Motorsport on Monday: 8/9/14
Hamilton proves experience is important, so how young is too young for Formula 1?
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There were veiled jibes between the two all weekend. When asked about his quali lap compared to Hamilton's, Nico described it as "an OK lap relative to my own lap," explicitly ignoring any reference to Lewis' pole time.
Championship is back on!
Hamilton had the last laugh though. Maturity from the cockpit after a launch map and clutch issue off the line saw him drop down the order to fourth proved Lewis has full control of his emotions, channelling any frustration into targeting the lead. A few cracking passes and putting pressure on his teammate, capitalising on his fresh rubber, was enough to force Rosberg into a mistake. Lewis took the lead and never looked back.
Hamilton most definitely now has the mental edge over Rosberg. No conversation in the room of awkwardness and a cleverly worded response to Jean Alesi's podium question if the two were still talking to each other. Answer: "of course, we're teammates." No mention of being friends.
Rosberg delivered his speech to the Italian fans in their tongue, received by boos. Hamilton says two words in Italian to raucous cheers. That's got to be hard to stomach, knowing legions of fans around the world aren't in your corner.
Still, it won't affect the pace of the two top men, with the margin between them still so narrow only a well-judged Rizla could be slipped into the gap. That means it'll be reliability and experience that decides this year's F1 title.
All the talk of F1 2015 is about Verstappen
The latter is a valuable commodity and one that, up until recently, could only really be gained by seat time. Lots and lots of seat time. But the drivers graduating from junior formulae and passing through to F1 are getting younger and younger, and therefore have less and less of it.
Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat made his F1 debut this year at 19 and finished inside the top 10 in his first race, proving that age is just a number. Next year, however, as we know, Formula 1 will see its first 17-year-old competitor take to the track, prompting the question by many, how young is too young?
Potentially, while his road car might still have L plates on, Max Verstappen will be driving in the top echelon of tier one motorsport. He doesn't yet have a Super Licence - he's only in his first season of full-on car racing, and is currently lying second in the European F3 championship - but he will become the youngest driver ever to start a Formula 1 race.
Incredibly, that'll give him five years to beat Vettel's youngest ever world champion record.
Marquez has proved you can win with kids
One former F1 world champ known for expressing his opinions, whether people want to hear them or not, is unconvinced it's a good thing for the sport. Jacques Villeneuve believes the Super Licence system is flawed and meaningless.
There's obviously a commercial aspect to the deal, which will gain Toro Rosso some airtime, but according to the people who know - the people who make decisions on drivers and have found and nurtured some of the best talent in the modern era - Verstappen has what it takes and can handle F1. He'll be there on merit.
A product of the Red Bull driver development programme, Helmut Marko has witnessed a few hopeful pedallers in his time. So has Trevor Carlin of F3 outfit Carlin Motorsport - which brands itself as the team of "Tomorrow's F1 stars today" and tried to sign Verstappen for this season.
Both believe he has the natural talent to succeed. There's already been plenty of debate on the Verstappen situation in the forums, but in general, how young is too young for F1? When a driver can't touch the pedals? Will we ever see a 'yoof' move straight from karting to top-level single-seaters?
Kart champ Ilott is 15; cars soon?
Does it mean that at 15, recently crowned European CIK-FIA KF kart champion Callum Ilott is too old? Doubtful, in my opinion - this sort of thing has to be judged on a case-by-case basis.
Verstappen is not the norm, he's the exception to the rule. Although the average driver age of those moving into F1 has got younger, I think there's a critical threshold for the majority of F1 hopefuls below which a lack of experience and therefore the wrong mental attitude will be prohibitive to landing a seat.
Some are natural phenomena. Some just take a little more time. Senna for example - a driver that's almost impossible to pigeonhole into one of these categories - didn't win a world title until he was 28. Would you class him as anything other than genius?
In other areas of motorsport, it's been proved that youth isn't necessarily a precursor to inexperience. In MotoGP Marc Marquez showed last year he had the ambition, the maturity and the spuds of steel to win a world title at just 20 years old, even if Honda did change the rules to get him in.
Crashing on his first demo run in an F1 car wasn't the most auspicious of starts, but now he's broken his duck, I think F1's latest teenager might surprise a few armchair pundits next season. After all, age is only a number, right?
You mean the Hamilton who was parachited into F1 by McLaren and took victories in his first season, before winning the title in his second and building that experience of the next 6 seasons of battle leading to him challanging again this season......
He didnt arrive in F1 a seasoned pro. What he did have was a top line car from the off (earned because the talent had been spotted and nutured), he didnt have to battle through from mid field in difficult motors - Riciardo/Verne/Kyvat/Bianci/Ericsson etc have and are.
I would have said talent is more important than age, and is certainly more important than being able to buy a seat.
Talent is everything. Working your way up in any driving form is always the best way to build character but not always skill as some just naturally have it.
I wouldn't put him in yet.
I just think Hamilton is a poor example. Even vettel/Schumacher/senna all had a go in cars at the back or middle grid to learn first off.
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