45 responses to “Driver of the Weekend: FORMULA 1 PIRELLI MAGYAR NAGYDÍJ 2015”
Just tick Vettel and be done… he’s the only one that didn’t hit owt.
I’ve concluded that Hamilton when he says “Senna is my hero”, he must be speaking of Bruno.
Driver of the weekend was clearly Vettel – with Alonso and Verstappen getting honourably mention.
Hilarious! I can’t wait to hear all of Hamilton’s radio broadcast. He lost total focus once Rosberg passed him. “Nico made two moves, Nico made two moves!” Shut up and drive!
You wanna hear something that’s even more hilarious……
He’s going on summer holidays with a 21pts lead in the championship…..
How funny is that? Man that’s beyond hilarious…..
You’re right, it’s a joke.
You know… For a while I felt like asking “who are you and what have you done to Fortis?” And while this reminds me of him I’m still not entirely convinced. Fortis would’ve splashed acid in the Andy’s face, lol.
In all seriousness, it seems Fortis has been assimilated by The Borg quite well, more restraint while keeping some of the bite and some surprisingly balanced and unsurprisingly good articles make for a better site. Congratulations Fortis.
3 more wins…..
18 votes for Stevens must be some sort of trolling?
That must be the vettel haters who can’t get it over their heart to tell the truth. 😉
I don’t know if I’d say that he was necessarily “Driver of the weekend” though purely because on Friday he was nowhere, on Saturday he only just scraped ahead of Ricciardo, and then in the race he was pretty fortunate at the start that Mercedes are apparently incapable of launching their cars properly any more. Once that was all in place, he had a rear-gunner with an ailing engine in the form of Raikonnen to hold off any possible attacks, and then when it was shaping up that there might be any form of threat from behind someone would drive into someone else.
I’m not denying that he put in a good performance – especially in terms of how he dealt with the safety car, although again there was Raikonnen to avoid things getting too uncomfortable for him – but when other drivers have similar fortunes there are always people quick to complain that it’s supposedly a “Weekend” thing not just a race thing.
I’d argue that, given the speed deficit they had over the Mercedes-powered cars they were scrapping with, the Red Bull drivers put in more of a shift. Whereas Vettel had the luxury (admittedly due to his better start than the Mercedes) of running in clean air for the full race, Ricciardo and Kvyat were able to make their way through the field and gain the most positions in spite of the misfortune of having a Renault engine behind them and all the other drivers conspiring to drive into each other. Ricciardo had seemingly got a lot more pace than Vettel, and had he not been hit twice by a Mercedes could have been much more of a threat.
Putting it down to only a better start is a bit playing down his performance. He did more than that. And even more I’ve never seen a mercedes try to pass Kimi. So that’s not vettel ‘s fault either. If his car hadn’t broken down he would be 2nd.
Fortunately for Kimi, he had the right Mercedes behind him, the one that was happy to sit there for the entire 69 laps.
It seems he was more interested in racing the silver car behind him rather than the 2 red ones ahead.
Bruznic…..
He did also say Kimi played the role of rear gunner which allowed Seb to scamper off into the distance.
What Bottas should have done at Silverstone 🙂
@Don
He was, just unfortunately that the car in front was the slower of the two….
Seems like you forgot the gap he pulled on everyone else before the safety car. He was on mediums Ricciardo on soft after safety car with all his hard work pulling the gap gone. Just because Ferrari have better straight line speed doesn’t mean they are faster on track than Red Bull. Vettel had less straight line speed for years but still won championships with Red Bulls. I think Ferrari and Red Bull was pretty close in terms of their pace in Hungary, and if he didn’t botch his start again Ricciardo might have been a lot more closer to Vettel than he did throughout the race. He fell behind Kvyat who started 7th. Vettel’s first lap was amazing. He immediately pulled an unbelievable gap to Rosberg and even Raikkonen was out of DRS zone. Rosberg was around a second behind him for last 20 laps until they had the incident, and at that moment Mercedes was clearly the faster car.
