2011 Team mates comparison - #12 McLaren

[racecub]

I am a Lewis fan and he is a superb driver. There are too many people more knowledgable than myself who both agree and disagree for me to say emphatically that he is the best.

I wil speculate that I don't think that he is great at setting a car up. I do think though, that he'll drive whatever you give him very fast and that this may hide some more pace that was potentially in the car. going back a few years, Alonso could not make head nor tail of any of Lewis' data whilst Lewis clearly benefitted a great deal from his... before they put the wall up.

Yes. I agree the experts are split,but thats good enough for me to say lewis is the best. Setting up a car? Well I guess his driving skills have put that skill on the back burner, because he can get in a car and make it work. I know Dennis insisted lewis learn all about the engineering side from an early age......how much he took on board i have no idea. But i also know that there have been times..more than one!... when jenson has had to resort to lewis' settings. So..how good is he at setting up a car?... I dont know. But I lurve the way he drives it!

 

[Il_leone]

Never write off the double world champ...

No but Lewis wants the Mclaren to be much closer to Red Bull because when Mclaren were right on Red Bull's pace Vettel tightened and panicked / prone to more errors.

Vettel is good on his defense but when asked to pass a car the Red Bull's aerodynamics is affected and they struggle

 

[teabagyokel]

But lewis is the best driver. He has most control over how the car performs on a given day, but I didnt mean that i meant he doesnt design and make it.

No, and my impression is that he rarely guides it. He's far more like Raikkonen than Schumacher in that respect; he just wants to drive a car fast.

In addition, there is no-one who has made more idiotic decisions in qualifying in the last five years than has Hamilton.

He is an excellent, agressive driver. But raw pace, sadly, does not win multiple championships. There needs to be something else...

 

[racecub]

No, and my impression is that he rarely guides it. He's far more like Raikkonen than Schumacher in that respect; he just wants to drive a car fast.

In addition, there is no-one who has made more idiotic decisions in qualifying in the last five years than has Hamilton.

He is an excellent, agressive driver. But raw pace, sadly, does not win multiple championships. There needs to be something else...

I dont think its just up to hamilton what happens in quali. The team should be telling him when to go out. But too many times last season their eyes were elsewhere. Too late out, wrong tyres, no petrol, to name just a few.

 

[Viscount]

No, and my impression is that he rarely guides it. He's far more like Raikkonen than Schumacher in that respect; he just wants to drive a car fast.

In addition, there is no-one who has made more idiotic decisions in qualifying in the last five years than has Hamilton.

He is an excellent, agressive driver. But raw pace, sadly, does not win multiple championships. There needs to be something else...

I think you're right about Hamilton probably not guiding development, but I think the faults in decision making lie slightly more with the team than Hamilton. I think he listens to his team too much when he's capable of making a decision himself whether or not it's his own choice to follow the team's strategy or a contractual obligation, (granted, I'm sure McLaren have a whole host of intelligent strategists).
In 20011 at China for instance it was Hamilton's choice to only do one run in Q3 to save his tyres for the race which turned out to be the right choice. At the next race in Turkey he wanted to do 1 run in Q3 again as he said in the post race interview, but the team made him do 2 runs which left him with no new tyres for the race. At another race (Hungary I think) he tried to get through Q2 on primes but the team made him do a second run on options worried he might not make it through but in the end his time on primes would have been good enough to make it into Q3 so once again he used all of his tyres. Monaco the team wanted him to wait until the end of Q3 but due to Perez's crash it backfired.

I'm not saying Hamilton's been faultless in qualifying though, as I believe McLaren had a car capable of pole at a few tracks this season but Hamilton couldn't put the lap together plus there was the Suzuka incident. Anyway, Hamilton at his best is better than every driver in F1 in my opinion but as you said, raw pace doesn't win multiple championships.

 

[FB]

I've made this point before - modern F1 drivers need to grow a pair and tell the teams what they want to do rather than relying on the boffins sitting in air conditioned computer suites hundreds or thousands of miles away. Their arse is in the car, they know what the track is doing and how the car is responding to the conditions. Man up and tell the team what needs to be done.

If one driver comes on screen after a qualie session this year and blames the team for their low qualifying position or poor race result "because they told me not to go out" or "they made me do an extra run and it shot my tyres" I might just put my size 11 through the screen. Grrrr!

 

[racecub]

I've made this point before - modern F1 drivers need to grow a pair and tell the teams what they want to do rather than relying on the boffins sitting in air conditioned computer suites hundreds or thousands of miles away. Their arse is in the car, they know what the track is doing and how the car is responding to the conditions. Man up and tell the team what needs to be done.

If one driver comes on screen after a qualie session this year and blames the team for their low qualifying position or poor race result "because they told me not to go out" or "they made me do an extra run and it shot my tyres" I might just put my size 11 through the screen. Grrrr!

Lewis tried that in Hungary 2007, after a series of races where a preferable strategy put Fernando ahead, look what happenned then. Lewis likes to please. I agree with you, he should have a bit more of what Senna had when dealin with situations like this. But he now has a team manager who needs a lot of convincing to put him on the best strategy. I hope he does toughen up and insist on what he wants. COME ON LEWIS

 

[teabagyokel]

I largely agree with you Viscount, but I often feel he's too quick to go ambitious. It is not a coincidence that Button and previously Kovalainen rarely made these strategic mistakes.

 

[Il_leone]

I've said it many times Senna knew when to go out on his terms and some of the quali mistakes that have been creeping into Mclaren would not have happened if he was at the wheel because he was so adamant that he was right and when to go out . Schumacher shares this philosophy as well in his Ferrari days

I am sure if Mclaren had Ross BRawn as their strategy man last season he would have made some more decisive decision making in quali and race to help the drivers

That is not to say the drivers are not at fault because they are both world champions not rookies so surely they need to show their decisiveness

 

[racecub]

I agree with you to a certain extent.I dont think Ross would have allowed so many poor strategy calls. As Ive said before, i hope lewis becomes a little more ruthless and looks out for himself, he cant rely on mclaren to look out for him, he has to stick to his guns and take the take the flack, like Senna did. I think he'll find it hard, but if he does it he will be unbeatable.