Germans trying to avoid a safety car today..........

Hamilton should be happy with that result but it seemed like they were rolling the dice a bit more than they should have.
Seemed like going prime-prime was with the hope that there'd be rain and then pitting after only 8 laps on the options was in the hope that there'd be a SC.

Little bit clumsy of Hamilton to damage his wing but I think teams should really factor stuff like that into their strategies when they've got a driver coming through the field.

Textbook race from Rosberg, what we saw of it at least. The fact that there was no Vettel-style showboating, setting fastest laps etc, suggests his eyes are firmly on the WDC rather than anything else.

Great racing from Alonso and Ricciardo. Ricciardo was really doing things with the RBR that shouldn't have been possible.
Kimi looking, once again, like somebody who's just looking forward to getting back to snowmobiles and vodka.

Rosberg did put in his fastest lap of the race on the last one (http://www.formula1.com/results/seas...test_laps.html) but it was only the sixth fastest overall which shows you how much he was in cruise control the whole race.

Always good entertainment when there is a fast car starting at the back, I spent the first 15 laps or so watching Hamilton's onboard I think he got as far up the order as possible given the circumstances. I was surprised we didn't see a safety car for Sutil's stranded Sauber and even more so when I saw marshalls running across the racing line from the outside of the track to recover it

Plenty of action all the way down the field made it a very entertaining race.

I suppose it's just baseless speculation but I suspect ToonArmy, above, might be right in thinking that the organisers might not want to see an adrenaline-fuelled Hamilton right behind Rosberg, who'd been having a relaxing race, after a SC restart.

C'est la vie though. Rosberg deserved the win so I suppose we can't grumble too much.

The race organisers have nothing to do with whether a safety car comes out. Charlie Whiting makes that call, so there's no question of bias in this instance.

Whilst it was borderline as to whether to bring the SC out, once the marshalls got to Sutil's car it was dealt with fairly easily, so I guess it was felt that the race could continue fairly safely with double waved yellows rather than neutralising it.

Interesting that Rosberg seems to be keeping his cool. Hamilton seems to either suffer bad luck, or is making mistakes in qualifying which is costing him in the race. Lewis has not had a pole since Spain, whereas Rosberg has put his car on pole four times in the last five races (I regard the Monaco pole as somewhat controversial). Based on recent performance, I guess the title is more likely to end up with Rosberg, however I hope I am proved wrong.

Rosberg does seem to have been more consistent from Monaco onwards, but Hamilton has a good record in the Hungarian GP.

Hmmm,

I'd like to agree with you there but I can't help thinking that in situations which are, as you say, "borderline", CW and the stewards tend to interpret the rules in whatever manner is best for "the show" rather than in a consistent, objective manner more and more these days and I can't help thinking that they're being encouraged to make such decisions by 3rd parties.

Kind of a statistically interesting situation developing there which, I suppose, might support Hamilton's attitude.

I mean, Rosberg has probably (I haven't checked) averaged at least 18 points per race so far this year which means if Hamilton wants to beat a guy who's finishing, on average, 2nd in every race the only way to do it is to win every race.
To beat a guy who's, statistically, finishing 2nd in every race you're not going to do it by coming 3rd or 4th so it really doesn't make any difference if you screw up in the process of trying to finish ahead of him.

Course, the other important thing is the amount of points each driver has "dropped" this year.
Rosberg's had one DNF which cost him either 25 points or, possibly, 18 points and another car problem which cost him 7 points for a total of roughly 30-odd dropped points.
Hamilton's had 2 DNFs which cost him either 25 or 18 points and a car failure in quali' which probably cost him at least 7 points, making for a total of 50-odd dropped points.

That being the case, he's doing pretty well to still be only 14 points behind Rosberg and if you factor in the dropped points, he's actually performing slightly better.
The big question is whether he actually sees it this way and can remain optimistic or whether he'll let it all get to him.

Personally, I kinda get the impression that Hamilton started the season thinking he was going to run away with this championship and now Rosberg's proven to be a worthy opponent he's a bit "at sea".
What he needs to do, IMO, is adopt a more aggressive attitude and beprepared to fight for the championship.

good race today great drive from Hamilton

Did you see Hamiltons interview with Pinkham after, if you weren't a Hamilton fan before, his attitude would have put you off for life.

Good race, shame Charlie held off the safety car at the end, would have been a great battle. Think that one came from Bernie.

Unlikely, IMO. I think I heard somewhere that Bernie usually leaves the circuit soon after the race starts.

I would like to see some analysis though why Lewis seems to have longer pit stops than Rosberg, is it the team or Lewis?

Going to come down to that double points race in Abu Dhabi I feel.

Hamilton again showing his speed and quality.

Generally the races seem to have been pretty competitive bar the Mercedes.