You’ve made a damn good point there UpsideDown
That, or people want to say goodbye to Bianchi?
Honestly don’t know.
True, although surely Merhi would have been the one to vote for, his ex-team mate.
Vettel.
Up to and including Qualifying – Hamilton was lightning quick, totally comfortable in the car and on top of it all. He was humiliating Rosberg pace-wise throughout all practices and qualifying. Half second gaps, on a circuit like this, is humiliating. I closely watched many of his “on it” laps prior to the race, and his subtle back-end rotation into a corner, to the apex, was impressive… Hungaroring is his circuit.
But that race Hamilton did… he just totally threw it down the toilet. The start, hitting others, driving frustrated. By far the quickest relative driver / car combo we’ve seen here since perhaps the Schumacher Ferrari days. He was miles ahead. I say this, not to taunt the Hamfosi, though that’s an added benefit, but to highlight one of the most dominant pre-race performance build ups to race day I’ve seen in a while and then to have a race executed like this… it just amplifies the level of the abject loss. Hamilton is very fortunate that Rosberg was unable to capitalise.
All that being said; Vettel gets my vote for “driver of the weekend” purely by virtue of his race day performance. Honourable mention to Alonso.
Agreed, lewis was incredibly frustrating to watch. A wake up call perhaps. This will probably be the only time you’ll find me agreeing with you so lap it up haha!
To be honest, and you might not believe this, but as I watched his build up over Friday and Saturday I was curious to see how much Hamilton would win by. I was even getting excited by it, a little. Hamilton was (and still is) equal with Schumacher on being the King of the Hungaroring – both with four wins each – so if he was going to take that particular title from Schumacher, then I wanted him to do it in style and decimate the field.
For me, it was an opportunity to see – as someone with the heart of a sportsman – a driver with by far the very best car on a track that he’s 100% perfectly suited to. I guessed he’d have had – assuming no safety car – a 30 second plus gap on Rosberg. A margin similar to what Schumacher would put over Barrichello when everything came together in perfect harmony for Michael, whilst Rubens would be wondering how to get the best car in the field to work properly and stay ahead of the Williams’ and McLarens in the ’02 or ’04 seasons.
Even non-Hamilton fans were denied seeing that rare, perfect combo. Most would have called it boring; but it, for me, would still have been worth watching the art of such a dominant drive.
Nevertheless, Vettel stepped up and delivered a very, very good race where as a driver / car combo he was between 7 tenths to 1 second a lap slower on pure pace over the weekend during “on it” laps. Not to mention he was less than comfortable with the car.
So Vettel adding another “non-best-car-win” feather to his nest, at a track he’s never won before, was a worthy performance in which to equal Senna.
Anyway, I’ve gone on again…so, I’ll print screen your agreement with me and place it next to my race trophies as an equally worthy achievement.
😀
Vettel, flawless on Sunday and never challenged.
Honourable mention has to go to Verstappen, poor old Hulk (was having another fine weekend) and a promising young chap called I think Alonso – he’ll have a great future ahead of him if he can keep up those kind of performances 🙂
Seb V, obviously.
Surprised to see Honeybadger placed so highly (and Kvyat so low) considering he was gifted a position by his team mate, the sloppiness of his moves, and the number of cars he bounced off.
I guess Bad Donald got a vote purely for entertainment value.
Pastor (the high priest of dangerous driving) should get a one race ban and retake his super driving licence test again. He really should be ashamed of himself considering the events of this week.
I was in two minds over this, but in the end went for Alonso. Car works, is crap, somehow finished 5th, thats what he does.
“Somehow” mostly due to his faultless driving and 2 Mercedes, 1 Ferrari, 2 Force India and even a STR that should have finished ahead of him didn’t. He could have probably finished in points but 5th would be impossible even as good as he was.
How does Lewis Hamilton get more votes than Daniil Kvyat? Or Will Stevens gets more than Roberto Merhi?
