Selfish Sainz
The team player of the Toro Rosso team acknowledges that “you always need to show a bit of selfishness if you are a champion” following the team orders row in Singapore. Sainz however adds, “but, in my opinion, the long-term best position that you can do is listen to the team. I am a team player. I’ve said it from the beginning and I think I’ve shown in from the beginning – every time the team has asked me for something, I was telling them ‘yes’.”
Mansell: ‘I could match Hamilton’s lap times’
‘Our Nige’ has never been one lacking in self belief. Talking to the BBC whilst promoting his autobiography, the 62 year old former champion uttered these bold words regarding Lewis Hamilton: “I’d get very close to his time, if not do an identical time,
I won’t be bold and say that (I’d) maybe go a little bit quicker. The thing is, you can do it for a few laps. When you get old you can’t sustain it lap after lap.
“But then in a race, and with a bit of training — give me more than a few weeks, give me a few months — and if the body would allow I think that in that car we could certainly get on the podium and have a lot of fun.”
It is often said that the modern F1 car is very different to the machines Mansell drove, rather more akin to a racing sim. Max Verstappen is known to have raced online during the summer break practising bold overtaking manoeuvres around Spa.
Here’s our Nige having a go at sim racing a few years ago. Skip to 4:25 for his jump start.
F1’s three-car future known ‘next month’ – Ecclestone
“Some teams want to have three cars (each), and a lot of people would rather see a third Ferrari than a car that is not competitive.
Next month we will see if we are going in that direction,”
These are the knowing words of Mr E from an interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. Ecclestone insists he is not worried that F1 could be left with a diminished grid for the start of the 2016 season next March.
Lotus and Renault’s future is still uncertain and with regards to the Red Bull/Toro Rosso situation, Ecclestone admits he is not sure how it will play out.
“It is a complex situation with many conflicting interests,” he said. “Why would their competitors help them out and risk that they could be beaten with their own weapons?”
Rosberg thinks he can still beat Lewis
Despite being 48 points behind his team mate and championship leader, Nico Rosberg claims: “I’m not backing down and in my mind it’s not over yet.”
Toto Wolff backs his driver too: “The way I see him and the way I feel where he is, he has not given up,” said Wolff.
“There is no way a driver will give up unless it is not mathematically possible any more. This is what I see in Nico’s case, with his character.
“Of course, we try to maintain a good relationship in the team and not have any animosity and sometimes when a driver appears to be nice it is seen as a weakness, but it is not that at all.”
Carmen gives us the ‘3 jobs’ she has in F1’s Lotus team
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We need to cull the back markers. I’m all for 3 ferrari/merc/red bull/mclaren(once competitve)/Renault instead of having 5 F2 teams at the end of the pits pretending they are F1 teams.
I am so sick and tired of the poor teams controlling the narrative and headlines.
I’m only interested in very rich teams spending hundreds of millions of dollars to out race eachother.
If I want to see how you can race on a budget I would actually give a damn about f2 or something.
Kill the poors! Quick!
I agree. F1 is about the best beating the best. No restrictions. If you can’t keep up its your own fault.
Mr E… is that you? 🙂
Those poor teams are the source material that affluent teams normally build on. Where do you think Mercedes or Red Bull have come from originally?
We cannot use the past and tradition to justify continuing stupidity. There is not one argument to keep backmarkers that doesn’t have a much better solution if backmarkers are dead.
Rookie drivers will now be in competitive cars.
Engineers will now work for teams that can engineer.
Fans don’t have to explain to their friends what these slow shitty cars are doing on the track.
No more terrible Backmarker liveries.
Maybe all the cars can finish on the lead lap?
If being a back marker was important and the future, why aren’t red bull and mercedes teams embracing their history?
New teams should have 2 years to get into the points or they get cut and lose a huge deposit. This will ensure only teams committed and invested enter f1.
Why stop at three? If Mercedes absorb Force India and Manor, they can easily field a 6 car team.
At this point the only way I see Nico becoming Champion is from DNF’s from Lewis.
Nico Rosberg doesn’t have what it takes to be a champion at the highest level of grand prix racing. People can say what they want about the “closeness” of last season’s competition between he and Hamilton but the bald fact is that Hamilton won 11 races to Rosberg’s five. In any other sport where DNFs do not come into play it would be roundly agreed that Rosberg was trounced by his teammate.
Most people would have you believe that Nico’s only losing because of what happened in Spa last year and not the fact that Lewis is just overall the better driver.
But hey, lets forget that he was also beaten in 2013. But saying that, someone might say that was Ross’s doing as well.
But Nico’s rhetoric is becoming very tiresome. Every race weekend that’s always the lead story…
“I’m not giving up”… “I still can do it” yada yada yada….
He talked about how impressed with how aggressive he was with his pass on Bottas and his subsequent drive back to second. But yet again he finished in second despite all that was wonderful new ‘race craft’
Nico’s only hope of winning is DNF’s
You do not really believe he can say that he gives up? Can you imagine the impact for his sponsors… and even more viewers would stop watching. He has to say that pr talk even if it’s bullshit in it’s purest form
No i don’t expect him to, but it’s becoming tiresome and I think even the people who are asking him that, knows it’s bullshit, but yet they persist.
“…Nico’s only losing because of what happened in Spa last year…”
I never thought I’d see the day… wow. But I totally agree. 😀
“Nico’s only hope of winning is DNF’s”
True… oh and any Monaco-esque TV glances that causes Lewis to pit; or any Hungary-esque mind-meltdowns where Lewis reminds us of 2011; or any Austria-esque races Lewis can’t seem to get his set-up right; or any Spain-esque races where Lewis’ just simply out classed.
