**** Abu Dhabi Grand Prix **** (contains spoilers)
Discussion
I think it will be a completely dull race.
Hamilton to beat Rosberg in qualy and then just lap after lap of the same come Sunday. It will make the Putin Grand Prix look interesting.
ETA: In fact, it will be so dull, so processional, that people will wonder if they should only be awarded 1/4 points.
Hamilton to beat Rosberg in qualy and then just lap after lap of the same come Sunday. It will make the Putin Grand Prix look interesting.
ETA: In fact, it will be so dull, so processional, that people will wonder if they should only be awarded 1/4 points.
Edited by suffolk009 on Tuesday 18th November 16:57
I think Hamilton will be a lot more nervous than Rosberg. He has gone on record several time to say that his career will be a failure if he only wins one title. Whereas, when asked about winning the title, Rosberg said "it'd be pretty cool wouldn't it". Whether or not that's a true representation of his passion it's a statement that allows him to fail gracefully, to smile, shrug and say "I gave it my best" - he is also currently exceeding most people's expectations.
Hamilton has been involved in 2 championship deciders (3 if you include 2010) and neither have gone smoothly so he does not have experience to fall back on - experience tells him that championship deciders are shambolic and you do not drive well. His "one title = failure" statement has foolish put himself under the pressure of a championship first-timer - I predict he will not qualify on the front row and it will be a very edgy race.
Hamilton has been involved in 2 championship deciders (3 if you include 2010) and neither have gone smoothly so he does not have experience to fall back on - experience tells him that championship deciders are shambolic and you do not drive well. His "one title = failure" statement has foolish put himself under the pressure of a championship first-timer - I predict he will not qualify on the front row and it will be a very edgy race.
Mr_Thyroid said:
I think Hamilton will be a lot more nervous than Rosberg. He has gone on record several time to say that his career will be a failure if he only wins one title. Whereas, when asked about winning the title, Rosberg said "it'd be pretty cool wouldn't it". Whether or not that's a true representation of his passion it's a statement that allows him to fail gracefully, to smile, shrug and say "I gave it my best" - he is also currently exceeding most people's expectations.
Hamilton has been involved in 2 championship deciders (3 if you include 2010) and neither have gone smoothly so he does not have experience to fall back on - experience tells him that championship deciders are shambolic and you do not drive well. His "one title = failure" statement has foolish put himself under the pressure of a championship first-timer - I predict he will not qualify on the front row and it will be a very edgy race.
Interesting angle. But I think you're falling for the Nico spin doctoring. Nico is under vast pressure even though he may try to present a different impression (he tries to manage PR and is broadly good at it except for the cracks that appeared which lead to the Booing this year). Hamilton has been involved in 2 championship deciders (3 if you include 2010) and neither have gone smoothly so he does not have experience to fall back on - experience tells him that championship deciders are shambolic and you do not drive well. His "one title = failure" statement has foolish put himself under the pressure of a championship first-timer - I predict he will not qualify on the front row and it will be a very edgy race.
It is possibly (probably?) Nico's only chance at winning a championship, if he can't take this year, in a dominant car, after all the good fortune that came his way this year he'll never win.... He will be very well aware of this even if he doesn't want to say it in public. He also has the added pressure of having to beat Lewis and hoping Lewis has an issue. .
All the pressure is on Nico, his career may be defined by this race and even if he wins everyone will be saying he was lucky and didn't compete in the right spirit (while going back to all this years incidents).
It's going to be an exciting weekend!
DanielSan said:
So I finally lost patience and tweeted this
@McLarenF1 any danger of a driver announcement this weekend or are you still pandering to the Spaniard while disrespecting your drivers?
Not expecting a reply but it made me feel better.
I think Ron will tell his minions to ignore you because of your grammatical error in saying "while" instead of "whilst". @McLarenF1 any danger of a driver announcement this weekend or are you still pandering to the Spaniard while disrespecting your drivers?
Not expecting a reply but it made me feel better.
Scuffers said:
I don't get what they are trying to achieve with this stunt, it is a stunt in my opinion, they have made just about everybody redundant, and have no factory, even if they somehow fluke there was into next year, where is the car going to come from?
I can only assume they are hoping to score points, beat Marussia and get some cash that way, but that is a massive long shot.
Megaflow said:
So they are there, we'll find out if they have paid all their bills on Friday...
I don't get what they are trying to achieve with this stunt, it is a stunt in my opinion, they have made just about everybody redundant, and have no factory, even if they somehow fluke there was into next year, where is the car going to come from?
I can only assume they are hoping to score points, beat Marussia and get some cash that way, but that is a massive long shot.
It could be both. I don't get what they are trying to achieve with this stunt, it is a stunt in my opinion, they have made just about everybody redundant, and have no factory, even if they somehow fluke there was into next year, where is the car going to come from?
I can only assume they are hoping to score points, beat Marussia and get some cash that way, but that is a massive long shot.
It does rather gall that they have made so many redundant, especially with only 6 weeks until Christmas. But as you say, if they can bring themselves up one place in the WCC (and survive to next year) it could be worth millions.
JonRB said:
amare32 said:
Mercedes will pretty much engineer a car failure to sabotage Hamilton's title chances this coming weekend to aid the German. Even a blind man can see that from a mile off.
Oh not this s
t again. 
The Merc team is multi-national, based in the UK, with many senior people being British, and the two so-called German head honchos are actually Austrian (which is akin to calling Eddie Jordan an Englishman). Also it's no secret that Niki Lauda favours Hamilton.
Finally, Rosberg isn't even German.
Europa1 said:
What JonRB said. Enough with the Daily Express Who-really-killed-Princess-Diana conspiracy theories. In addition to Jon RB's very cogent points, Mercedes are a company selling cars globally that has invested hundreds of millions in F1 not just as a sporting or technical exercise, but as a marketing one. Do you really think they are going to deliberately engineer a reliability issue for a worldwide TV audience including many new, key markets just to satisfy the German domestic market, which globally is fairly insignificant to them?
Quite. It's total swivel-eyed tinfoil hattery to think otherwise. DanielSan said:
So I finally lost patience and tweeted this
@McLarenF1 any danger of a driver announcement this weekend or are you still pandering to the Spaniard while disrespecting your drivers?
Not expecting a reply but it made me feel better.
Just seen this tweet. @McLarenF1 any danger of a driver announcement this weekend or are you still pandering to the Spaniard while disrespecting your drivers?
Not expecting a reply but it made me feel better.
McLaren ?@McLarenF1 · 49m49 minutes ago
Guys, we know you're awaiting news on our driver line-up. We'll announce after Dec 1 – you'll hear it here first. All eyes now on Abu Dhabi.
DanielSan, I think you are under-estimating your influence with McLaren PR department! Having said that, Ron is clearly still pandering to the Spaniard.
ETA: Joe Saward now also reporting McLaren delaying decision. No mention of DanielSan's involvement!
Edited by suffolk009 on Tuesday 18th November 19:58
JonRB said:
It could be both.
It does rather gall that they have made so many redundant, especially with only 6 weeks until Christmas. But as you say, if they can bring themselves up one place in the WCC (and survive to next year) it could be worth millions.
With the double points it could well be two places (Sauber = 0, Marussia = 2 currently). Which is a lot of money I imagine.It does rather gall that they have made so many redundant, especially with only 6 weeks until Christmas. But as you say, if they can bring themselves up one place in the WCC (and survive to next year) it could be worth millions.
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