Oh the devil in me want to tick Pastor just for the comedy value…we have all played Brundel bingo but we had a new game in the house…its called Pastordisaster and well worth a try. I had him down for two contacts but lost out to my better half who predicated correctly the Perez shunt (I swear she is a witch) but on a serious note,I will be ticking Seb as he drove without fault but it was a close one with Alonso
Pastordisastor sounds better 😂
Maldonado – for breaking the record of number of penalties one driver can get in a single race.
Vettel, Kvyat, Alonso, in this order. Ricciardo seemed to have overall a clumsy race. Spun wheels on the start. And the costly altercation with Rosberg. I am surprised Kvyat was given a team order to let Ricciardo through at one point.
You realize Ricciardo was 45 seconds down the leader before the safety car? And he started alongside the guy. He had more than 20 secs gap to him even before his switch to middle compound versus Vettel’s soft tyres. Even though Red Bull race pace seemed on par with Ferrari. Not to mention the fact that he had contact with at least 3 drivers: Bottas, Hamilton, Rosberg. His race would have been the scrappiest if it wasn’t for Hamilton or Maldonado’s penalties.
I also didn’t like his comments on Kvyat, so he is DOTW NOT imo. Not even the second best… He sounds like Webber did when he comments on Kvyat.
Red Bull Drivers program 3, Mercedes High Performance Powertains 0
🙂
Vettel obviously DOTD, weekend? Probably still Seb. Brilliant start, though it was more going around the outside of the Mercs at T1 that did it that the start per se, and a faultless drive even after having a sizeable lead wiped out by the safety car. Mercedes really can’t race can they? (other than with Williams who obviously move over for them), it’s comical to watch them balls up pressure pit stops, give Rosberg a dreadful strategy and Lewis? Well anyone who tells me that guy is better than Vettel or Alonso really needs to watch that race again, and take into context the relative cars performance advantages/disadvantages.
Typical response from a non-Lewis fan. Given Lewis 5 good races and one bad, and then everyone will come out leaping at how over-rated he is, etc etc etc. The same goes for Vettel of course. I know it hurts some people hearing this, but Hamilton will go down in history as the fastest of his era, one of the best to watch and one of the greats (as will Alonso and Vettel).
As to whether he’s better than Vettel and Alonso, don’t judge him on this race alone, but throughout his career. For his fans, he will be better. For his haters, no. It’s the same as it was for Senna, Prost and Mansell. The last era with 3 true greats at the same time in it.
5 good races 1 bad?
Silverstone – average performance from Lewis really, it wasn’t exactly a stellar drive.
Austria – beaten comfortably by journeyman Rosberg
Canada – Decent performance, though followed closely by Nico.
Monaco – Oops
Spain – Rosberg wins again.
I’ll be generous and say 3 good performances from the last 6 races if you include Hungary. I struggle to believe that the likes of Alonso or Vettel would have returned so little with such a dominant car.
Returned so little?…..
16 wins from 29 races, you’re right that is absolutely awful. Mercedes should sack him
Man you’re not helping yourself at all…
If Lewis ups his win ratio by 10% over the remainder of the season then perhaps I’ll amend my view slightly. As things stand Vettel managed a 65% win ratio when he had a dominant car, a dominant car that had somewhere between .25s and .5s most of the time. Not a Mercedes style dominant car. So I expect better.
It’s not my fault you guys have low standards for the people you consider the best in the sport.
Your reply tells me all I need. You just don’t like Hamilton and whatever I or anyone else says, you’ll find something negative. Although numbers tell only half the story, have a look at this.
In 2011 and 2013 (the RBR dominant years), Vettel scored 24 pole positions and 24 wins in 38 races (63%).
Last year and this, Hamilton has scored 16 pole positions and 16 wins in 29 races (55%), but the year is not over yet.
In 2005, 2006 and 2007 that Alonso had the best car (not dominant), he scored 18 wins in 54 races (33%).
