Jenson Button's dominant form has drawback

Six races into the Formula One season, it is already as good as over as far as the drivers' championship is concerned. An all-conquering Brawn GP car driven by Jenson Button, who showed all his class and experience to trounce the field at the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, is proving unstoppable and the Briton could be champion by the end of August or early September.
This would leave up to four “dead rubbers” at the end of the season - the second night-time grand prix in Singapore and the races in Japan, Brazil and Abu Dhabi. This would be a huge turn-off for spectators around the world and a commercial disaster for the sport's sponsors. It would be particularly painful for Abu Dhabi, which is still in the building phase of the most expensive racetrack in the world, at a cost of more than £1 billion. Sadly, its much-hyped season-ending “climax” could mean nothing.
No wonder Donald MacKenzie, the managing partner of CVC Capital Partners, the principal owner of Formula One, was overheard in Monaco congratulating Nick Fry, the chief executive of Brawn GP, in one breath and, in the next, remarking that his team's supremacy is not doing his business “any good”. Bernie Ecclestone, the sport's commercial rights-holder, was also bemoaning the predictability of this year's title race, even before Button drove to glory around the streets of the Principality.
The points system under which the drivers' championship is scored was changed in 2003, after Michael Schumacher won the previous year's title in July at the French Grand Prix, precisely to avoid this situation. This time it will be strung out a little longer than in 2002, but Button is already looking impregnable. (Had Ecclestone's medals-based scoring system come into force, he would now be two or three wins from the title, something that is likely to consign that idea to the dustbin.)
With five wins in six starts, Button's nearest challenger is his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, who is 16 points adrift. Yet, in reality, the Brazilian is no challenger at all and is already sounding resigned to the runners-up spot, a role he knows so well from his years at Ferrari with Schumacher.
That leaves Red Bull as the real threat. But despite having an, at times, faster car, the team have shown tactical naivety under pressure and their lead driver, Sebastian Vettel, has looked unconvincing. On Sunday his inexperience was obvious, as he wrecked his tyres and crashed out, leaving him 28 points adrift of the Briton. Of the underperforming bigger teams, only Ferrari look to have made definite progress, but Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa are already 42 and 43 points behind respectively.
In the past a runaway leader has attracted the attention of the FIA, which has stepped in to find something illegal on a hot car. This can never be ruled out in the weird world of Formula One. On the other hand, Button or his car could suffer a catastrophic loss of form, but this is unlikely. The driver in question knows his business and is handling success as well as he did failure. In Ross Brawn, his team principal, he has the best man in the pitlane to manage the campaign and the development of the car.
Meanwhile, the background hiss in Formula One, otherwise known as the row over the FIA's proposed “voluntary” budget cap for next season, took a new turn yesterday when the Williams team said that they have entered the 2010 championship, despite having also signed a letter to the FIA from all the teams maintaining that they would not do so unless the new rules for next season are scrapped. The FIA were cock a hoop that Williams had been “flushed out” because, in the governing body's view, the move underlines that the teams are not as united as they claim to be.
In an initiative to break the deadlock, with Max Mosley, the FIA president, still determined to bring in a cap of £40million, senior executives from Mercedes Benz are trying to broker a compromise arrangement under which next year would be treated as a transition season on the way to the full cap being brought in, in 2011. An FIA source said that Mosley was prepared at least to consider any proposals from Mercedes.
Source:The times