Choosing between Button and Magnussen

If Fernando Alonso does race for McLaren-Honda in 2015, it will force the team into making a very difficult decision, one that will inevitably be harsh on whoever is on the wrong side of that choice.

But life isn't fair. If McLaren does have to drop one of Jenson Button or Kevin Magnussen, it won't be an easy call.

Both have had good seasons. Magnussen has had a strong rookie campaign while Button has been consistently effective, particularly on race day.

So just how can you decide between a former world champion who is bringing home the bacon race after race and a rookie who has taken to F1 very well, between the inevitable bumps in the road?

QUALIFYING SPEED

Magnussen has been the better qualifier at McLaren this year. Nine times in 16 races he has been the faster McLaren driver on Saturday.

In the five races since the August break, he has outpaced Button on Saturdays in four of them. In the one exception, in Russia last weekend, Magnussen looked to have the beating of his world champion team-mate again. His Q2 time was slightly faster than Button's top 10 shootout time, but Magnussen finished up behind him after being slowed by a drifting fuel-flow meter.

The team feels that, fundamentally, Magnussen does have the edge on single-lap pace. The statistics, and even more importantly the recent trend, bear that out. It remains to be seen whether he has the stunning pace of the quickest qualifiers, drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Romain Grosjean, but even though he appears to be fractionally behind the very fastest, he is certainly plenty fast enough.

Magnussen has held the upper hand in qualifying © LAT

Button is not slow in qualifying. His qualifying pace relative to Hamilton during their three seasons together at McLaren is better than people give him credit for. While Hamilton was quicker on Saturdays 75 per cent of the time, on average Button was not far behind.

But in relative terms, it's not the strongest part of his game, save for on those occasions when he and the car are absolutely at one.

On those days, he's stunningly fast, they just don't come around regularly enough.

RACE PERFORMANCE

As Button is fond of pointing out, Sunday afternoon is when the points are won, and in races this season he has performed with distinction

Even on weekends where he has underachieved in qualifying, for example in Singapore and Japan where on both occasions he suffered costly lock-ups on Saturday, he has a habit of coming through the field and emerging with a good result.

That is reflected both in his points tally relative to Magnussen, outscoring him 94-49, and in the fact that on the 14 occasions where both have finished, Button has been classified ahead on 12 of them (at Spa, Magnussen did finish ahead on the road, but a 20-second penalty for forcing Alonso onto the grass on the Kemmel Straight relegated him to 12th). Only in Australia and Austria has Magnussen been ahead in the results.

In the wet, it's swings and roundabouts. Button's ability to judge conditions to perfection is often talked about, but his performance at Suzuka demonstrates that there is more to it than that.

His sensitivity means he is able to feel the grip well and push in conditions that would catch others out. It's debatable whether many of his rivals would have been as fast as Button was on his out-lap after pitting for intermediates, as Pastor Maldonado, who had several excursions after putting at the same time, proves.

That ability also allows Button to keep tyre temperature in intermediate conditions, and in particular in his willingness to push on slicks in damp conditions, such as in Brazil 2012. It's worth noting that that race was the last one in which he drove a potentially winning car, and he did indeed triumph.

Magnussen is still quick in the wet. But as he showed at Suzuka, a race that was ruined by him having to make an extra pitstop to change the steering wheel, he doesn't quite have Button's nuanced understanding of the performance of the tyres or judgement for grip levels. But that will come.

There's also progress to be made in terms of slick tyre understanding. Magnussen has made good progress this year, making a big step around June's Austrian GP, but has not built on that quite as rapidly as some would have hoped.

Button is McLaren's top scorer this year © LAT

But it is important to take into account the fact that Button has almost one full year in F1 for each of Magnussen's grand prix starts (Button is in his 15th season, Magnussen has completed 16 races).

As a rookie, Magnussen has to be cut some slack and his peaks of performance looked at. Inevitably, there have been some mishaps in races , such as clashes with Kimi Raikkonen in Malaysia and Bahrain, the Alonso incident in Belgium and also the penalty for forcing Valtteri Bottas off the road in Italy, which was a slightly harsh one.