You got to laugh at all the conspiracy theories on this forum. Yes the FIA and his team dont want Hamilton to win the WDC.

Some may say Hamilton was lucky he wasnt given a penalty for playing dodgems throughout the race. If Maldonado had as many accidents with other drivers, I bet people would have a choice words to say and would be questioning why a penalty wasnt handed out. This kind of blows all the conspiracies out of the water. If the FIA really didnt want Hamilton to win, he gave them plenty of opportunities to hand out penalties, yet they didnt.

I think this was the best race of the season with excellent drives from Magnussen and to a lesser extent Hamilton. Hamilton was lucky to finish the race, with the number of contacts he had with other cars. A shame Massa took himself out at the start, it would have been interesting to see him and Bottas race. Bottas and Magnussen do seem like future WDCs in the making.

Rosberg had a very easy race. No real pressure from the drivers behind him, just drove a race without any dramas...much like Vettel in previous seasons.

Got to say, Hamilton again showed no class, he got out of the car and went of to get weighed. He didnt even bother going over to Rosberg to congratulate him. You cant win every race, so showing a bit of class is the right thing to do, thats twice now he hasnt bothered to congratulate Rosberg on a race win. As another poster said, his interview wasnt brilliant either (although I didnt see the interview), it doesnt surprise me. He is a very good driver, but come on have some class.

On a lighter note, whats he done with his hair? Looks like hes got a load of bum fluff and stuck it his head.

Thing is, it's possible to look at specific pit-stops and say "Aha! Lewis missed his marks by 10cm there and that will have cost him a couple of tenths" but I'm not sure that's a theory which you can extrapolate to apply to the entire season.

I assume Merc' have separate crews for each driver?
Maybe Lewis' crew just aren't quite as tidy as Rosberg's?

TBH, I don't think there's much point in moaning about it though, really. If Hamilton was losing races by 0.5s then there'd be cause for complaint but when Rosberg's finishing 30 seconds up the road, pit-stops that are 0.2s longer aren't really an issue.


TBH, I thought he came across as quite humble and contrite in his interview.
Sure, he wasn't doing a DR-style "I'm just happy to be somewhere up there" thing but he's fighting for the championship so that's to be expected.


FWIW, I don't really think there's any grand conspiracy against Hamilton in particular.

I just think the FIA, the stewards and people like CW are making more and more generally biased decisions these days.

It seems like their main concern is "the show" these days and they tend to apply the rules in a way intended to maximise "the show" rather than with any particular consistency.

One team is particularly good with it's tyres; let's change the tyres mid-season.
One team is doing wonderful things with hot-blown diffusers; let's ban those mid-season.
One team has a particularly clever suspension set-up; let's ban that mid-season.
Etc.

A lot of their decisions seem like they're made with the intention of creating closer racing regardless of the fact that the teams involved have legitimately worked to gain a unique advantage within the rules..

It's kinda like, in Man Utd's glory days, if all the referees continually awarded free-kicks and penalties to any side playing Man Utd in order to try and stop them running away with the wins.

A stonking race from Hamilton. Having a very fast car helped a lot, but a track like Hockenheim has limited places for passing - if he'd sat back for the "usual" opportunities the same way that other drives tend to do, he may have been looking at 5th or 6th place instead of the 3rd place. We've seen certain drivers (Ros, Vet) make a real meal out of passing slower cars in the past, so Hamilton knew how important it was to take the odd risk, especially when passing two cars in one go.

Sure there was a bit of contact here and there - but it was pretty light, and even Button has come around to say "ok, maybe that was a bit of my fault too".

The teams only have one crew as they only have one pit box during the race. There's nothing in this though. Law of probability tells you the stops between them will even out over the season.

I know there's only one pit-box (duh).

You've got 2 sets of people in each team though; one crew to work on each car. Certainly used to be that each driver's car was serviced by people from their own crew during pitstops, which makes sense because those people will be completely familiar with the way that car is set up so they'll be in the best position to work on that particular car.

So, do we actually know that the same people service both cars or are we just assuming that to be the case because "they only have one pit box during the race"?

Yes it is only the one set of people. TV companies have done countless features on this over the years and you can see during the races when the director cuts to a garage shoot there are only enough people suited and booted for one crew.

Which driver(s) did he overtake in the not "usual" places? From what I remember they were all in the usual places, with him barging them out of the way. Like I said earlier, if it was Maldonado doing what Hamilton done, there would be a different option held by people.

You could have put quite a few drivers in that car and they would have finished 3rd. An Alonso or a Kimi could probably have managed 2nd.


Thats how I understood it, one set of people to do both cars.

If Maldonando had done what Hamilton had done, he would not have gotten any penalties either because a) no cars were forced off track or pushed off their direction of travel b) No cars suffered damage to require to be pitted c) No cars involved had their races ended because of any damage sustained. So there was no need for the stewards to investigate.