In 2007 and 2008 that Hamilton had the best car (not dominant), he scored 9 wins in 35 races (25%) [although in my opinion the 2008 McLaren was equal to Ferrari].
In 2010 and 2012 that Vettel had the best car (not dominant), he scored 9 wins in 39 races (23%).
Of course you can add several other dimensions, like the fact Alonso and Hamilton were team-mates in 2007 or compare Rosberg to Webber, etc, but the conclusion as you can see, is that these are the greats of their era and closely matched. Everyone will have their preference though and some blindingly will bash Hamilton or Vettel depending on their preference.
I’m aware of the stats, that’s where I concluded that a 10% increase in Lewis’ win ratio would make me have to amend my view point (n.b. for some reason I’d got 64.8% as VETs win ratio, when it’s actually 63.15% – oops!, so lets make that an 8% increase instead!). Anyhow back on point…
Hamilton is by many regarded as better than Vettel. The stats don’t back that up as you’ve shown. In fact digging deeper it’s clear that the cars at theses drivers disposals in their dominant times are somewhat different. The Mercedes has a bigger performance advantage than the Red Bull had, yet it is the Mercedes driver who has the lower win ratio. Additionally the relative competition from rival teams is greatly reduced in this current V6 Turbo era of F1. Add to that the perception by some that Hamilton is the best in the sport, and I’m left baffled by where this view point comes from?
Surely in a more dominant car, with less competition, the best driver in the sport should return a higher win ratio than a driver in a less dominant car, with closer competition who isn’t regarded as the best in the sport?
I hasten to add, yet again, that I do regard Lewis as a very very good F1 driver, fastest of his era though? I don’t think so, and neither do the stats, so perhaps until the latter of those is amended that myth can stop being peddled by the rather desperate British media and their blind believers.
In my personal opinion, and of course it is your right to disagree, Rosberg is a more competitive team-mate than Webber ever was. So yes, Merc seems to be more dominant than RBR, but dominance is dominance, irrespective or whether the advantage is 0.5 sec or 1 sec. Having a competitive team-mate is more of a hindrance.
As for the perception that Hamilton is better than Vettel, that has to do with the fact that Hamilton ‘proved’ himself is less competitive cars prior to the Merc dominance years. Vettel is going through this ‘proof’ phase now. So in 2-3 years with great performances in the Ferrari, he’ll probably be regarded as highly as Alonso and Hamilton.
As I said, these are my personal opinions and stats only say half the story. And an 8% difference, is really nothing to base my opinion upon. Just makes the record books look prettier.
I guess that Lewis got quite emotionally effected by the pre-race ceremony for Jules Bianchi and after he made that mistake into the chicane on the first lap trying to catch up, things just got worse from then on.
In short, it was just “one of these days” which we all have now and then. And props to him for admitting that no other then himself was to blame for his performance. It shows integrity and I like seeing that.
…
I think that Vettel was the DOTD, closely followed by Ricciardo.
I don´t like those kinds of “divebomb” maneuvers that he did but that was the only way for him to try to overtake as the cars in front pulled away from him even though he had use of DRS and none of the incidents that he was involved in was his fault in either mine or the race stewards opinion.
From this crop of drivers, apart from Hamilton and Alonso, I have to admit that Ricciardo is the other one I really admire. Nothing against Vettel or Rosberg or Button, but the first 3 are more of ‘fighters’, cutting through the field irrespective of the car underneath them, the latter 3 are more of ‘perfectionists’, as long as the team is around them and they have done their pre-work in the weekend, then they’ll shine, and shine big time.
Rosberg clearly lacks the aggression of Vettel. Button is closer to Vettel than Rosberg there, but probably lacks the speed. They are all perfectionists in different ways though. But I prefer a guy calculating when to attack or how long to defend rather than dive bombing after a couple of laps.
I would agree with you. If you look at someone like Hamilton, Alonso or Vettel, they will sit behind someone for a while but if there is so much as a hint of an opportunity they will go for it. Rosberg seems like he needs a formal invitation to pass…
Just tick Vettel and be done… he’s the only one that didn’t hit owt.