But yeah, apart from those, it’s only Lewis’ DNF’s that will allow Nico to win the title. I agree.
+1 😉
….Most people would have you believe that….
Indulging in selective statements I see…😉
“True… oh and any Monaco-esque TV glances that causes Lewis to pit; or any Hungary-esque mind-meltdowns where Lewis reminds us of 2011; or any Austria-esque races Lewis can’t seem to get his set-up right; or any Spain-esque races where Lewis’ just simply out classed.”
Anomalies my friend, that’s all they were.
“Indulging in selective statements I see…”
My wife taught me well.
…but DNF’s do come into play. It’s motorsport. There’s no point in postulating “what ifs” with respect to, “if the sport had no DNF’s” etc.
The blend of consistency and winning has been a finely tuned and sought after black art of season-long motor racing since time immemorial. The differences between them mean winning and losing titles. Lewis’ approach and Nico’s approach to this fine art resulted in a finale’ irrespective of double points. That’s close. That’s the bald fact, no matter how it’s sliced.
It was possible for Nico to walk away from Abu Dhabi as champion. It doesn’t get closer in accumulation-points style motor racing.
Quoting one statistical aspect (win totals) of season-long motor racing is ultimately irrelevant to the fact that Nico could have walked away from Abu Dhabi as champion, even with Monza’s gimme and Singapore’s lubricant.
The only thing I haven’t allowed for is the Australian v American interpretations of “close”.
WTF – In this case you don’t seem to “get it.” Football: but he threw for 4000 yards and 40 touchdowns. Well, you team was still 6-10 on the season. Well the defense had 25 interceptions. Well your team was still 5-11.
Yes, DNFs are part of the sport. But don’t think other drivers are in ANY way looking at DNFs, meltdowns, anomalies of all sorts when comparing the two Mercedes drivers; it’s just not what professional athletes do. And rather than choose to view performance from the media side of things, which is, always look at the event with some sort of story in mind, no matter how contrived, I choose to view performance as —- performance.
I am willing to wager anything that driver to driver when comparing the 2014 Rosberg and Hamilton competition strips the conversation down to —— 11-5. And I will also bet that they will say, sure all the peripheral stuff that actually intrudes on performance is in play, but if Hamilton had lost, ALL of them would have seen a Rosberg WDC as a blight on the sport.
I should add: there is one caveat with DNFs – driver-caused DNFs. Yes, that is the one type of DNF that is one non-bottom line statistic that speaks directly to driver performance. So, had Hamilton won 11 races but had seven self-inflicted DNFs and lost the WDC as a result, it becomes a major tell that something within him keeps him from being a champion.
@DWil
Fair enough, mate. I can’t say agree, but I see your point.
Upon reading your comments again, it occurs to me we are perhaps talking about two different things, but using the same verbiage and thus discussing the meaning of words and/or sporting concepts.
You may be talking about measureable peak performance, and characterising Lewis and Nico in ’14 as “not close”. In that respect, I actually agree and the wins tally you cite underpins that.
However, I’m talking about end results and outcomes for the ’14 WDC and characterising it as “close” – something I picked up on in your original comment about the ’14 championship where you’ve implied that it wasn’t “close”.
As a results based person, based on having been a sportsman, I can’t get away from the one fundamental point of Nico having realistically been able to secure the ’14 title at Abu Dhabi. That fact, to me, is a “close” outcome. Lewis (and maybe F1) was “fortunate” the wind blew his way towards the end.
That’s not a contrived fact, or coming from any other motive outside of me analysing the “outcomes” for the ’14 title chase, taking into account the title lead after each round, the lead swapping, as well as a realistic finale’ where a misstep from either Lewis or Nico meant the WDC was lost for either given Merc’s guaranteed win.
I agree peak performance wasn’t “close”, but the ’14 title was “close” (for whatever reason), which is what you were referring to in saying “People can say what they want about the “closeness” of last season’s competition”.
Had Nico been WDC in ’14, anything anyone might’ve said would be irrelevant – including peak performance analytics.
Language is a funny thing… as are our own personal paradigms. Interesting chat.
—
Just as a side note, I have zero understanding of padded, helmeted, American football. To that end, those analogies don’t help. It’s like another language. I mention this as it’s twice you’ve spoken in padded, helmeted, American football terms when we’ve found ourselves discussing sporting words/concepts.
Analogy friendly sports:
MotoGP (or any autosport)
Cricket
Rugby Union / League
Soccer / Football
AFL
Tennis
But Rosberg is good enough to keep Hamilton always “honest”.
Here is how F1 becomes a show again:
3 Mercs w/ LH, FA & MV!
Now that would be some drama my mamma would even watch!
Or Nigel in the 3rd Ferrari, Piquet sr in the 3rd Williams and Jos in the 3rd red Bull.
Still thinking bout the 3rd merc, though.
I’d rather fill those three jobs in my mind than watching the fragment.
Think you’d have to ballast Hamilton’s car significantly if Mansell were to have any chance of matching his time…
Nige had plenty of success ballast
You got that mansell sim video idea off me yesterday on pf1. Lol
PF1?
I think it’s a French tv station….!
That’s actually TF1 (Télévision Française 1).
Nigel still a racer at heart.
You think he really has the stomach for it…..?