Why Jenson Button Won't Be Relinquishing His Run of Pole Positions in China

It's an easy prediction to make, let's face it.

I'm not going to claim to be some genius pundit who can make fantastically accurate predictions off the back of this piece of writing. But I'm as sure as anyone that in qualifying for Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix in a few hours, Jenson Button will take a hattrick of pole positions to lead the field into that long first corner the following day.

If we look at the previous two races in Australia and Malaysia, we saw that Williams' Nico Rosberg was superior throughout the Friday of each Grand Prix weekend. It wasn't until the fifth practice session of the season that he handed over his domination of free practice to another driver—and not a Brawn driver either.

So when Kimi Raikkonen pipped his teammate in a Ferrari 1-2 at the top of second practice in Malaysia, many believed this marked the turn around for the Italian team after a dismal opening round. It wasn't.

This time around, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton set the early pace in Shanghai, with Rosberg down in seventh, over half a second behind. As well as being somewhat impressive on McLaren's part, it also suggested that the German had a substantial fuel load on his Williams, at least in comparison to that of the silver car.

So not a big talking point then—yes, the world champion was on top of the timesheets, but another five drivers had helped to break Rosberg's stranglehold of the top spot.

The second practice, yesterday, was a similar story, this time, however, with one crucial difference.

Button was at the head of the field when the chequered flag fell, whereas Rosberg appeared to struggle in the preceding session, the Brit managed to pip him by a mere 0.025 seconds this time.

If we break this down, the obvious conclusion is that where Rosberg was probably heavy on fuel in P1, which is why he was so low down the time sheets, he was lighter in P2, which is why he could push Jenson Button so hard.

Going back to Australia and Malaysia, Rosberg had the edge over Brawn no matter how hard they tried throughout practice.

Now that Brawn, apparently genuinely, have knocked Williams off the top spot in practice where they have been excelling, does this not suggest that Button and Barrichello have even more in hand than before, and they will be even more dominant than they've been previously, in qualifying and the race?

It would be very surprising if Jenson Button wasn't on pole position in China, if not because of the practice times shown so far, then because we know how competitive he has been here in the past.

It's going to be a very interesting Saturday in Shanghai, and I can't wait to see what the outcome will be.