is the best. McGill university use their halls of residence as hotels outside of term time. A twin room was 340 GBP for 3 nights and it's 5 minutes walk from the downtown party area. Split that between two and it's a bargain.