Button, now in his 10th year of Formula 1, led the decisions on his car, making the call to come off the wet tyres and go on to slicks. From that point on, he had the remainder of the race mapped out in his brain. 'Look after the rear tyres on the abrasive track, and we'll be alright'. No further discussions needed.
The evidence from Australia suggests that Hamilton was follower, rather than leader. Of course, he trusts his team, so when engineers Andy Latham and Phil Prew told him to pit for new tyres on lap 34, he obeyed.
Hamilton's engineers were concentrating on their own battle for third place. Reasoning the Ferrari duo would have to pit to change tyres, they saw Nico Rosberg as the danger. Rosberg had pitted the lap before and was immediately quick.
Hamilton's tyres, already 25 laps old by this point, were starting to grain and lose performance.
By pitting a lap later, they were guaranteed to rejoin ahead of the Mercedes, but by concentrating on covering Rosberg, they lost sight of the fact Robert Kubica's relatively slow pace in the Renault was allowing him and the Ferraris to nurse their tyres to the finish.
Hamilton did what he was told. Time will tell if he will take more control of his own race destiny in future.
It is easy to forget that, compared to Button, Hamilton is inexperienced in F1. Now just two races into his fourth season, Hamilton was still in GP2 when Button won his first race in the wet/dry conditions of the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix.
But because Hamilton's life in F1 has been lived in fast-forward, it feels like he has experienced just as much as Button, including a world championship. As he often admits, though, he is still learning.
FERRARIFerrari's quandary during the race was fascinating.
Should they instruct Felipe Massa, who had been slower than Fernando Alonso all weekend and was struggling on the low-grip track, to let Alonso through to have a go at overtaking Kubica's Renault?
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