Jenson Button praises the teams after an unpredictable season

Jenson Button has praised the teams in Formula 1, after a sensationally entertaining season which featured eight different winners throughout the twenty races. This included the usual suspects including Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, but also new races winners such as Pastor Maldonado and Nico Rosberg.

After the Briton clinched his third race victory of the season, Jenson Button proceeded to praise teams such as Williams, Sauber and Force India after they improved vastly over the winter period to challenge for podiums and even race victories on a regular basis throughout the season.

Both Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton jostled for the lead with the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg during the 71-lap Brazilian Grand Prix. Eventually Hulkenberg and Hamilton collided whilst fighting for the lead, but Jenson Button believes the mere fact that a Force India driver led the race shows just how competitive F1 is becoming.

“I think a lot of the teams, the teams that aren’t normally at the front, I think they’ve done a very good job over the winter.” Explained Jenson Button, “But through the year when the bigger teams work out how to use the tyres and also, you know, the development race, suddenly you see a difference towards the end of the season. Not as big as some might have thought.

“I don’t think we would have expected a Force India to be leading the race today. So, I think it shows Formula One is a lot closer than it used to be; in terms of regulations it’s a lot tighter and also with not many regulation changes, it brings the field very close – and I think we’ll see that also next year.”

Apart from the teams’ superb improvement over the winter period prior to the start of the 2012 season, it’s unquestionable that Pirelli’s controversial tyre compounds played a monumental role in creating the unpredictability that quickly became apparent during the opening seven races of the season. Next season Pirelli will once again alter the tyre compounds, with the hope of creating further entertainment similar to this season in 2013.

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