Lewis Hamilton

[anonymous-user]

Chris Stott said:

The Brawn was super dominant over the 1st half of the season and at least competitive over the 2nd half in most races.

Rosberg somewhat proves the point... he won one championship in a year where Lewis had poor reliability. And he then retired because he just couldn’t hold up to the pressure of competing with Lewis every 2 weeks.

Lewis retired twice in 2016. Rosberg once. So it's not all to do with reliability.

Rosberg won 7 races in a row between the end of 2015 and the start of 2016. Lewis had the Championship at the end of 2015 but seemed to take his eye off the ball.

Rosberg winning the first 4 races put him in a brilliant position. He did a great job in 2016.

One extra retirement is not the full story.

[Europa1]

HighwayStar said:

I think Rosberg was a very good driver, he dug deep and pushed himself to the limit to achieve his championship. His quest was helped by Lewis’s poor reliability and Rosberg was there to benefit. If Lewis hadn’t last his engine whilst in the lead, Rosberg wouldn’t have been champion.

I'm not so sure it's that simple - wasn't that the year Hamilton had a shocker in Baku?

[Vaud]

It's kind of immaterial. Nico won. Lewis lost.

One retired, the other went on to score more WDCs.

Reliability, stewards decisions are not relevant. Both are great in their own way.

[glazbagun]

Vaud said:

It's kind of immaterial. Nico won. Lewis lost.

One retired, the other went on to score more WDCs.

Reliability, stewards decisions are not relevant. Both are great in their own way.

That's the way I see it. Likewise when people blame Glock for Lewis stealing the WDC from the clutches of Massa in the dying corners- if Massa had done a better job earlier in the season he'd still be WDC.

Also, a poster above was asking about WDC's losing to their teammates- if you consider the 30 seconds Massa was champion, he also beat Kimi, the 07 champion.

[Norfolkit]

glazbagun said:

RB Will said:

Just for my own interest, I’m not great with the historical stats, and I’m not knocking Ham here but are there any other champions who have had a team mate beat them to the title?

Prost beat Lauda, Senna and Rosberg (?)& Piquet beat Mansell.

Not to mention Lauda beating Prost ('84) in the championship winning car and 1/2 a point is as good as 50 points.

[HardtopManual]

Rosberg won his WDC more by Lewis' inability to consistently get his car off the line in 2016, rather than unreliability. I was at Monza and watched as Hamilton fell down the order at the start. I even said to the bloke next to me, "he's just lost the title".

His engine issue in Malaysia(?) might have been the coup de grace, but the damage was already done with by his poor starts.

[paulw123]

HighwayStar said:

Chris Stott said:

REALIST123 said:

The Brawn was hardly dominant over the full year. Far from it.

Hill, certainly. He had a not very good rookie teammate who proved the rule himself the next year.

Rosberg was a worthy champion. He certainly had the best car but beat Hamilton. If Hamilton had retired instead Rosberg would have had 2 more championships by now.

The Brawn was super dominant over the 1st half of the season and at least competitive over the 2nd half in most races.

Rosberg somewhat proves the point... he won one championship in a year where Lewis had poor reliability. And he then retired because he just couldn’t hold up to the pressure of competing with Lewis every 2 weeks.

I think Rosberg was a very good driver, he dug deep and pushed himself to the limit to achieve his championship. His quest was helped by Lewis’s poor reliability and Rosberg was there to benefit. If Lewis hadn’t last his engine whilst in the lead, Rosberg wouldn’t have been champion.

Lewis loosing 25 points when a brand new engine went pop in a hard fought season was too much to overcome

[ntiz]

Not sure if this will be relevant to anyone but I found it nice to know.

Few weeks ago I got talking to a really nice chap who is working on my Dads car. It turned out he had lived one hell of an interesting life running his race teams etc and consulting on race cars and road cars, all sorts of stuff.

Turned out through his various jobs he had spent time with a good portion of the current F1 drivers. So I asked about Hamilton, he has worked with him quite a few times starting in his early days.

It was really nice to be told he is actually to him at least a really softly spoken and respectful guy with time for everyone. Apparently really thoughtful likes to take his time to answer questions properly and best of all a huge petrol head! Which funnily enough they aren’t all as into cars as you would expect.

Obviously anecdotal but good to know he isn’t a total tt. Also said he hadn’t changed much since early days from couple of years was last time he had seen him.

