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Yep. Although I really want to see Kimi at McLaren, Button is way better value. Personally, if not Kimi, I'd wish Heidfeld is selected simply because he's cheap, he's pretty quick and amazingly consistent. Perfect number two at any top team.

But Kimi is waaay more exciting. Imagine a team fielding 2 world champions! Thats not happened for close to a decade, I guess - thinking back to Senna+Prost era.

Ferrari have Alonso and Massa for next year. Mclaren need two drivers who can match them. Though Button is an improvement over Heikki, he is not in the same league as Kimi/Lewis/Alonso/Massa. So McLaren would be foolish to pick Button over Kimi.
If some reports are to be believed, McLaren is offering 5M Euros to Kimi for 2010 seat. That would be a steal for Mclaren if it is true.

Why do you need 2 top drivers? they will just take each other out.
What happened when Alonso and Lewis raced. They banged into each other.

Kimi gets 15m from Ferrari for doing nothing. He wants another 15.
Brawn wants to pay Jenson less than 3.

Whatever happened when Alonso and Lewis raced in Mclaren is going to happen again at Ferrari. Its simply a Alonso thing...

We saw this year how 2 (Brawn) drivers pushing each other on the track could help a easy shot at WCC for the team!

When did Lewis and Alonso take each other out or bang into each other?
Apart from Hungary and Spy gate, there wasn't anything which cost them in terms of points, either for WCC or WDC. If you add up individual points of McLaren drivers and Ferrari drivers, you will see that McLaren has more points than Ferrari.
McLaren lost WCC because of the spy gate.
Alonso lost WDC mainly because of what happened in Hungary.
Lewis lost WDC because he goofed up in last two races.

So McLaren not winning anything in 2007 has got nothing to do with Lewis and Alonso taking each other out.

Kimi getting 15M Ferrari is because Ferrari decided to break the contract. Others shouldn't be bothered about this really, it's like paying penalty for something. Other teams shouldn't decide how much to pay him because he is getting 15M from Ferrari. And BTW, Ferrari will not pay him 15M if he races for another team. He will be getting much lesser.

And for Button getting only 3M from Brwan, thats because Ross Brawn knows that it was the car he designed which won the races. Button didn't do anything special which any other driver couldn't.

Ferrari beat Mclaren by 1 point for the WCC in 2007 even if Mclaren was not DSQed.

Raikkonen 110
Hamilton 109
Alonso 109
Massa 94

Ferrari - 204
Mclaren - 203 (218) Losing their Constructor points in Hungary for the pitlane fun :D

Having a clear idea of who is number one and number two is a benefit. Look at it this way. If towards the second half of the season McLaren had decided to back either Hamilton or Alonso and the other had agreed to play rear gunner, McLaren would have easily sealed up the WDC.

He's getting 10mil if he races for another team. Which is not half bad..

Here are the 2009 driver salaries to put things in perspective. All figures are in US$. I personally think Button deserves a pay rise.

1 . K. Raikkonen - Ferrari F60 - 45
2 . L. Hamilton - McLaren Mercedes MP4-24 - 18
3 . F. Alonso - Renault R29 - 15
4 . N. Rosberg - Williams Toyota FW31 - 8.5
5 . F. Massa - Ferrari F60 - 8
6 . J. Trulli - Toyota TF109 - 6.5
7 . S. Vettel - Red Bull Renault RB5 - 6
8 . M. Webber - Red Bull Renault RB5 - 5.5
9 . J. Button - Brawn Mercedes BGP 001 - 5
10 . R. Kubica - BMW Sauber F1.09 - 4.5
11 . H. Kovalainen - McLaren Mercedes MP4-24 - 3.5
12 . N. Heidfeld - BMW Sauber F1.09 - 2.8
13 . G. Fisichella - Ferrari F60 - 1.5
14 . S. Buemi - Toro Rosso Ferrari STR4 - 1.5
15 . R. Barrichello - Brawn Mercedes BGP 001 - 1
16 . J. Alguersuari - Toro Rosso Ferrari STR4 - 0.5
17 . A. Sutil - Force India Mercedes VJM02 - 0
18 . K. Nakajima - Williams Toyota FW31 - 0
19 . V. Liuzzi - Force India Mercedes VJM02 - 0
20 . R. Grosjean - Renault R29 - 0

Of course, but individually if you add, McLaren were ahead.
Hungary and Spygate cost them the WCC. My point is Lewis-Alonso combo was good enough to win both WDC and WCC.

