Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
Button to McLaren – the real deal or just pretend?
Jenson Button’s eye-catching visit to McLaren on Friday is of obvious benefit to both parties, whatever the reality behind the headlines.
If a deal is done, the new Formula One champion gets the bigger salary that Brawn are reluctant or unable to pay as well as a potentially winning car for next season.
McLaren would get a line-up of champions that will appeal to global sponsors like Vodafone and show that they remain, along with Ferrari, a big hitting team that can always pull in the top talent.
At the very least, Button is able to send a clear message to Brawn that he has other, viable and possibly more lucrative, options and that they cannot assume he will just stay out of loyalty.
McLaren are similarly able to remind Kimi Raikkonen, until now widely considered the main choice to partner Lewis Hamilton, that they too have alternatives and that he should consider reducing his wage demands.
Raikkonen, their former driver who won the 2007 title with Ferrari and has now left the Italian team, was seen at the factory on Wednesday with his management.
But what if Brawn don’t blink, Raikkonen refuses to accept McLaren’s terms and Button signs up to join Hamilton?
F1 worries about the size zero heroes
Formula One drivers are usually to be found with their arms around ultra-thin supermodels, rather than being compared to them.
However the parallels being drawn at the Spanish Grand Prix this week have been less alluring — more to do with size zero health concerns than sexy looks or fashion sense.
Williams’s Nico Rosberg is concerned that some drivers might be pushing their weight loss programmes to dangerous extremes just as models caught in the size zero controversy.
“I can see that some drivers are very, very thin now, me included,” he said. “Dangerous levels are always down to the person and the pressure you have from behind but in the conditions that we are racing, it opens up the possibility that you do go to dangerous levels.
“It’s like super-models. Some models are at dangerous levels.”
The advent of the new KERS systems, which can add 30kg to the car’s weight, has meant that drivers using the power boost device have less movable ballast available in setting up their cars at the minimum 605kg.
To reduce the handicap, some of those who are not naturally light appear to have shed weight dramatically over the winter.
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Resident Left Field Expert
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Jenson just try and stay with Brawn if not go to Mclaren if not then I dunno