[braddo]

Here is a great video of Lewis taking Frank Williams for a lap or two around Silverstone (in a S-class convertible!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSoQtwbpcGU

Lewis seems like a top guy to me. It's always going to be hard to keep your ego in check when you're the best in the world but he does a pretty good job here, while showing Frank a good time!

(apologies if a re-post)

[vdn]

braddo said:

Here is a great video of Lewis taking Frank Williams for a lap or two around Silverstone (in a S-class convertible!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSoQtwbpcGU

Lewis seems like a top guy to me. It's always going to be hard to keep your ego in check when you're the best in the world but he does a pretty good job here, while showing Frank a good time!

(apologies if a re-post)

Saw that. Great seeing Frank come alive. Sad to think about his team and also, how long he’ll be around for. Love the disbelief at the suggestion of going slow

[LaurasOtherHalf]

I think there’s more to 2016 than has come out so far, HAM himself has hinted at it stating “I’ll wait until my book comes out” to explain it.

I’m not suggesting some major conspiracy or anything, I just think there’s more to it than his poor starts and engine failures.

Why did they swap the teams over?

[p1stonhead]

vdn said:

braddo said:

Here is a great video of Lewis taking Frank Williams for a lap or two around Silverstone (in a S-class convertible!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSoQtwbpcGU

Lewis seems like a top guy to me. It's always going to be hard to keep your ego in check when you're the best in the world but he does a pretty good job here, while showing Frank a good time!

(apologies if a re-post)

Saw that. Great seeing Frank come alive. Sad to think about his team and also, how long he’ll be around for. Love the disbelief at the suggestion of going slow

Claire's self burn at the start - 'you must be bored of winning, come drive for us Lewis'

[RB Will]

Regards 2016 can we also acknowledge that Rosberg lost 50 or so points thanks to contact caused by or being forced off the track by Hamilton. And was it Mexico Hamilton got himself a big lead off the bat by skipping the first chicane? That would have likely cost him more points if he had tried to make the corners.
So really Rosberg should have had the championship sewn up with a race or 2 to go regardless of engine failure.

[budgie smuggler]

Chris Stott said:

REALIST123 said:

The Brawn was hardly dominant over the full year. Far from it.

Hill, certainly. He had a not very good rookie teammate who proved the rule himself the next year.

Rosberg was a worthy champion. He certainly had the best car but beat Hamilton. If Hamilton had retired instead Rosberg would have had 2 more championships by now.

The Brawn was super dominant over the 1st half of the season and at least competitive over the 2nd half in most races.

Rosberg somewhat proves the point... he won one championship in a year where Lewis had poor reliability. And he then retired because he just couldn’t hold up to the pressure of competing with Lewis every 2 weeks.

I think this is a bit unfair to Button. The car wasn't that quick over a lap, go and look at the Q3 times for the first half of 2009.

Here are the gaps between the fastest Brawn car and the next fastest for the first half of 2009:

Melbourne Button 1st, .628 to Seb in 3rd.
Malaysia Button 1st, .092 to Trulli in 2nd
China, Vettel 1st, .309 back to Barichello in 4th (Brawn slower)
Bahrain, Trulli 1st .613 back to Button in 4th (Brawn slower)
Spain, Button 1st .133 to Seb
Monaco, Button 1st, .025 to Kimi
Turkey, Vettel 1st, .105 back to Button in 2nd (Brawn slower)
Britain, Vettel 1st, .347 back to Rubens in 2nd (Brawn slower)
Germany, Webber 1st, .127 back to Rubens in 2nd (Brawn slower)

[paulguitar]

RB Will said:

Regards 2016 can we also acknowledge that Rosberg lost 50 or so points thanks to contact caused by or being forced off the track by Hamilton.

'We' shall not be acknowledging that whatsoever. Perhaps that's how it is in your head!

[Graveworm]

RB Will said:

Regards 2016 can we also acknowledge that Rosberg lost 50 or so points thanks to contact caused by or being forced off the track by Hamilton. And was it Mexico Hamilton got himself a big lead off the bat by skipping the first chicane? That would have likely cost him more points if he had tried to make the corners.
So really Rosberg should have had the championship sewn up with a race or 2 to go regardless of engine failure.

