I thought Hamilton drove a banker in Singapore, it was sort of a shame, but very sensible for the title race.
I couldn't help but think if the pitstop drama had happened to Hamilton then he would have passed a few cars and maybe picked up a point or two, Massa is a good driver but he still has that "oh well, i'll just have a picnic later and it'll still be a nice day" attitude when things go against him.
It was good to see Alonso win inspite of qualifying, he deserved it. Shame for the Red Bulls though.
Oh and Shotglass, I remember the days before the plank ;P.
Well I was cheering for Nico Rosberg and Williams, as it's great to see Williams getting some success again - I'd love for them to return to the top flight of F1. Over the last few laps I was urging Hamilton to not try and be a hero, and take out Nico with a fudged pass. Glad to see also that Hamilton thought about the situation and decided six points was better than a possible none.
Glad to see Massa FINALLY get penalised for another rediculous release from the pits straight into the path of another car. The ITV commentators didn't seem to notice but as Shotglass mentioned, they quickly got the lollipop man back on duty for subsequent stops. Surely we won't see any more of that silly (and dangerous) traffic light system.
As for Massa... for me it was more proof that he's vastly over-rated. When everything is running smoothly, he's very good. But when something goes wrong, it's like he falls apart. And of course, if it had been raining then every piece of tv footage of Massa would need to be accompanied by the Sugababes' "Round Round". What exactly was Massa doing back there after the botched pitstop? His laptimes plummeted and the only other notable thing he did for the rest of the race was going backwards into the corner leading into the tunnel. As others have said, he strikes me as being a great "hot lapper" but nowhere near as much a racer as some others in the field.
I also had to laugh and cringe at the same time at the return of the Trulli-Train. Laugh because it's so funny seeing half the field stuck behind Trulli crawling round, cringe because everytime it happens, it demonstrates how stupidly hard it is to overtake in F1.
But what a brilliant race. No doubt the tree-huggers will be having a fit at such a gratuitous waste of electricity with the use of 3.2MW to light the circuit alone, but it looked spectacular. The bumpy circuit made the cars look great as they bounced and moved around over the road. You could really see the suspension moving and taking a hammering. The blue flames burbling out the exhausts, the sparks flying down the straights, the piercing eyes visible out from behind the clear visors... superb stuff.
The only reason Massa was penalised was because they knew his race was over and had no chance of winning, but if he was still in the lead he wouldn't of got penalised, it's just there way of saying 'hey look we give penalties to Ferrari too' but imo it wasn't much of a penalty since he already lost anyway.
You don't think Massa might've liked a chance to come back through the field and get some points back? You don't think losing the clothes off of your back because of some completely incompetent pit work and then getting penalized for it hurts? As long as we have regular rotations of stewards and an unclear rule book, there will be inconsistencies. I don't know why people don't realize this, especially anyone who competes in leagues in LFS. Handing out a penalty is almost never a cut and dry thing in racing.
I personally think Massa lacks the ability to dig deep and find a special performance when events go against him. I'm not really judging that on this race though, because there was nothing he could do after his team put him in that situation. If he wins the championship he would be a worthy champion, mainly because of the huge improvements he has made since joining F1, although I don't think he is quite at the same level as Hamilton, Kubica and Vettel.
ah yes but you also remember the days when the closest thing to the interblag had a waggly tails and would drivel all over you
not that its very good etiquette to talk about a girls age but you must be at least a 100 years old
agreed but im afraid itll wear off rather quickly
just imagine what it must have been like in the bmw pit afterwards
a short timid guy in red swings by embarrassedly looking at the floor a lot
- do you guys by any chance have a spare lollipop lying around anywhere?
i still hope he wins the championship or the level of smugness will make this forum unbearable for at least 2 months
None of the drivers will be worthy champions this year (unless Kubica can somehow win the next three races whilst the others fall off) so it shouldn't be too smug. The Hamilton Club might get a bit excited, but once you point out how shit he's driven they'll quickly shut up. A worthy champion isn't defined by just being slightly less shit over a year than your competitors (Massa and Kimi).
I rather prefer a year with several "shit" drivers (I guess you mean their performance) to a year with 1 dominating driver. This way it's way more entertaining (and that is what todays F1 is all about).
To finish first you have to finish first, and the person who manages this the best is a worthy champion.
Personally I'd rather have, say, three good drivers all racing for points and not making a mistake at all, with it coming down to the wire, than have three drivers artificially close because none of them can do a GP without at least one mistake at some point. They're supposed to be the best drivers in the world, not be shown up by various national championship drivers.
And yes, 'shit' is a relative term as I know they are all very good. But Kimi, Massa and Hamilton have all made several stupid mistakes several times this year - hardly befitting a world championship fight.
Schuhmacher had his shit moments also, thats nothing that we have just invented this year and from what I read about his earlier years (pre '94) we wasn't that known for his crashless driving either.
I just hope that we simply notice driving mistakes more today due cars becoming reliable like russian tractors. I mean, take the incident between Kubica and Kovalainen in T1, not so long ago both cars would have been fallen into pieces.
Else it wouldn't really speak for the F1 as crown of motorsport as they like to call it...
I agree, Ferrari should never have put pressure on him to retire, they should have kept Schumacher and Massa. I guess that's easy to say now, but I wouldn't have taken a punt on Kimi given his performances the season before, and the potential new talent coming up through the ranks. Remember that Schumacher knows all about Vettel, and I expect he would have recommended him as his replacement when he finally decided to retire. But instead Ferrari forced him to retire, basically saying it was him or Massa that would have to go.
They denied us the chance to see Schumacher show Hamilton that his aggressive driving is nothing in comparison to what a grown man with a similar attitude would do.
Despite the rather obvious mistakes by those drivers, sometimes something happened that was simple down to hardware failures and hasn't been noticed as that in first place, at least not by the "average" spectators or even moderators (lack of telemetry data). I cant offer any examples but im sure there are some.
I do also find it a bit contradicting to demand a perfect race of someone who is basically forced to move along the edge while the conditions are constantly changing (such as tire behaviour and weight variation or environment changes like weather for instance). At the same time, the limits (the personal but not the actual limits) are fluctuating quite a lot according to the changing conditions (cold tires can't provide a higher speed throughout turns then tires at ~optimal temperature...and so on, you name it) and so doing mistakes while finding the limits for each "stage" of the race is a normal process if you ask me. The trick is to make the compensation look like a skillful move instead of a lucky hit.
I could get even more into detail but i guess since you're a race driver in the "holy" reallife you do know such stuff already. My point is that there is far more involved then skills, luck and knowledge (you name it) and i simple can't stand it when people judge by what they see instead of getting to know what's really going on. Thats all.
All I can say is your never perfect, we are always learning and learning from our mistakes. Hamilton is still learning and I hope soon he will stop making mistakes as he does and become in tristian terms, a worthy champion. If Hamilton wins this years wdc he may get a bigger confidence boost, it may make him more arrogant but us Brits are arrogant as a nation and I dont think there is no denying that.
When will the bickering of Hamilton stop?
Also I think Hamilton makes mistakes because of his aggressive driving style, he keeps saying that he is learning from his mistakes and I think in time he will become what Tristian says a worthy champion, not putting a foot wrong, no mistakes and just gets on with it, I do have to say though that Hamilton in the end started to race for points as he said he was happy with taking points to put more of a lead over Massa instead of making a chance to go for the victory, imo him and Mclaren made a good decision to leave the most points possible without ruining their race going for the victory. DC held him up for to long though, in the end when he overtook him, DC backed off a little it looked like.
