Patience, so goes the old saying, is a virtue.
In which case Jenson Button and his McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso, both former world champions, are bordering on the saintly.
Their McLaren is not so much a grand prix race car as an unpredictable 321km/h test bed, with the new marriage between engine giants Honda and the once world-beating team having a rocky debut campaign.
But the drivers’ upbeat attitude in the face of abject disappointment from the car that has put McLaren into reverse in the title chase is either genuine or a cleverly disguised response.
Either way, McLaren have to fight their way against all the Formula One odds from their embarrassing static placing among the also-rans back towards the front runners and the consequent crowning glory.
Drivers Button and Alonso, the Brit and the Spaniard, raking in around £50 million (Dh280 million) a year between them, may be the oldest pairing on the grid and with 510 GPs totted up, but they are still fired up for a repeat of their previous shared 47 successes in the title chase.
And that is why their unflustered attitude to the UK-based team’s current pathetic plight is an admirable trait.
They made the most modest of breakthroughs with McLaren’s first points of the season in Monaco last time out in the shape of Button’s hard-earned eighth place as Alonso’s car broke down yet again.
The result, hailed like a triumph by the struggling no-hopers, was greeted by Alonso with: “Jenson’s points are a tremendous boost for the whole team.”
And Button, at 35 the oldest, most experienced driver in F1, thankful for small mercies, added: “It was great to earn the team’s first points. But it was only eighth and we have been working flat out to improve that performance in Canada this weekend.”
Alonso, generally easily downcast when things are not going to his preference, was also upbeat in the aftermath and as he readied himself for Montreal, where he won in 2006, as he asserted his flop of a season was on the brink of a turnaround.
Despite being held back by a gaggle of non-finishes, he said: “I still want to be world champion again — and I can be. This year it is not possible, so the more problems that happen in this championship the better.
“We will make sure they don’t reoccur next year. This is a test season for us and we will learn from it.”
Button, a winner on the high-speed St Lawrence River island track four years ago, went on: “Montreal will be a very different challenge to Monaco and we will be doing everything in our power to add to the start of our points tally.”
But if it all goes wrong — yet again — neither driver will let it be seen to depress him. At least not as a public display. I wonder if it is written into their contracts.
— The writer is a freelance journalist and motorsport expert