I laughed at his other comment.
"Shake hands again because the cameras missed it...... ahhh there's the love"

You know, when Hamilton was asked if the quit rumors were true, a no would have certainly quashed this all. The fact he said "That is all private stuff that is in the past." makes you wonder if there is some truth in the matter. Might he have called Mercedes bluff, they panicked under sponsor pressure, got Wehrlein in for the test, smoothed things over so Hamilton remained in the team for the season and watched as coincidentally Hamilton's luck went from just about ok to certainly not ok! Motor Racing teams can be quite devious, as shown with the interviews last night on Senna vs Brundle! Still- wait ten years for the book eh!

Let's hope one of the first things Liberty sort out is this crazy rule that DC wasn't allowed to call Rosberg the World Champion. The world champion should be celebrated on the podium of the race they close it down in as long as there isn't any ongoing investigation from that race.

Loved the Webber/DC love in with a "merry" Jenson. They spent the whole time urging him to say he was joining C4 next year while he spent the whole time urging them to say they were all going to be in rallycross next year. One things for certain - JB has definitely moved on...

I agree the cars in this era are harder to control than the previous era, but to some extent they've now recovered a lot of the downforce lost from the Coanda exhaust in 2013. The big issue with the current cars is the tyres, drivers always have to lift off in the faster corners during races otherwise they will get too much tyre wear. Massa's lap in qually though overdriven was pretty spectacular.

Overall this season I feel C4 have done a superb job, their coverage to me at Abu Dhabi was a different class compared to Sky. I have to agree with Flavio that KC is a better broadcaster than driver! An inspired signing. VTs are first class as always. Only negative is More4 - I used to watch the end of the BBC highlight shows on iPlayer to see a quick rundown of DC's thoughts and the driver interviews, but on More4 you need to watch 4 minutes of adverts every time you want to jump forward 2 minutes - ridiculous.

Sky's coverage meanwhile whilst quite a good standard, feels increasingly stale as they continue to scale back. I like Herbert as a person and feel he works quite well in a pair, but as a sole pundit he's just not able to fulfil that role as competently as Coulthard, rarely offering anything insightful. I know a lot of people don't like EJ (personally, he's my favourite pundit) but at least on C4 you get a different mix of personalities with Coulthard/Webber/Woolf sometimes Prost etc, but Sky is the same every time.

Well I certainly don't blame you for getting excited! Glad to see Lewis make a race of it - and also glad that he didn't win the Championship that way.

OT: Are you finished with Formula E now or was Martin Haven just filling in for you?

I know Sky get a lot of criticism over their F1 coverage across the web but goodness this is poor and rather petty by the BBC.

Simple answers:

No it wasn't 'dirty tricks' it was a perfectly legitimate tactic by Lewis. At that point, it was the most likely way to win the title and most would've done it.

Yes, Nico had the most points at the end of the season and so deserves to be champion.

Lastly, grow the hell up Benson.

Have to say what I heard on 5Live yesterday was fine so goodness knows why the BBC website seems to be throwing its toys out the pram. Benson in particular is awful.

It's not that there not allowed to call Rosberg the world champion, It's just that it's not officially in the record books until he is awarded the trophy ay the FIA Gala by which point the car has passed all post race scrutineering & any post race protest's (As last seen in 2007 where Mclaren lodged a protest post race) should have been resolved. They don't want to celebrate a world champion only for it to be taken away later if the car fails post race tech or a protest is lodged & is successful.


Also not really much Liberty media can do about that as its not something they have any control over, Its an FIA decision taken across all it's championships.

I'd have to agree. He seems to jump on every passing bandwagon, at least on the website. Sad to see the BBC opting for clickbait headlines.

He seemed a touch calmer on the Chequered Flag podcast in recent weeks, although not especially "insightful" (TM James Allen) even there.

Mark Webber seems to find it very hard to ask a concise question, but apart from that and Mr Jones I've been largely content with C4. Now please keep it up and don't let things slide.

"Dirty tricks" - you make it sound like an Andrew Benson opinion piece. It's a direct quote from Vettel, as stated in the article.


Incidentally, Sky is running with "'Hamilton facing the sack'", a story so unsupported by anything remotely close to a fact they list their source as "national newspapers" - not even prepared to put a "Sky Sources" on it...

I'll be doing about half the season, starting with Buenos Aires in Feb. Calendar was clash hell!!!

If you're coming to Brussels I'll wave to you. Assuming the race goes ahead (rumblings of the local government withdrawing pledged funding).

Actually, I will still wave regardless.

Thanks for the reply jdn123. It made for great radio, although the last lap became a massive anticlimax as it became clear no one was going to get past Rosberg. IMO Hamilton played the go-slow tactic too late to wreck his team-mate's title hopes, due to the circuit having only one real passing place.

Having viewed the TV highlights, Rosberg was so lucky not to crash into Verstappen overtaking him on lap 20. He risked it all on that pass. I felt this was the decisive moment of the race.

I understand why Lewis did what he did, it's the blatantly disobeying of team orders that may bite him. Can you imagine the furore if Nico had disobeyed team orders in an attempt to deprive Lewis of a title. I can see them both refusing team orders next Year if the team don't take a hard line.

What was annoying to me, was that Mercedes promised to allow them both to race, and then backtracked on this.

Judging by the comments after Canada, it seems clear that things at Mercedes are not that smooth at the moment.

Perhaps what Ross Brawn said was true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjyXzoGf19Q

How times change, eh?

