Driver of the Weekend: FORMULA 1 GRANDE PRÊMIO PETROBRAS DO BRASIL 2015

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Who was your driver of the 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix weekend? This takes into account the whole weekend and not just the race. Please use the comments to tell us why you voted the way you did.

50 responses to “Driver of the Weekend: FORMULA 1 GRANDE PRÊMIO PETROBRAS DO BRASIL 2015”

  1. Voted for Lewis. Sincerely. Provided 100% of my F1 entertainment this weekend with contradiction following contradiction.

    Enters weekend off the back of a bender/fever/crash w/e. Trues to come clean, needlessly, then somehow is flexible with the facts. Lol, what? Why bother?

    Shows up to track. Gets out-quali’d, skips post-quali pic, but states he’s cool with it, “his job is done”, “it “doesn’t matter”, makes no difference etc – all the while sporting a Senna helmet and stating that he in fact does want to win, meaning, it does matter to him. Lol, what? Maaaaaate….

    Then race day, pushing for strategy change, locking his tyres like a mofo, trying to (mid race) change a long held Merc policy to nick-a-win on strat while following; but then says he’s a “racer” and he just wants to “race”. Erm, you’re complaining about not being able to out-strat Nico for the win, not out-race. Lol, what?

    Brilliant.

    This ain’t going to be a popular comment, I know, but nothing marries up in his rhetoric – for realz yo. It’s all a bit, “I’ll say what feels right for now and change it in my next interview if need be”, sort of thing.

    Reading actions, as I prefer to do, tells a very different story of Lewis.

    Lol, what * 3 at least. Ya feel me?

    • He got rekt this weekend, but whatever floats your boat. This is the “driver of the weekend”, not “my favourite driver” pool.

    • If Lewis gets out of the car in the pits and does the tyre changes himself, I think it’s fair to put him on an ALT strat. He’d lose like, 80 seconds, but it would be so Senna-esque. Imagine him tripping over all the cables running around the car? By the time he’s back in and realises he can’t do up his own safety belt (he’s a driver, not a F@#?ing engineer) he’d be off, asking immediately to Bono “hey man, how far up the road is Nico?” And “how effective is the undercut here?” Thereafter panting heavily for the entirety of the next stint over team radio. All of which would be kept of the world feed, as it would be interpreted as overly sexualised content.
      Well done Nico. World’s greatest.

  7. Max Vestappen is the driver ego make’s thie race every time to à party, he is overtake à lot off cars believe me he is the best what the F1 has become in 2015 GoMax your the best!!!! Gerrie grom Holland Amsterdam….

    • Regarding the bad English, here’s a typical Dutch saying: “I’ll see that through the fingers”

      Driver off the weekend: Rosberg. Nailed it.

  10. I voted for Hulkenberg, he (and Bottas) where like submarines all race. Nobody saw them. Whereas the Williams is good all year, Hulk needed some luck. I am happy for him now. I feel complete now. Downside is that he pushed Verstappen from P10 in the standings. Did I already say Verstappen is a mad driver, F1 needs this guy! Somekind of cross between biggest balls Maldonado and Hamilton – bright future èh. Rosberg, great race. Keep the momentum up for next year. Spank the British boy, please.

  12. Glad you asked for driver of the weekend so I voted for Alonso for managing to look super cool in the face of adversity. Were it a choice for the the race only, after his traumatic nightmare week which would have hospitalised lesser mortals Hamilton still managed to come second. What a guy!

  13. I voted Max, he is what F1 needs. Forget the spoiled kids Hamilton and Rosberg. Max is in his own leaque. Overtaking is an art.

  15. IMO Hamilton still managed to come second because he was asked too and he obliged, ..albeit slightly begrudgingly but for the good of the team. The comments he made about not being able to follow the car in front made it very clear. He could get close enough almost at will to pass Nico but didn’t once attempt too. Why would you want to follow the car in front, ..racing drivers don’t follow they pass and they win. Merc wanted and needed Rosberg 2nd in the WDC and the Scuderia were too quick for the Merc pair to be squabbling over the win. I’m not a huge Hamilton fan but I thought the whole thing was staged and even Bernie thought the Ferrari were gonna get one over the Mercs. On this occasion Toto stamped his authority.

    Max for driver of the weekend with both JB and the Hulk doing a solid job too.

        • Toto is pretty much the final say.

          Lewis only won because Mercedes allowed him.

          Lewis publically stating that he wishes the current merc strategist is his and his teammate gets his own = Lewis’ ego on the verge of meltdown. He literally thinks it’s him that’s the reason mercs 30 seconds up the field.

