Button on beating Hamilton

Jenson Button won the 2011 Hungarian Grand Prix on his 200th Grand Prix start, at the scene (the Hungaroring) of his maiden victory back in 2006, ahead of Vettel (Red Bull), Alonso (Ferrari) and team-mate Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) in fourth position only.

However, by lap 20 Hamilton extended his lead, building a 9 second gap to Button and seemed to be heading to victory. But soon, Button started to close in on Hamilton, and a better car set-up and tire management enabled him to pass him (picture above) and score a beautiful victory.

Back in 2011, the two Brits, were quite evenly matched as team mates at McLaren in terms of overall speed and results, so it’s interesting to hear from Jenson Button how he managed to equal and sometimes beat Lewis Hamilton.

JB: “For me the only way to beat Hamilton was – I had to set my car up better than he did. Or I had to strategically approach a race differently. It was about details like protecting the tires and then attacking at the right time.”

JB: “I guess Lewis thought to himself a few times, ‘How can he beat me when I’m the faster man?’ But that’s the only way to do it: through working with the car, through strategy.”

This reminds me very much of Alain Prost versus Ayrton Senna, do you agree ?