The problem here isn't that Hamilton broke any rules and wasn't penalized but rather, you wanted him to be penalized for not breaking any rules to stop his progress.


Maybe but then again, maybe not. It's interesting that you haven't picked out Vettel or Button or perhaps even Chilton as examples of drivers that could have managed the same or better results.

Perhaps it's because that you understand it still takes a rather unique talent to pass on such a difficult track, while at the same time, trying to undermine the achievement of a driver that you actively dislike. In case you missed it, I'm accusing you of being inconsistent. If you think that all that's required is just to "drive the car" then you have a pretty flimsy grasp of what the mechanics and skill involved in motor sport as a whole, let alone F1.

I get it. We all get it I think. You don't like Hamilton and were expecting him get stuck behind a Ferrari or Lotus for 10 or 15 laps so you could once again, crow about how mediocre a drive you think that he is. And it irks you that he didn't just sit back and wait for lap after lap and instead showed some actual driving skill, ended up on the podium. So here you are, trying to belittle his overtaking and behaving as if two very minor contacts and one mistake with Button who was equally at fault is somehow deserving of a penalty.

He caused damage to others cars, Kimi for instance. It was clear from the pictures that bits of carbon fibre flew of his car, when Hamilton drove into him. Could this have had an affect on the handling of Kimis car, without doubt yes. Was the damage significant enough to pit, no it wasnt. Sutil had to take avoiding action, to avoid a collision with Hamilton, so he was pushed of his direction.

Where have I said that I wanted Hamilton penalised? You are just assuming thats what I wanted.

As for the Maldonado comment, I didnt say he would have got any penalties. I said some people on here would have been saying he should have got a penalty. Big difference. You should read what I wrote, and not what you think I wrote. It makes this discussion lark easier.

You also avoided my question of, which drivers did he overtake outside of the usual places?



I think you need to go back and re-read what I wrote, as you have not comprehended what I wrote or have mis-read what I have wrote.


Since you have mis-read or not comprehended what I wrote, and this is based on that mis- undersrtanding, this is rubbish.


Yes I am not a supporter of Hamilton, so yes I am somewhat biased against him. A bit like 99.9% of every fan of every team, sports person out there. Just in the same way you are biased towards the team, sports person you follow. Shock horror

Again you making yourself look silly. I have on plenty of occasions in this thread, said Hamilton is one of the best drivers on the grid, with only Alonso and Kimi better than him. I have on occasions defended Hamilton, just go back to when he made the Ali G comment for instance. Yes I dont support him, yes I dont want him to win the WDC. However when someone ploughs into the back of him, I wont say it was Hamiltons fault. I maybe biased, but I aint that biased.

He doesnt do himself any favours either. His attitude isnt great and has done/said things that have annoyed some of his fans. Do you not agree with this? or are you biased, and cant see a problem with his attitude?

Not sure about Kimi.

Maybe, if the steering was the way he liked it, and the tyres were perfect, and he was wearing his lucky socks, and his back wasn't hurting, and he'd got out of bed on the right side, and nobody'd put him in a bad mood, and the planets all aligned correctly...

Otherwise, chances are he'd finish half a lap and half a dozen places down on his team-mate.


Gotta say, I don't really have much of a problem with Hamilton's attitude although I'm sure it's one of the things that might cause people to dislike him.

Above, for example, somebody said that his interview in Germany would be "enough to put people off for life" but, myself, I just found it quite honest and open. To me he just seemed like a guy who was admitting to having a "scrappy" race.

He's certainly not perfect and some of the stuff he does pisses me off but I'd have to give him credit for usually coming out and talking about anything daft that he's done.

Has Alonso ever spoken about why he blocked Lewis' pit-box in Monaco or why he was making some very insulting gestures toward Vitaly Petrov at the end of the Abu Dhabi race in 2010, or apologised?

Personally, I'd rather see a driver come out and talk about stuff, even if it means seeing them looking miserable.

Yeah, in a sport like Formula 1 the very concept that drivers should be 'likeable' I find quite amusing. Every driver on the grid (at least the truly decent ones) is typically petulant, over-confident, prone to whinging and not easy to warm to. And the ones that are 'easier to warm to' are probably just better at putting on the act in front of the cameras.

I don't want to 'like' any F1 driver's personality quite frankly. I want to see them relentlessly competing with each other and letting their performances do the talking. What any driver says when a mic is shoved in their face has never really been any interest to me in all my years of following the sport.

So the amount of hot air you see - especially on internet forums - with people endlessly picking away at Hamilton's perceived negative personality traits (which as far as I can see are no worse than most other drivers) I find all a bit embarrassing.