By contrast, Button is one of the classiest drivers in battle and rarely makes errors when around other cars.

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has referred to what Magnussen is going through as rookie syndrome, and the good the Dane has done far outweighs the bad.

As he showed with a remarkable run to third on the road (second after Daniel Ricciardo's disqualification) on debut in the Australian GP, he is also capable of stringing together very accomplished performances.

But, in 2015, while Magnussen will inevitably have progressed, you would still expect Button to pick up a few more points, albeit not by the same margin as this year. He also knows how to win races, a step Magnussen has yet to have the opportunity to make in F1.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Button is a sensitive driver. You could certainly argue too sensitive, needing the car to be well-balanced to allow him to make his smooth, high minimum-speed driving style work. And when he does, Button is an artist behind the wheel.

But this does sometimes lead him down blind set-up allies as he seeks to harness a consistent front end to a stable rear. He is not a hustler of a car, so while his technical understanding and feedback is good, it is often focused on getting the car into a state that might not be achievable.

Magnussen is less experienced but a little more open to a wider range of car characteristics. What he lacks is the vast database of knowledge Button has built up over the past decade-and-a-half.

He has learned a huge amount this year, but not enough to overcome Button's technical trump card - engine feedback.

Honda is a year behind Mercedes, a Ferrari and Renault in running its engine. It has just two cars, compared to the eight each for Mercedes and Renault and half-dozen Ferrari cars of 2014.

Button thinks his experience can help McLaren during its new Honda era © LAT

The engine packages have required huge amounts of work in managing energy flows, power delivery, driveability. While the driver does not do this work, they are a vital cog in the process.

Button would help Honda progress along the learning curve and ensure that the need for the driver to be able to get the best out of the available power is not lost in a purely engineering-led process.

Yes, Alonso too will be valuable in this process, but if you have only two bullets in the chamber and are in a gunfight facing rivals with either six or eight, not to mention a whole extra year's shooting practice, you have to make both count.

THE VERDICT

It would be risky to dispense with Button's services given that 2015 is the start of the new relationship with Honda.

Not only is he the better-qualified driver on the technical side, specifically in terms of the challenge McLaren-Honda faces in optimising its new package, but he also knows Honda.

In six years with BAR/Honda from 2003-08, he will have gained a wealth of knowledge of the way Honda works, how the personnel working on the engines operate and can be a useful cultural bridge for the project.

Don't underestimate how important that will be in McLaren-Honda hitting the ground running.

A team has to be pragmatic in these circumstances, which is what surely makes Button the right, if more expensive, choice. Provided, of course, McLaren is convinced by what appears to be a desire to continue and can hammer out a deal that suits both sides. If it can't, then it has a very good fallback option in Magnussen.

This is incredibly harsh on Magnussen, whose sole crime is being a dozen years younger than Button and therefore less experienced.

As Button has pointed out, Magnussen is more advanced than he was in his first year with Williams-BMW back in 2000, and clearly is one for the long term.

Were he pitching for a McLaren-Mercedes seat rather than a Honda-engined one, the equation would be different and the decision should probably fall in Magnussen's favour as the better-value, longer-term option.

Magnussen's potential is unquestionable © LAT

Even more importantly, he has the key advantage over Button in that, in terms of raw pace, he's quicker. And speed is usually the most valuable commodity in a racing driver, provided it can be refined.

In most situations, there's a lot to be said for backing young, determined promise over a veteran.

But the circumstances are what they are and McLaren has to play the hand it is dealt. Honda's arrival makes a big difference.

Ideally, were this scenario to play out, McLaren should keep Magnussen on its books.

Either farm him out to another team (cost may prohibit this) or use him as test driver with a view to a possible return in 2016, perhaps even in place of Button.

Magnussen has the potential to emerge as a very good grand prix driver and is already part of the way there. He must not be abandoned; he is too good for the scrapheap.

But Button still has a lot to offer, particularly given the unique set of circumstances faced by McLaren-Honda in 2015.

There's life in the 34-year-old yet.