I’ve concluded that Hamilton when he says “Senna is my hero”, he must be speaking of Bruno.
Driver of the weekend was clearly Vettel – with Alonso and Verstappen getting honourably mention.
Hilarious! I can’t wait to hear all of Hamilton’s radio broadcast. He lost total focus once Rosberg passed him. “Nico made two moves, Nico made two moves!” Shut up and drive!
You wanna hear something that’s even more hilarious……
He’s going on summer holidays with a 21pts lead in the championship…..
How funny is that? Man that’s beyond hilarious…..
You’re right, it’s a joke.
You know… For a while I felt like asking “who are you and what have you done to Fortis?” And while this reminds me of him I’m still not entirely convinced. Fortis would’ve splashed acid in the Andy’s face, lol.
In all seriousness, it seems Fortis has been assimilated by The Borg quite well, more restraint while keeping some of the bite and some surprisingly balanced and unsurprisingly good articles make for a better site. Congratulations Fortis.
3 more wins…..
18 votes for Stevens must be some sort of trolling?
That must be the vettel haters who can’t get it over their heart to tell the truth. 😉
I don’t know if I’d say that he was necessarily “Driver of the weekend” though purely because on Friday he was nowhere, on Saturday he only just scraped ahead of Ricciardo, and then in the race he was pretty fortunate at the start that Mercedes are apparently incapable of launching their cars properly any more. Once that was all in place, he had a rear-gunner with an ailing engine in the form of Raikonnen to hold off any possible attacks, and then when it was shaping up that there might be any form of threat from behind someone would drive into someone else.
I’m not denying that he put in a good performance – especially in terms of how he dealt with the safety car, although again there was Raikonnen to avoid things getting too uncomfortable for him – but when other drivers have similar fortunes there are always people quick to complain that it’s supposedly a “Weekend” thing not just a race thing.
I’d argue that, given the speed deficit they had over the Mercedes-powered cars they were scrapping with, the Red Bull drivers put in more of a shift. Whereas Vettel had the luxury (admittedly due to his better start than the Mercedes) of running in clean air for the full race, Ricciardo and Kvyat were able to make their way through the field and gain the most positions in spite of the misfortune of having a Renault engine behind them and all the other drivers conspiring to drive into each other. Ricciardo had seemingly got a lot more pace than Vettel, and had he not been hit twice by a Mercedes could have been much more of a threat.
Putting it down to only a better start is a bit playing down his performance. He did more than that. And even more I’ve never seen a mercedes try to pass Kimi. So that’s not vettel ‘s fault either. If his car hadn’t broken down he would be 2nd.
Fortunately for Kimi, he had the right Mercedes behind him, the one that was happy to sit there for the entire 69 laps.
It seems he was more interested in racing the silver car behind him rather than the 2 red ones ahead.
Bruznic…..
He did also say Kimi played the role of rear gunner which allowed Seb to scamper off into the distance.
What Bottas should have done at Silverstone 🙂
@Don
He was, just unfortunately that the car in front was the slower of the two….
Seems like you forgot the gap he pulled on everyone else before the safety car. He was on mediums Ricciardo on soft after safety car with all his hard work pulling the gap gone. Just because Ferrari have better straight line speed doesn’t mean they are faster on track than Red Bull. Vettel had less straight line speed for years but still won championships with Red Bulls. I think Ferrari and Red Bull was pretty close in terms of their pace in Hungary, and if he didn’t botch his start again Ricciardo might have been a lot more closer to Vettel than he did throughout the race. He fell behind Kvyat who started 7th. Vettel’s first lap was amazing. He immediately pulled an unbelievable gap to Rosberg and even Raikkonen was out of DRS zone. Rosberg was around a second behind him for last 20 laps until they had the incident, and at that moment Mercedes was clearly the faster car.