          #blessedtohavenoclueaboutreality

          #gonnablessF1withanewmeltdown

  16. A driver who, historically, has never done particularly well at a track doesn’t do particularly well at that track. Why are so many people acting like this is a major thing? As ever, great to see the traditional TJ13 comments knee-jerk reactions going on. It’s a pity they’re still moderated, it’d be good to see them all coming in in real time without having to wait for them to be ‘approved’…

    • I get the feeling that everything gets through except fir lunatics/spam nobody wants to see. Still longinh fir the unmoderated times, though…

      • No, the lunatics still get through… I’m evidence of that – among other people non compos mentis.

        The real question is, how does one handcuff a one-armed man?

          • As the kale-eaters of that traitorous colony known as “Ewe Ess Aye” might say, “Fuckin’ A, brah. Fuckin’ A. Totes omg agree.”

            Best answer yet, Aapje. +10 for the Lol’s.

      • I don’t really mind what does/doesn’t get through, but having to wait for comments to get approved means that the natural flow of conversations dies. There’s been many times where I’ve seen a bank of similar posts/questions pop up all of a sudden because a lot of people have been wanting to ask/say the same thing, but because those posts are all hidden away they just mount up instead of there being a debate/talk about them. Considering the “issues” that the moderation was supposed to solve have largely gone (well, a select few people have gone), it seems a little needless to continue to do it this way round.

  17. hamilton wins the WDC and then gets trashed twice in a row by his teammate. obviously it can’t be hamilton’s fault. he’s the champ!!!!!!

    • He wasn’t thrashed, as Fortis will testify I’m no Lewis fan, but to suggest Nico thrashed Lewis is incorrect. That’s exactly what makes me believe there is nothing dodgy going on. The race weekends in Mexico and Brazil (and possibly Russia had Nico’s car not failed) looked very similar to those in China and Canada for example, with one driver leading and the other following but unable to pass due to the aerodynamics of the cars, and the damage that following another car does to tyres. In general in the modern power unit era of F1 the overtakes you see are down to two things; a superior power unit (e.g. a Merc powered car passing others in a straight line), or tyres (e.g. on corner exit the car with superior grip simply drives away thanks to it’s traction advantage). In the races I mentioned above neither Nico nor Lewis had either of those advantages against each other. Compare that with Max for example, many of the passes he made were due to his different strategy, and whilst he didn’t have a superior power unit he did have a traction advantage, which then got him in both the slipstream and DRS zone, thus making up for his power deficit, and then when he gets to the braking zone again he had superior grip to make the move stick.

      The two stories of weekend for me though were both related and both to do with the FIA. First up, the FIAs failure to mention anything about their premier class world champion driver who was driving when tired and had an accident, given their eagerness to promote road safety was very very puzzling. They should have taken the chance to tell the world that even the best of drivers make mistakes when their tired, so don’t drive tired. Promo opportunity missed and Lewis can perhaps count himself lucky he didn’t use that excuse with a UK traffic cop, or he’d be facing a driving without due care & attention charge. The second relates directly to this, and that is the FIAs decision to hold a minutes silence for road traffic victims, a fine sentiment, but this wasn’t the time to do it in light of the terrible events in Paris. They should have delayed the road traffic silence until Adu Dhabi and done things properly with regards the victims of Paris, especially considering the numerous French links within F1. Jean Todts comments were bordering on insulting to the friends, family and countrymen of the victims.

  18. Now that the 2 championships and 2nd place is decided I hope Toto will agree to let them race at the final event.

  19. Are you planning to compile a driver of the year poll? It could be a separate vote or a compilation of the polls from the various races

  20. Just on the Brazilian Grand Prix…

    I’ve been reading various missives about an F1 theory from the Brazilian Grand Prix that, in essence, states Lewis Hamilton deliberately qualified 2nd and held position to place 2nd in the race – apparently being obedient under orders from Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff. The theory varies, as it tends to on Twitter… but I think that’s it in a nutshell.

    With that said, it’s genuinely amazing to me that it is easier, or more palatable, for some – not all – fans of Lewis to believe that the triple world champ actually threw a race despite his past racing history. But beyond that glaringly obvious contradiction of Lewis’ modus operandi, it is apparently preferable to overlook Lewis’ screams for strategy change to try to win, as well as his locked tyres when pushing hard, and his general “racy” attitude that day and instead to focus exclusively on (near) zero evidence of race fixing.

    Are we to actually think, despite his MO, and those aforementioned facts, that Lewis is complicit in race fixing now? Wowsers… In the face of losing to Nico Rosberg, it’s now apparently preferable to some that Lewis is actually a race fixer. I wonder if the various subscribers to that theory understand that’s where the theory leads. I don’t think most do.

    It’s also been brought to my attention – that aforementioned (near) evidence – an article where Toto apparently implies that Lewis will toe the company line and finish second as a good team player in order to ensure Nico 2nd position in the F1 WDC, which interestingly Lewis – in the same article – states he knows nothing about and will race as he always has, consistent with his MO.