That was not going to happen. When both the drivers are well within WDC contention how can you force one driver to play rear gunner? Lewis and Alonso were 1 and 2 with Kimi in 3rd coming in to last two races.
See, if you have two good drivers, WCC becomes a lot easier, from team's point of view, it doesn't matter who finishes ahead, as long as they finish ahead of their rivals.
A rear gunner will work only when he is already out of contention (e.g. Massa in final race of 2007, Kimi in last few races in 2008)

That's not the point. Other teams shouldn't be too much concerned with what he is getting from Ferrari.

Interesting numbers there. So If Rosberg goes to BrawnGP next year, is he going be paid more than Button?

It can be done and has been too. Look at Ferrari's 2002 Austria example. Early this year, there were quite a few rumours about Brawn favouring Button. And if you go back to 2007, if McLaren had asked Hamilton to play rear gunner for the season, he probably would have agreed since he was a rookie that year and Alonso was a big shot. Alonso eventually fell out of favour with McLaren and hence they couldn't control the number one and number two status anymore. McLaren also insist on giving both drivers an equal shot, though I question the wisdom of that policy.

The point is this. If you settle on a number one driver and make sure the number two gives way whenever they are battling for position, you better your chances of winning the WDC. Hence, an ideal driver combo would be a top class number one driver and a solid number two who makes sure that he gets as many points away as he can from the number one's championship rivals in the other teams.

Ferrari's 2002 Austria was a lame way to execute team orders. There was really no need of that as Schumacher was running away in WDC standings, and there was no competition outside the team anyway. I am not a fan of such blatant team orders.

Top class number one driver (e.g. Lewis) + solid number 2 driver (e.g. Fisi) combo would work most of the times provided other teams also have similar setups. But for next year, Ferrari have two top class drivers in Alonso (2xWDC) and Massa (WDC candidate from what we saw in 2008).
So thats why, i am saying there is a need to have two top class drivers in McLaren as well. Heikki/Fisi/Heidfeld etc will never be able to finish ahead of Massa/Alonso given all other things equal. So how can they take points away from number one's championship rivals?

stupid: Why is the salaries of No.17 to No.20 drivers zero?

I think Brawn will allow more endorsements from Button to make up his salary.

Hey, I'd rather see them race too but the strategy works. Five titles in the Ferrari stands testament to that.

I see your point but somehow, I have a nagging feeling that two superstars won't work as well as one solid and one superstar. Logically, two superstars should work better but somehow, the way F1 has worked in the past runs counter to this idea.

One reason this could be so is because of driver psychology where a driver has one less factor (his teammate) to worry about. Also, there are other small things. For instance, when a team has upgrades, they normally can fit them onto one car first and the second one in the next race. We've seen this happen many times, especially at McLaren where Kova uses the old chassis and Hamilton gets the new one. Similarly, a team with a clear number one will allocate the optimal pit strategy to him which can make a huge difference under, say, a safety car.

I suppose ideally, you'd want a driver who is very quick and consistent and yet willing to play second fiddle to his equal teammate. Pity that such a thing cannot exist. But a driver who comes close is good ol' Nick Heidfeld. Somehow, I've become quite a fan of his this season

It is mostly because of driver psychology. But think of it the other way, how much motivation would the No.2 driver have if he knows that he'll have to give way to his teammate sooner or later? Ferrari got away with it probably because of the "prestige" attached to being a Ferrari driver and ofcourse the pay.

Otherwise, racing drivers are bred to win and beat all comers (including teammates) into the dust. No. 2 does not come to them naturally at the beginning of a season.

The only way to counter a lineup of Alonso+Massa is to have an A+ driver lineup yourself. Or pray that your car is leagues ahead of the others.

Otherwise if cars are similar in performance, the superior lineup has better potential to walk away with the WCC+WDC

it's better to have both drivers of a team fight for 1-2 (without taking each other out) and get max points than to have one in 1st and the other somewhere down in 3rd-6th and give away points to rivals.

probably because they were pay drivers i.e they/their sponsors paid the teams for the race seat.

Jenson Button visits the Mclaren factory ! This raises the stakes at Brawn Gp to pay Button more . So now we have confirmed reports of Kimi , Jenson and to a lesser extent Kovy vying for the remaining seat at Mclaren .
Source

P.S
Just a thought .
If at all this is a salary increasing gimmick by Button and co then this could work in Mclarens favour also as they can persuade Kimi to sign up fast for a lower pay.

Edit :
Just saw this story here :
Karun Chandok in f1 in 2010 ?!
Also Timo Glock is looking at Manor.