You’ve made a damn good point there UpsideDown
That, or people want to say goodbye to Bianchi?
Honestly don’t know.
True, although surely Merhi would have been the one to vote for, his ex-team mate.
Vettel.
Up to and including Qualifying – Hamilton was lightning quick, totally comfortable in the car and on top of it all. He was humiliating Rosberg pace-wise throughout all practices and qualifying. Half second gaps, on a circuit like this, is humiliating. I closely watched many of his “on it” laps prior to the race, and his subtle back-end rotation into a corner, to the apex, was impressive… Hungaroring is his circuit.
But that race Hamilton did… he just totally threw it down the toilet. The start, hitting others, driving frustrated. By far the quickest relative driver / car combo we’ve seen here since perhaps the Schumacher Ferrari days. He was miles ahead. I say this, not to taunt the Hamfosi, though that’s an added benefit, but to highlight one of the most dominant pre-race performance build ups to race day I’ve seen in a while and then to have a race executed like this… it just amplifies the level of the abject loss. Hamilton is very fortunate that Rosberg was unable to capitalise.
All that being said; Vettel gets my vote for “driver of the weekend” purely by virtue of his race day performance. Honourable mention to Alonso.
Agreed, lewis was incredibly frustrating to watch. A wake up call perhaps. This will probably be the only time you’ll find me agreeing with you so lap it up haha!
To be honest, and you might not believe this, but as I watched his build up over Friday and Saturday I was curious to see how much Hamilton would win by. I was even getting excited by it, a little. Hamilton was (and still is) equal with Schumacher on being the King of the Hungaroring – both with four wins each – so if he was going to take that particular title from Schumacher, then I wanted him to do it in style and decimate the field.
For me, it was an opportunity to see – as someone with the heart of a sportsman – a driver with by far the very best car on a track that he’s 100% perfectly suited to. I guessed he’d have had – assuming no safety car – a 30 second plus gap on Rosberg. A margin similar to what Schumacher would put over Barrichello when everything came together in perfect harmony for Michael, whilst Rubens would be wondering how to get the best car in the field to work properly and stay ahead of the Williams’ and McLarens in the ’02 or ’04 seasons.
Even non-Hamilton fans were denied seeing that rare, perfect combo. Most would have called it boring; but it, for me, would still have been worth watching the art of such a dominant drive.
Nevertheless, Vettel stepped up and delivered a very, very good race where as a driver / car combo he was between 7 tenths to 1 second a lap slower on pure pace over the weekend during “on it” laps. Not to mention he was less than comfortable with the car.
So Vettel adding another “non-best-car-win” feather to his nest, at a track he’s never won before, was a worthy performance in which to equal Senna.
Anyway, I’ve gone on again…so, I’ll print screen your agreement with me and place it next to my race trophies as an equally worthy achievement.
😀
Vettel, flawless on Sunday and never challenged.
Honourable mention has to go to Verstappen, poor old Hulk (was having another fine weekend) and a promising young chap called I think Alonso – he’ll have a great future ahead of him if he can keep up those kind of performances 🙂
Seb V, obviously.
Surprised to see Honeybadger placed so highly (and Kvyat so low) considering he was gifted a position by his team mate, the sloppiness of his moves, and the number of cars he bounced off.
I guess Bad Donald got a vote purely for entertainment value.
Pastor (the high priest of dangerous driving) should get a one race ban and retake his super driving licence test again. He really should be ashamed of himself considering the events of this week.
I was in two minds over this, but in the end went for Alonso. Car works, is crap, somehow finished 5th, thats what he does.
“Somehow” mostly due to his faultless driving and 2 Mercedes, 1 Ferrari, 2 Force India and even a STR that should have finished ahead of him didn’t. He could have probably finished in points but 5th would be impossible even as good as he was.
How does Lewis Hamilton get more votes than Daniil Kvyat? Or Will Stevens gets more than Roberto Merhi?
