Gap year :o
I think Mclaren feel, like in 2014, they have the 2017 car to beat, and do not want any secrets out. If Button went elseware, the info of the 2017 would always be in his head. Makes a lot of sense to keep him under wraps.
McLaren has their cake and is able to eat it, too. Promote Van Doorne and keep Button from going to another team.
He had previously stated that he wanted to try the 2017 cars first before he makes his mind up about retiring because he believes they could be really exciting to drive and race. TBH, hearing him say that he wants more time to do the things he likes, sounds to Me to be more a case of him trying to make out that this is his decision to step down, rather than it being foisted upon him by the team. I'm not buying it being his decision though. I get the impression that he really wanted at least one more year to try the 2017 car, and he didn't want to have to start up again at a new team, so it was race for McLaren or nothing. McLaren (or their sponsors at least), have decided they want to put Van Doorne in the car next year and have forced Button to step down.
Button always has been going backwards: wonder boy at Williams, fired after one season, fired from Renault, good start with Honda but the team ended crashing. Half of his career has been on borrowed time, saved in the last minute twice, in 2008 and 2013. Yet he retires as a veteran, billionaire and with one championship: I think he´s got nothing to complain about. For McLaren is a necessary move: Button is old for F1 standards, he wouldn´t have stayed for much longer anyway, and nobody knows how long Alonso will stay so they have to look ahead. Probably they keep Button around just to do PR stuff.
And if Button is OK doing that for a while, what better guy is there? For years now Button has been a fantastic face for the team, for the sport and for the sponsors. The camera loves him, the press loves him, and he is just a natural on the TV ads he does. Actually seems to have a pretty good sense of comedic timing. If I was running a team, heck yes! I would love Button on my PR squad.
Button does look like he's been forced out. We'll see how good Vandoorne turns out. Mclaren has a recent history of bringing and sacking young drivers like Perez and Magnussen. The latter actually beat Vandoorne in Formula Renault some years ago.
He should've left a while ago. He's not going to win or podium so what's the point in staying around? He's also likely getting paid way too much and at this point more than sponsorship is covering. Time to let new talent in...
if next year's car is not competitive I can see Alonso abandoning ship at the beginning of the season and Button racing again. Btw can anyone guess who will have the biggest budget between Mc-Honda and Renault in F1?
Honda pays half of the driver's salaries as part of the deal. Ron can find some young gun and save a bunch of money. Every kid in Finland now is tuning up his go kart.
You meant "tuning down"? They better try undo some of the bolts too then to get used to the same smoke/bang-bang/complete-silence effect
Car was **** last year, stuck around to see if it improved. It didn't. Technically speaking every team slower than Mercedes/Ferrari/Red Bull should call it quits as well then, since they don't have a chance of winning either.
There's the chance of winning and then there's just embarrassing yourselves. Mac's been doing that for 3 years now. First they were the slowest of the Mercedes cars, then the most unreliable car on the track with Honda and now they "compete" with Haas, which has to be completely annoying to anyone at McLaren. Sponsors have left, Ron is "back in charge", Honda keeps apologizing and the media keeps telling us "what great strides" they've made when they squeeze out of Q1 into Q2. Can anyone blame Button for not carrying?
I'm not arguing him leaving. The comment ''he should've left earlier'' was weird. No one can predict the future, but what if the Honda engine was amazing last year? He'd kick himself in the balls every day when Alonso rides the glory. Same argument for this year...there was a reasonable expectation that over winter, Honda would learn enough about their engine (and the car) to make a big jump in power/reliability to actually make the car competitive, and at the very least fight/beat the Williams.
Imo mclaren is doomed anyway as Renault won't let Red Bull beat them with their own engines for too long and RB will probably end up with Honda pretty soon at the expenses of Mclaren's winning chances
I agree with Andreas. He got a good run in his F1 career. I don't think he wants to race in 2017-2018 in an uncompetitive car. He had some decent wins, was lucky enough to be a WDC, and drove for some top F1 teams. Imagine 2018. I think the oldest would probably be Alonso on the grid, and in 2019 he's probably gone too. Time flies.
Read this and tell Me that Button has no interest in racing F1 any more!: F1 News - Button ?excited? by 2017 F1 proposals Yes he states in the article that he didn't know if he would be racing in 2017, but that was because he was still waiting for McLaren to make their minds up what they were doing rather than still making his own mind up. Reading it, I don't get the impression he was more than happy to walk away from the sport before trying the 2017 cars!
