Official 2019 British Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[TheDeuce]

Derek Smith said:

TheDeuce said:

Via cheating? That's hardly a worthwhile counter to the point being made.

It was Alonso who was cheating of course.

Fair point - but it's a team sport etc.. I don't credit solely Lewis when he wins, it's a team effort. By the same token if Alonso would have/should have won but didn't due to cheating, then that is also a result of the overall team effort.

[Graveworm]

REALIST123 said:

No more than Hamilton and the rest of them, of course.

You know that how?

[Derek Smith]

Graveworm said:

REALIST123 said:

No more than Hamilton and the rest of them, of course.

You know that how?

By not reading the full report I suppose.

Not something that should be brought up again and again, but it irritates me that the willfully ignorant ignore the facts and come up with these cheating allegations. Even Moseley had to concede that McLaren as a team knew nothing about the data. It was merely a conspiracy between their bloke at the top and the Ferrari chap, both working against the interests of their respective teams.

It's pointless arguing as the full facts are available, but only to those who want to look for them.

[vdn]

Derek Smith said:

Graveworm said:

REALIST123 said:

No more than Hamilton and the rest of them, of course.

You know that how?

By not reading the full report I suppose.

Not something that should be brought up again and again, but it irritates me that the willfully ignorant ignore the facts and come up with these cheating allegations. Even Moseley had to concede that McLaren as a team knew nothing about the data. It was merely a conspiracy between their bloke at the top and the Ferrari chap, both working against the interests of their respective teams.

It's pointless arguing as the full facts are available, but only to those who want to look for them.

+1

[anonymous-user]

HustleRussell said:

You say that as if it isn’t an astounding feat in itself!

And Hamilton has twice as much experience in F1.

Bottas is good. He’s never going to be as good as Hamilton, but neither was Rosberg and that didn’t stop him taking a WDC.

The respectful racing at Silverstone between Hamilton and Bottas was quite surprising. I was amazed that Hamilton left as much room as he did when Bottas was able to pass him back. It was very respectful but hard as well.

Footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpntKkGQ-5k

We all know what happened between Hamilton and Rosberg. But IMO that was one of the main reasons Roberg was able to win the Championship but it took everything out of Rosberg.

Maybe Bottas knows his contract is up at the end of this year and doesn't want to upset the management. But again even the Bottas 2.0 is not fast enough every weekend to be able to stop Hamilton. He was very impressive at Silverstone and without the safety car, it could have been very interesting.

But I just can't see Bottas playing mind games or wanting to upset the team.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 19th July 11:50

[LeoSayer]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

The respectful racing at Silverstone between Hamilton and Bottas was quite surprising. I was amazed that Hamilton left as much room as he did when Bottas was able to pass him back. It was very respectful but hard as well.

Hamilton has no reason to upset his team mate at the moment.

He's far enough ahead in the points and must know he has the measure of Bottas, so aggressively closing the door would probably cost him more than he would gain over the season.

If Bottas wants to beat Hamilton then he'll have to look closely at how Rosberg achieved that. But I just don't think it's in his nature.

[The Moose]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

He was very impressive at Silverstone and without the safety car, it could have been very interesting.

I don’t know why people keep saying this. It wouldn’t have been interesting without the safety car.

What screwed Bottas was the first tire swap. He had no chance at that point, regardless of the situation with the safety car.

[Durzel]

LeoSayer said:

ELUSIVEJIM said:

The respectful racing at Silverstone between Hamilton and Bottas was quite surprising. I was amazed that Hamilton left as much room as he did when Bottas was able to pass him back. It was very respectful but hard as well.

Hamilton has no reason to upset his team mate at the moment.

He's far enough ahead in the points and must know he has the measure of Bottas, so aggressively closing the door would probably cost him more than he would gain over the season.

If Bottas wants to beat Hamilton then he'll have to look closely at how Rosberg achieved that. But I just don't think it's in his nature.

I agree, and this is exactly the reason that I think Bottas for Mercedes is a shrewd choice. He's inoffensive, seems pretty content with his lot in the team, etc. Someone like e.g. Vettel at Mercedes would - besides create constant Merc on Merc crashes - irritate Hamilton. Bottas is good enough that he is competent in his own right, but more importantly is aware of his station in the team. For whatever reason he is not prepared to act like he should or would be top dog, like another driver might. He's basically an ideal teammate for Hamilton - good enough to push him, not so good that it is excessively stressful dealing with him.

[Derek Smith]

The Moose said:

ELUSIVEJIM said:

He was very impressive at Silverstone and without the safety car, it could have been very interesting.

I don’t know why people keep saying this. It wouldn’t have been interesting without the safety car.

What screwed Bottas was the first tire swap. He had no chance at that point, regardless of the situation with the safety car.

If anything, the safety car made it more interesting further down the field. Once Bottas went out on meds, Hamilton could relax. The SC probably caused him to change tyres a couple or few laps earlier than he wanted, but even so, he knew he was in the clear.

The battle between the Mercs was over as soon as Bottas dived into the pits and Hamilton didn't.

[HighwayStar]

Durzel said:

LeoSayer said:

ELUSIVEJIM said:

The respectful racing at Silverstone between Hamilton and Bottas was quite surprising. I was amazed that Hamilton left as much room as he did when Bottas was able to pass him back. It was very respectful but hard as well.

Hamilton has no reason to upset his team mate at the moment.

He's far enough ahead in the points and must know he has the measure of Bottas, so aggressively closing the door would probably cost him more than he would gain over the season.

If Bottas wants to beat Hamilton then he'll have to look closely at how Rosberg achieved that. But I just don't think it's in his nature.

I agree, and this is exactly the reason that I think Bottas for Mercedes is a shrewd choice. He's inoffensive, seems pretty content with his lot in the team, etc. Someone like e.g. Vettel at Mercedes would - besides create constant Merc on Merc crashes - irritate Hamilton. Bottas is good enough that he is competent in his own right, but more importantly is aware of his station in the team. For whatever reason he is not prepared to act like he should or would be top dog, like another driver might. He's basically an ideal teammate for Hamilton - good enough to push him, not so good that it is excessively stressful dealing with him.

I don't believe Bottas is content with his lot as such. From what I see of him he wants to be world champion, he looks miserable enough when he hasn't converted/or a good start to the win he was expecting. He thinks he can beat Lewis and on his day get a win on merit but as others have alluded to, he doesn't seem to have the character to dig deep as Rosberg did and maintain a season long attack for the WDC.
Re irritating Lewis, I could be wrong but I think what rattled him most in 2016 was the problems he had with the car and not being able to take the fight to Rosberg. After all, they're all ultra competitive. Alonso, Max, DRic... they all moaned big style with all the issues they had with reliability etc. and they were never in contention for a championship.