Oh the devil in me want to tick Pastor just for the comedy value…we have all played Brundel bingo but we had a new game in the house…its called Pastordisaster and well worth a try. I had him down for two contacts but lost out to my better half who predicated correctly the Perez shunt (I swear she is a witch) but on a serious note,I will be ticking Seb as he drove without fault but it was a close one with Alonso
Pastordisastor sounds better 😂
Maldonado – for breaking the record of number of penalties one driver can get in a single race.
Vettel, Kvyat, Alonso, in this order. Ricciardo seemed to have overall a clumsy race. Spun wheels on the start. And the costly altercation with Rosberg. I am surprised Kvyat was given a team order to let Ricciardo through at one point.
You realize Ricciardo was 45 seconds down the leader before the safety car? And he started alongside the guy. He had more than 20 secs gap to him even before his switch to middle compound versus Vettel’s soft tyres. Even though Red Bull race pace seemed on par with Ferrari. Not to mention the fact that he had contact with at least 3 drivers: Bottas, Hamilton, Rosberg. His race would have been the scrappiest if it wasn’t for Hamilton or Maldonado’s penalties.
I also didn’t like his comments on Kvyat, so he is DOTW NOT imo. Not even the second best… He sounds like Webber did when he comments on Kvyat.
Red Bull Drivers program 3, Mercedes High Performance Powertains 0
🙂
Vettel obviously DOTD, weekend? Probably still Seb. Brilliant start, though it was more going around the outside of the Mercs at T1 that did it that the start per se, and a faultless drive even after having a sizeable lead wiped out by the safety car. Mercedes really can’t race can they? (other than with Williams who obviously move over for them), it’s comical to watch them balls up pressure pit stops, give Rosberg a dreadful strategy and Lewis? Well anyone who tells me that guy is better than Vettel or Alonso really needs to watch that race again, and take into context the relative cars performance advantages/disadvantages.
Typical response from a non-Lewis fan. Given Lewis 5 good races and one bad, and then everyone will come out leaping at how over-rated he is, etc etc etc. The same goes for Vettel of course. I know it hurts some people hearing this, but Hamilton will go down in history as the fastest of his era, one of the best to watch and one of the greats (as will Alonso and Vettel).
As to whether he’s better than Vettel and Alonso, don’t judge him on this race alone, but throughout his career. For his fans, he will be better. For his haters, no. It’s the same as it was for Senna, Prost and Mansell. The last era with 3 true greats at the same time in it.
5 good races 1 bad?
Silverstone – average performance from Lewis really, it wasn’t exactly a stellar drive.
Austria – beaten comfortably by journeyman Rosberg
Canada – Decent performance, though followed closely by Nico.
Monaco – Oops
Spain – Rosberg wins again.
I’ll be generous and say 3 good performances from the last 6 races if you include Hungary. I struggle to believe that the likes of Alonso or Vettel would have returned so little with such a dominant car.
Returned so little?…..
16 wins from 29 races, you’re right that is absolutely awful. Mercedes should sack him
Man you’re not helping yourself at all…
If Lewis ups his win ratio by 10% over the remainder of the season then perhaps I’ll amend my view slightly. As things stand Vettel managed a 65% win ratio when he had a dominant car, a dominant car that had somewhere between .25s and .5s most of the time. Not a Mercedes style dominant car. So I expect better.
It’s not my fault you guys have low standards for the people you consider the best in the sport.
Your reply tells me all I need. You just don’t like Hamilton and whatever I or anyone else says, you’ll find something negative. Although numbers tell only half the story, have a look at this.
In 2011 and 2013 (the RBR dominant years), Vettel scored 24 pole positions and 24 wins in 38 races (63%).
Last year and this, Hamilton has scored 16 pole positions and 16 wins in 29 races (55%), but the year is not over yet.
In 2005, 2006 and 2007 that Alonso had the best car (not dominant), he scored 18 wins in 54 races (33%).
