F1 Drivers Championship Tip: Jenson Button

With a 41 point lead in the drivers’ championship Sebastian Vettel is almost two race wins clear but at such an early stage in the season plenty can change. Twenty six points cover the next four in the title race and it is too early to say which of them will turn out to be the German’s main rival.

What the Spanish Grand Prix has told us is that McLaren have closed the gap on Red Bull. Despite being over a second behind in qualifying, Lewis Hamilton managed to race for 66 laps and still finish within a second of Sebastian Vettel. It is the closest the cars have been in performance all season.

With the front two making the headlines, the brilliant drive by Jenson Button seems to have gone unnoticed. After a dreadful first lap that saw him drop to 10th, he fought back to finish third. The best he could possibly hope for after the early setback.

The 2009 World Champion lies fourth in the championship on 61 points, but at 80/1 for the title he is considered a rank outsider. These odds seem wrong. He is only six points behind Webber who is 18/1 and sixteen points behind teammate Hamilton who is second favourite at 7/1.

Button has already shown he has the speed to be competitive. It was poor strategy in China and Turkey that cost him points through no fault of his own. Despite the problems, he is conceivably only one win away from going second in the championship. At ten times the price of Hamilton there is some value to be had.