All that matters is the points on the board and the name on the trophy so Rosberg won no one can say what would have happened and what chances would have been taken if the points didn't fall as they did in either direction. There may have been all kinds of factors at play.
That said Being "Forced off the track" or missing a chicane, that doesn't result in a penalty, is racing, losing out to this is down to the driver. A mechanical retirement is not down to the driver.

[tankplanker]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

I think there’s more to 2016 than has come out so far, HAM himself has hinted at it stating “I’ll wait until my book comes out” to explain it.

I’m not suggesting some major conspiracy or anything, I just think there’s more to it than his poor starts and engine failures.

Why did they swap the teams over?

Rosberg himself has said he was way more aggressive off track for 2016 than he was before with Lewis. Toto has publicly said that Rosberg played plenty of aggressive mind games during that season. I think that Lewis is the kind of person that sort of behaviour would bother him. Herbert was talking about the mind games that Micheal used to do, like staying in the toilet until right before qualy just because he knew it bothered Herbert as Herbert.

I don't think that is the only reason Rosberg won that season, he was always a very fast driver and has been the closest to Lewis in Qualy when compared Lewis's other team mates. For 2016 Rosberg cut everything outside of racing from his life, he trained harder, his fitness was higher (and he was never lazy in that area), he employed a sports psychologist, as well as fking with Lewis as much as he could.

Part of why Rosberg left F1 was because he couldn't do that again, and he couldn't be sure that Lewis wouldn't adapt and beat him. How many times has Lewis hit a brick wall, been slower than his team mate or had a spate of issues, then comes back faster and more consistent than before? I think that is the real strength of Lewis, that he can adapt and find another level or another approach. Seb needs to do that now as he is struggling, can he do it?

Mansell should have had multiple WDCs, but his fitness levels and falling out with Frank over money (six of one and half a dozen of the other with that one) cost him that. I still think Mansell was one of the fastest ever in his era.

[sparta6]

Europa1 said:

HardtopManual said:

sparta6 said:

Really ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygi9YpfbFwM

The fortnightly crashing into Massa was becoming a telenova

He had an off season in 2011. Show me a driver who hasn't. But of course, you know that the original point was made with the current Hamilton in mind.

He'd already be on 7 WDCs if McLaren weren't such an operationally inept team while he was there.

(and half the crashes in that clip weren't Lewis' fault, or weren't even crashes)

Before I'm labelled a fan boy, I'm a fan of F1, and Ferrari in particular, but facts are facts.

Indeed. Most of those clips were from the McLaren years. The fact he's won 4 out of Mercedes' 5 consecutive driver's championships would suggest he is, to say the least "a bit fking good".

The conext was a comparison with Prost.
Lewis was also swapping paint with team mate Rosberg.
Hamilton ain't no Prost, despite having more WDC's with Mercedes.

[vdn]

sparta6 said:

Europa1 said:

HardtopManual said:

sparta6 said:

Really ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygi9YpfbFwM

The fortnightly crashing into Massa was becoming a telenova

He had an off season in 2011. Show me a driver who hasn't. But of course, you know that the original point was made with the current Hamilton in mind.

He'd already be on 7 WDCs if McLaren weren't such an operationally inept team while he was there.

(and half the crashes in that clip weren't Lewis' fault, or weren't even crashes)

Before I'm labelled a fan boy, I'm a fan of F1, and Ferrari in particular, but facts are facts.

Indeed. Most of those clips were from the McLaren years. The fact he's won 4 out of Mercedes' 5 consecutive driver's championships would suggest he is, to say the least "a bit fking good".

The conext was a comparison with Prost.
Lewis was also swapping paint with team mate Rosberg.
Hamilton ain't no Prost, despite having more WDC's with Mercedes.

Hamilton is better than Prost IMO; he now has the calculated chess mentality of Prost but with the sheer speed and racecraft of the likes of Senna / MS, etc. Hamilton has grown into a hybrid of the best driver attributes; he used to rely more on pure speed and racecraft; but he's grown and seems to be growing further.

[ChocolateFrog]

While touching wood, he makes so few mistakes these days. He knows when and when not to gamble.

The Vettel incident was a good example. 2007 Hamilton keeps his foot in round the outside and probably comes off worse. 2019 Hamilton backs out and claims the win by default.

It helps that Merc have their st in a sock.