In 2007 and 2008 that Hamilton had the best car (not dominant), he scored 9 wins in 35 races (25%) [although in my opinion the 2008 McLaren was equal to Ferrari].
In 2010 and 2012 that Vettel had the best car (not dominant), he scored 9 wins in 39 races (23%).
Of course you can add several other dimensions, like the fact Alonso and Hamilton were team-mates in 2007 or compare Rosberg to Webber, etc, but the conclusion as you can see, is that these are the greats of their era and closely matched. Everyone will have their preference though and some blindingly will bash Hamilton or Vettel depending on their preference.
I’m aware of the stats, that’s where I concluded that a 10% increase in Lewis’ win ratio would make me have to amend my view point (n.b. for some reason I’d got 64.8% as VETs win ratio, when it’s actually 63.15% – oops!, so lets make that an 8% increase instead!). Anyhow back on point…
Hamilton is by many regarded as better than Vettel. The stats don’t back that up as you’ve shown. In fact digging deeper it’s clear that the cars at theses drivers disposals in their dominant times are somewhat different. The Mercedes has a bigger performance advantage than the Red Bull had, yet it is the Mercedes driver who has the lower win ratio. Additionally the relative competition from rival teams is greatly reduced in this current V6 Turbo era of F1. Add to that the perception by some that Hamilton is the best in the sport, and I’m left baffled by where this view point comes from?
Surely in a more dominant car, with less competition, the best driver in the sport should return a higher win ratio than a driver in a less dominant car, with closer competition who isn’t regarded as the best in the sport?
I hasten to add, yet again, that I do regard Lewis as a very very good F1 driver, fastest of his era though? I don’t think so, and neither do the stats, so perhaps until the latter of those is amended that myth can stop being peddled by the rather desperate British media and their blind believers.
In my personal opinion, and of course it is your right to disagree, Rosberg is a more competitive team-mate than Webber ever was. So yes, Merc seems to be more dominant than RBR, but dominance is dominance, irrespective or whether the advantage is 0.5 sec or 1 sec. Having a competitive team-mate is more of a hindrance.
As for the perception that Hamilton is better than Vettel, that has to do with the fact that Hamilton ‘proved’ himself is less competitive cars prior to the Merc dominance years. Vettel is going through this ‘proof’ phase now. So in 2-3 years with great performances in the Ferrari, he’ll probably be regarded as highly as Alonso and Hamilton.
As I said, these are my personal opinions and stats only say half the story. And an 8% difference, is really nothing to base my opinion upon. Just makes the record books look prettier.
I guess that Lewis got quite emotionally effected by the pre-race ceremony for Jules Bianchi and after he made that mistake into the chicane on the first lap trying to catch up, things just got worse from then on.
In short, it was just “one of these days” which we all have now and then. And props to him for admitting that no other then himself was to blame for his performance. It shows integrity and I like seeing that.
…
I think that Vettel was the DOTD, closely followed by Ricciardo.
I don´t like those kinds of “divebomb” maneuvers that he did but that was the only way for him to try to overtake as the cars in front pulled away from him even though he had use of DRS and none of the incidents that he was involved in was his fault in either mine or the race stewards opinion.
From this crop of drivers, apart from Hamilton and Alonso, I have to admit that Ricciardo is the other one I really admire. Nothing against Vettel or Rosberg or Button, but the first 3 are more of ‘fighters’, cutting through the field irrespective of the car underneath them, the latter 3 are more of ‘perfectionists’, as long as the team is around them and they have done their pre-work in the weekend, then they’ll shine, and shine big time.
Rosberg clearly lacks the aggression of Vettel. Button is closer to Vettel than Rosberg there, but probably lacks the speed. They are all perfectionists in different ways though. But I prefer a guy calculating when to attack or how long to defend rather than dive bombing after a couple of laps.
I would agree with you. If you look at someone like Hamilton, Alonso or Vettel, they will sit behind someone for a while but if there is so much as a hint of an opportunity they will go for it. Rosberg seems like he needs a formal invitation to pass…