Renault's Jenson Button, who yesterday (Monday) announced he will be racing for BAR next season, talks us round a flying lap of the vastly modified Hockenheimring in a press release:
"Obviously we have to regard Hockenheim as a new circuit and therefore, as I describe a lap of it, it is very much on the information I have gone through with the engineers and their computer simulations of the circuit," he explains.

"The data shows I shall be approaching the first corner at something like 285 km/h in fifth gear and in turn one I will drop down to fourth gear. I am expecting to take it at around 195 km/h, maybe a little bit faster because we will be running higher downforce this year. This leads me onto what is now a much shorter straight, where I will get up to a very similar speed of around 280 km/h, again probably just holding fifth gear as I approach turn two.

"This is the start of quite a slow complex of turns two, three and four. The first of these is a right-hand corner which looks very slow and I am sure it will be a first gear corner, probably around 95 km/h at the apex. As I come out of here the corner opens out a little bit and for turn three I should be able to shift into second gear and probably get to around 110 km/h.

"Turn four is a left-hander and although our simulations show it is not quite flat, it should be quite a quick third gear corner taken at around 135 km/h.


"This leads me onto the back straight which although we call it a straight is actually a long very large radius curve and I will easily be flat-out all the way along it. At around 960m, it is similar in length to the straight at Barcelona so, depending on the level of downforce we finally end up on, I would expect to reach the end of this straight in top gear at somewhere between 300 km/h and 310 km/h.

"At the end of this I have to really brake hard because turn six is a very tight first gear hairpin where we expect to be down to around 65 km/h. On exiting that, turn seven doesn't look to be too much of a problem and, in fact, I am hoping we can take it flat, probably at 280 km/h in fifth gear.

"If that is the case, I should approach turn eight at around 290 km/h in top gear, and once again there is very hard braking because this corner is a very tight 90-degree left-hand corner. Looking at the corner radius, I believe it will be another first gear corner, this time with a speed probably just over 70 km/h.

"Turn nine is a relatively gentle left-hand corner and as I accelerate out of turn eight I will probably only be taking this at around 115 km/h in second gear. I should get into third gear and probably around 215 km/h before taking turn ten, where I have only got to drop my speed slightly to around 185 km/h and I expect to hold third all the way through.

"I now head back into something a bit more familiar, because the next turn is the old right- hander that leads back into the stadium. But this year it will be totally different, because the extra drag and the lower exit speed from the previous corner will mean I will approach it at around 280 km/h, rather than the 330 km/h of last year.


"The corner itself will be a lot quicker thanks to the extra downforce, and I expect to take it in fourth at around 220 km/h, some 40 km/h more than in previous years. Now back in the stadium section, I will be approaching turn 13, the Sachs Curve, at a slightly higher speed than last year to the higher exit speed from the previous corner. It will be a 265 km/h, sixth gear approach, and I will be able to carry a bit more speed around this long left-hander. I will probably be taking it at around 115 km/h but it will remain a second gear corner.

"Turns 14 and 15 have always been quite a tricky little kink and this year I hope they are going to be a little bit easier with the extra downforce. I will be taking the first one at somewhere between 200 km/h and 210 km/h in third gear and the second at around 235 km/h in fourth.

"I will head into the penultimate corner still in fourth gear, probably at around 240 km/h, before dropping down to third for turn 16. That will again be a much faster corner than last year because of the extra downforce and I hope to be able to take this at something around 170 km/h in third.

"The final corner is very similar to the penultimate one, and again it will be around 170 km/h in third but a good exit after those two corners will be important as I head back onto the start/finish straight."

 

Will he be a test driver? Or, whom will he replace?

 

He will be a race driver, Villeneuve's teammate. Button will be replacing Olivier Panis.

 

Button will likely replace Panis. BAR has not dismissed Panis yet, b/c they know there is a chance that Villeneuve will leave a year early, in which case Panis still has a job. Story over at www.autosport.com

 

Thanks for the info.

Personally, I hope Villeneuve stays with the team and sorts out his issues with BAR. I attended the F1 race in Montreal and the Candian papers were not really kind to him.

But, he added a lot of "flavor" to the weekend.

If Villeneuve did leave BAR, do you thing he'll stay in F1? If so, which team? Will anyone else pay him (U.S.) $20MM a year to drive for them?

 

Here's a possiblity (albeit an insane one): Williams had the rights to Button. All of a sudden, now they don't. Williams won its last championship with Villeneuve at the wheel. . . If Williams had a space ready for Button's return next year, might they have a space for Villeneuve?

 

I highly doubt Williams has any plans of dropping, or demoting JPM or RS. They are just far better drivers than Villeneuve.

 

Monotya is better, RS is just younger and more driven (pun intended). I think Villeneuve, in a decent car, could take a real run for the championship. I am a MS fan, so I don't say this lightly, but I don't think Villeneuve is washed up, but he has stated that dicing with an ill-handling car for 10th vs. 11th place is not worth his life, and his driving shows it.

He's certainly not going to give BAR four years to get competitive (a point on which I think Button is a little too optimistic).

The other possiblity is that Villeneuve wants to move to an ownership role with a team.

 

Think about Villeneuve in a Ferrari after MS retires. The old man loved his dad - the tifosi would instantly accept him as well.

I think Villeneuve is definitely a better driver than RS and probably better than JPM (who's a good qualifier, but only a so-so racer). He'd still be at Williams if he hadn't been enticed to BAR by his manager, Craig Pollock (Pollock and Reynard must have been blowing some sweet smelling smoke up JV's @ss - remember all of BAR's talk about winning a race their first season?).

Cheers, BT

 

IMO, Villeneuve is as washed-up as Eddie Irvine. Neither have the motivation to succeed anymore. They should both retire and negotiate a franchise with Bernie to sell $15-a-pop corn dogs at F1 events.

I think RS would be a better driver if he could get beyond his hang-up at being aggressive with his brother. He defers to MS too much. I think JPM has the same instinctive car control that MS has. 2004 should be the year to watch F1, with RB in the #1 seat at Ferrari and JPM and Williams fully up to speed and reliability.