I thought it was a bit unfair the way the BBC got an off-the-cuff comment from Lauda and then went scurrying straight to Button with it to "confront" him.
Lauda said something about how Button is the best driver in F1 in the wet, one of the best overall and that Ron just needs to pay him the money and get him in the car next year.
The BBC scurried straight to Button and said "Niki Lauda says that Ron refuses to pay you what your contract stipulates and that's why you might be retiring. Is that true?" which forced Button to say that he hadn't spoken to Lauda so he had no idea where he'd got that idea.
Of course, Lauda wasn't really suggesting that he had any inside information and was only stating the opinion that Button is a decent driver and Dennis should try and do what he can to keep him in F1.
I wouldn't be surprised if Dennis is trying to renegotiate Button's contract but, in fairness, the point that Dennis was trying to make was that Button also has a performance-related clause in his contract which allows him to walk away from McLaren if they fail to deliver a competitive car so Button might decide to retire regardless of the financial situation.
It seems likely that Alonso also has a similar clause in his contract too so Dennis is probably aware that McLaren's current performance allows both of the his drivers to quit.
The only thing that's really open to "spin" is that Dennis might be trying to give people the impression that it's all about money because that'd save him having to admit that both his drivers decided to quit because the car was hopeless.
I was never a big fan of Lauda but I get the distinct impression that he's not an outright liar.
I wouldn't trust anything that people like Christian Horner, Helmut Marko or Ron Dennis might say but I get the impression that Lauda would choose not to say anything rather than saying something that was a lie.
I always think that you can tell when there's something iffy happening at Mercedes because that's when Lauda resorts to saying things like "I have no idea about that. You tell me!"