More than one way to skin a track
Jenson Button's sole McLaren pole was 10 years ago, but we can still learn a lot from it
One of Formula 1's more surprising recent statistics is that Jenson Button, winner of eight races for McLaren, only took one pole position for the team.
In fact, only four world champions in Formula 1 history have a higher win-to-pole ratio than Jenson. So why was this?
10 years on, Jenson's 2012 pole at the Belgian Grand Prix can still tell us plenty about not just his own unique style, but the unique challenges of the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit, and what we can expect from this weekend's Belgium Grand Prix…
A style suited to Sundays
During a 16-season Formula 1 career, Jenson graced the sport with his smooth and elegant driving style. The final six of those years were spent with us - his 2011 victories in Canada and Japan are remembered particularly fondly – and there were eight victories in total, but just that one pole position.
His overall career record lists 15 F1 victories and eight poles. Of F1’s 34 World Champions, that already puts him in the minority: only 15 of them have taken more victories than pole positions. But Jenson is towards the extremes of that list: we have to go back over four decades, and to a time when mechanical unreliability was rife to find greater disparities, with only Alan Jones (six poles, 12 wins) Jody Scheckter (three poles, 10 wins), Emerson Fittipaldi (six poles, 14 wins) and Denny Hulme (one pole, eight wins) having a higher ratio of wins-to-poles.
But what of his time at McLaren? Contextually, it's worth remembering that opportunities were rare: Jenson’s McLaren teammate at the time was celebrated snaffler of poles Lewis Hamilton, who took nine during the same period. Red Bull were also enjoying a particularly strong period, and Fernando Alonso at Ferrari was no pushover.
As much as anything, it's arguably down to the fact that Jenson’s talents shone brighter against other drivers on a Sunday, than against the clock on a Saturday. Brilliant on the brakes, capable of getting everything from a set of tyres, and imperious in damp or wet conditions, he was very much the driver to deliver across a race stint.
Always cool and collected
The race itself was the usual chaotic Belgian thriller, with a massive first-corner collision that put four cars out on the spot. That was followed by great passes, collisions, cars spinning out and mayhem in the pit-lane.
Typical of his calm and collected style, this all happened a long way behind Jenson, who had got off the line well, made one regulation pit-stop and won by 14 seconds from Sebastian Vettel. Despite everything going on behind him, he led every lap of the race, without ever looking like finishing anywhere other than P1.
It was very much a characteristically immaculate race win. Instead, it was his qualifying performance that was something of an anomaly.
While there was little to separate the McLaren teammates in terms of race performance in 2012 (they were two points apart at the end of the season) it was rare to see Jenson out-qualify Lewis – and the eight tenths between them raised eyebrows. Post-quali, Lewis explained that the pair had been running a different rear wing configuration.
More than one way to skin a track
So, what can this tell us that is still relevant ahead of this year's Belgium Grand Prix?
Teammates rarely – if ever – run an identical set-up: there’s always an accounting for personal preferences, comfort… even physical attributes. However, rather than minor tweaks, Spa-Francorchamps offers a genuine choice of set-up options, with drivers able to achieve similar times via very different methods.
Key to this is the layout of the track, which has very long, full-throttle sections in Sectors One and Three, and a tighter, more twisting layout in Sector Two. Add downforce, the car is quicker in Sector Two at the cost of more drag, which makes it slower in Sectors One and Three. Take downforce off, the car will struggle in Sector Two but make gains in Sectors One and Three.
This is a genuine choice – but not one simply about dragging the ultimate lap-time out of the car. As is generally the case, adding downforce reduces sliding, and thus protects the tyres, makes the car a little more predictable and generally easier to drive. Thus, the car that’s slower over a single lap may be faster across the length of a stint.
On the other hand, Spa isn’t so much about being quick as it is about being quick in the right places. The Kemmel Straight in Sector One and the high-speed run through Blanchimont and down to the Bus Stop in Sector Three present prime overtaking opportunities. The car with lower drag for a higher End-of-Straight speed in these locations can attack or defend successfully against a car that’s theoretically quicker over the lap – but unable to exploit that pace because it can’t pass (or stay ahead of) its lower-downforce rival on the straights.
The impact of Spa's unpredictable weather conditions
At Spa in 2012, Friday practice was very wet. Neither driver set a representative time in FP1, or any time at all in FP2, and so data going into Saturday was in short supply.
Both drivers had a good run on Saturday morning in FP3, though neither was electrifyingly quick: Jenson, finishing the session P5, was 0.549s down on Alonso’s fastest lap; Lewis, in P12, was 1.073s down.
Both, significantly, were using an upgraded rear wing brought to Spa as a lower downforce option. Jenson elected to stick with it for qualifying; Lewis, who found it more of struggle, elected to revert to a higher downforce wing raced before the summer break… and qualified in P8.
Fast forward a decade, and the weather forecast for Spa suggests we may lose some sessions to rain this weekend. Sound familiar?
Many of the same questions that were asked back in 2012, will be asked again this weekend. Most specifically, the decision on whether the potential of our car is better served by speed on the straights or speed through the corners. A decision that will only be complicated by the 2022 regulations.
“It’s a race where it’s very normal to see two different approaches,” says Jose Manuel López, Lando’s performance engineer. "We won’t know for certain until we’ve been on track – but you will see teams taking different approaches.”
F1 never stops evolving – but sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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