    In fact, that very article’s headline was something to the effect of, “Lewis Hamilton deaf to team plea…” That contradiction by Lewis himself, and the headline reflecting said contradiction, is a bit strange given this article is being used as the smoking gun and the key piece of evidence underpinning the race fixing hypothesis.

    The mind truly boggles. Now don’t get me wrong… I’m not a fan of Nico at all, and my comments here have reflected that; neither am I a fan of Lewis, and my comments have reflected that too. However, I respect Lewis’ racing ability and I acknowledge that overall Lewis is head and shoulders above Nico in racing ability. Though I can’t help but be amused at the twitter-fan-logic that leads Lewis to race fixing, as opposed to following his MO and the race evidence (not to mention Lewis’ statements in that very smoking gun article) to the simple truth that he was beaten on a track he doesn’t do well at, which is a track that Nico does do well at.

    Additionally, evidence suggests Nico is – more or less – as fast as Lewis over a single lap on a season-by-season basis with track styles being the main differentiator. But race fixing, deliberately qualifying 2nd and then obediently remaining in 2nd? Hmmm… no. Let’s give him SOME credit. Ask yourselves this, bearing in mind Lewis’ penchant for Twitter/Tumblr/media outbursts over the years when he feels aggrieved (both at McLaren and Mercedes)… “Don’t you think if Lewis suspected race fixing, or was asked to race fix, that we would have already heard about it from him?”

    Occam’s razor, people.

    • Hmmm that’s interesting, I remember this very same theory being banned about last year when Nico had his Monza ‘lock up’. I remember you were one of the lead instigators of such ‘conspiracy’ and all the ‘anti-Hamilton’ brigade was in utter uproar about it.

      Straightaway everyone was on here and all over the interweb saying it was a fix and Nico was instructed to give Lewis a win as punishment for what happened in Spa.

      Now that theory made no sense, given Lewis qualified on pole and was miles faster than Nico was from the very first P1 session. And also let’s not forget that Lewis suffered a technical glitch which saw him drop back down to as low as 4th behind Kmag and Massa.

      The judge himself on the following podcast informed us that ‘someone’ in Mercedes said that was the case.

      So why now is it impossible for Lewis to be instructed to do the same? After all everyone is saying that Lewis’s championships were all orchestrated so as to justify his wages (cough hippo) to Mercedes board and the unions.

      • Oh and to add, let’s not forget Toto’s comments over the weekend….

        “There is a gentleman at the back of the room who needs to finish second in the championship so that is important,” said Wolff with Rosberg also in the team’s motor home. “The primary objective is to make Nico score a lot of points to secure second in the championship. Lewis is absolutely aware this is a team exercise.”

        And when you add Nico’s comments in his pre-race interview with Brundle…

        “I’m guaranteed a 5th pole on Saturday”..

        Is it that implausible?

        So why is it now that the ‘Hamilton’ supporters are being delusional with their conspiracy theory when last year it was ok for the ‘anti-Hamilton’ brigade to banned theirs around?

      • Thanks for the well-reasoned response, Fortis. Good points and yes, you’re correct, I was one of the proponents of the Monza ’14 race fixing theory. Not sure about the “main one”, but, that’s neither here nor there.

        I won’t pick up on the Brazil related points in your second comment, as I’ve thoroughly presented my thoughts already and would simply be repeating myself. But with respect to Monza ’14, and I can’t speak for the Judge, but for my part – having raced myself as you well know – it looked very, very odd to me. Essentially, it boiled down to either Nico being very inept and cracking under pressure, multiple times I might add, not even (seemingly) trying to make the corner, OR, the conspiracy that inevitably emerged. The Spa issues added some… shall we say, plausible motive.

        Over a year later, it’s clearer that Nico – on various occasions – does crack. Austonian gusts of wind, as an example. At that point, Monza ’14 that is, Nico seemed “stronger”. With the benefit of hindsight, and having more data available on Nico with front-running stress, it’s unlikely Monza ’14 was a fix. But, I also feel at that time – including Spa – there was a hell of a lot more to draw from that created that hypothesis than there is now in relation to Brazil. But, to each their own.

        Nice chat. +1.

    • It is nothing new though fella, and cuts both ways. Some folks would rather believe that Merc have been favouring Lewis too, rather than admit that, despite Nico being able to bring the fight on occasion, he tends to get beaten by Lewis over the longer haul, both mentally, physically, and via good old racing/speed too.

      I tend to think that suspicious folks, and devious minds, tend to believe the conspiracies more readily. I tend to think my fellow man, even at the higher echelons or motorsport/politics/religion, isn’t as smart or devious as our screen writers would have us believe; but probably far more corrupt. That isn’t to say it doesn’t happen, but not half as often as we would think. Monza/Spa/and this particular instance… I call bullshit on it all myself.

  21. MayB hamilton can train on the simulator this winter with verstappen? im sure he’s able to overtake rosberg next year in brasil then xD

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