Indeed, it was fascinating to watch. Hamilton doing the only logical thing he could do and executing it perfectly. Mercedes increasing frustration despite being guaranteed both championships. The radio call from Rosberg asking to be let past (what was the best he thought was going to happen as a result of that request?). Will Rosberg actually try an overtake? Will Vettel get close enough? Actually, does Vettel even want to get close enough and potentially help someone else become a four time champion? Soooo much drama happening.

Sky are only quoting the Mirror actually in that scenario and to be fair it's only on their website - seen SSN and no mention of 'the sack' full stop on there and they even had David Croft suggesting that idea is nonsense.

In any case with the 'dirty tricks' article on BBC, my big problem is with the rest of the articles which are frankly rather classless and immature from the BBC and more like something the Daily Mail and co. would do.
I sort of expect the BBC to be slightly higher quality than that - know this isn't the first time with their F1 coverage but still disappointing.

Jp's verdict for 2016.

C4 Wins...
I gave up on Sky.

The English schoolboy and his inane,useless blather and self-aggrandizement drives me up the wall.
FOM needs an injection of new blood and new thinking.
The actual Racing was "ok".. but nothing to warrant 5 billion reams of press cover over the course of the year.

Thank god for IndyCar..
Jp

Watching the C4 post-race coverage and remembered EJ made a statement that at the time, i said outloud at the TV "Oh **** off!" because at the time i felt he was being his usual dick self, but the more i thought about, EJ saying Merc management was weak is beginning to make some sense here.
They said plainly season after season, Lewis & Nico will race, no team orders, just to not take eachother out.
Then you get Lewis' race-engineer relaying an order to speed up, then Paddy Lowe repeating it to Lewis, going back on a number of years where they've said they are free to race.
What did they expect lewis to do? Pull to the side and let Nico past or that he was going to do all he could to defend the title he has had some real shit luck in defending this year?
Merc interfering like they have, Toto saying apparently that "Anarchy doesn't work in any team" etc smacks to me that Merc are scrambling here quite badly.

As for the Sky website/App story he is facing the sack - LOL!!! Typical Sky journalism there. Poor at best!

The BBC website with its opinion pieces and the headlines, not the best from them to be honest. Quite crass actually but rarely do they do that.

No idea why we had to see any shots of Rita Ora (or anyone else) during the race. Not being funny but what the absolute chuffing point is there in showing some 'celebrity' just stood looking at themselves on a screen? It's utterly moronic and pointless. What benefit does the viewer at home get, seeing some gormless sod looking at themselves on a screen, rather than seeing the action on track? That's the whole bleeding point! Otherwise they may as well just change the sport to a celebrity racing series.

Oh and as for coverage this year, not seen loads of C4 but when I've seen it I've found it pretty good, certainly found it better to watch, whereas Sky, I've generally skipped most of the pre and to an extent the post race stuff, which I'd never have done 2-3 years ago. Sky is quite poor I feel generally, too stale, and it'll surely only get worse in 2019. Post race especially I feel is boring given for example we hear from the drivers on the podium, then the same drivers in the pen, then the same drivers with the presenting team, etc.

Has to be said that none of the three top teams have covered themselves with glory from their prat boxes with a miscellany of poor calls across the season.

Having only recently become an F1 follower, I don't begin to understand it all.

Nico won championship but surely if Lewis had not had a crap year with engine failure then the title would have been his, for a 4th time.?

I agree with his comments when interviewed, disagreeing that Nico is a better driver. What a stupid question to ask. It seems the rivalry will always be between the team mates.

Max Verstappen is the new boy wonder and I think next year will see him really taking the podiums.

Just wish it was still on BBC, for me sky is not an option.

That's Motorsport.

Massa's engine went with three laps to go as he was leading the 2008 Hungarian GP. If he'd have won that race, he would have beaten Lewis to the championship that year. That's without even bringing Crashgate into play.

'IF' is F1 spelt backwards.

They said they would stay out of things as long as both drivers played fair & that a 1-2 was not put at risk.

They obviously felt that Lewis wasn't playing fair and/or that a 1-2 was been put at risk so opted to get involved.

I think it was during Brundle's grid walk that Niki Lauda said that if Lewis started backing Nico up into the cars behind they had told him they would pit Nico 1st to give him the undercut, Hence why Lewis waited until the pit stops were over before using the tactics he did. Wasn't much the team could do other than send radio messages at that point.


Not really as simple as that as while Lewis' unreliability & subsequent penalty's certainly hurt his championship hopes, He also cost himself quite a few points due to his poor starts & 2 mistakes during Q3 in Baku.

Without the bad starts he'd have been closer to potentially winning another few races rather than having to fight back to 2nd/3rd's, Had he not had the poor start in Bahrain he'd not have been in a position to be spun by Bottas & without the 2 mistakes in Q3 at Baku he'd have almost certainly started on the front row rather than 10th & more than likely finished on the podium rather than 5th (That alone would have been the 5 points needed to beat Rosberg).

The biggest thing I notice about most of these celebrity shots is that they look either bored or uncomprehending most of the time. Is that really the best image to project? Apart from the absolute absurdity of cutting to shots of them whilst a battle is happening on track.



Yep, and if we start to consider reliability we can't look at this season in isolation either - you could equally discuss the balance of reliability in the previous two seasons. Or issues in getting the car off the line (which may or may not have been the driver's fault.) Or you could get into the tiny influences driving style could have on a system that's pushing performance to the limit in some areas (and that's not saying Lewis is a "car breaker" or anything like that.) Or....