Current Lewis Hamilton

A place to put all the posts from all the other threads primarily but love him or hate him, and even for the indifferent amongst us this is the place to discuss the marmite that is Lewis Hamilton, to learn a thing or two about his rise, talk about those controversial, genius or mad moments and something that i am bemused by, the recent articles that suggest something quite different to my perception of what's going on. Any experiences of meeting LH?

Brundle had to write a Lewis Hamilton article recently and in my tweets (which were probably ignored) I asked him to talk about LH the driver not LH the personality. It seems that you can't have one without the other.

So as a starter for ten, here is a fairly recent LH article. Posts should not be limited to this link but it can get some discussion going. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/13755883.stm

The only banned topic as it is clearly ridiculous involves these four things "Glock" "2008" "Brazil" "conspiracy"

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Video Link?

 

[racecub]

Not on youtube yet. How else can you get video links?

 

[Cookinflatsix]

he certainly is.

Yes its what's amazing, putting aside all the crap that usually comes with the best F1 racers, this best F1 guy is genuinely a good bloke. But most 'F1 fans' are not able to follow the evidence of their own senses and instead hate on him because of his fans or because he had it too easy, or because he is arrogant etc etc etc

same as Senna, he came across as a real top bloke off track

 

[F1ang-o]

Video Link?

I'm no good at technical....

 

[Cookinflatsix]

 

[ExtremeNinja]

My friend was in the audience. They missed the bit where Lewis said that Wossy was shit on Top Gear.

 

[Slyboogy]

Thank god the subject has finally changed....being away for a while and with 70 alerts.

Come on this thread, and read over 100 new messages, and half of them were...well I will let the smiley here express what I mean.

 

[Quintessentially]

Hamilton is well grounded and very eloquent and that last comment about Nicole was very nice.

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Thanks for the J R link!

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Thanks for the J R link!

From pleasant weekend viewing to, unfortunately, this:

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/3839/how-hamilton-year-went-off-the-rails/

Tony Dodgins in an "Opinion" article in the 'premium' section of AUTOSPORT.

I don't subscribe to the service because I find some of the F1 coverage 'cheap' (Like Edd Straw giving Hamilton a 3 out of 10 for the Belgian GP meeting ( )), so I was wondering if anyone's read what he wrote.

Snipets include:

"Sorry about this, but I've read so much baloney on internet forums in the past week about Lewis Hamilton at Spa that it's worth looking at what actually happened and asking a few questions.

Worryingly there are Hamilton apologists, some of them quite experienced...unable to see what he did wrong in the incident ... with ... Kamui Kobayashi."

I wonder who are the "apologists" he's referring to?

 

[Galahad]

It's a thought-provoking piece, but it concentrates mainly on the Maldonado incident(s), and then goes on a flight of fancy regarding Lewis' mental state at the moment - effectively suggesting that Webber's re-signing at Red Bull has provoked a bout of frustration. All a bit tenuous for my liking, though I do like Dodgins (would prefer him in the magazine to several who are currently writing for it, including Straw).

Mark Hughes' race report placed the blame for the Kobayashi incident at Hamilton's door, too. Along the lines of, "why didn't he just leave room (bearing in mind the sort of driver Kamui is)?"

 

[Grizzly]

From pleasant weekend viewing to, unfortunately, this...

It's a thought-provoking piece, but it concentrates mainly on the Maldonado incident(s), and then goes on a flight of fancy regarding Lewis' mental state at the moment...

If i may just quote our friend...

I think part of the problem is the enhanced scrutiny that modern media affords us - we can now dissect every interview/soundbite/press release/facet of body language to our heart's content, and end up making 5 from 2+2 just because of the excess of information that is available to our febrile fingertips.

Sometimes we forget that F1 is made up of (shock! horror!) mere human beings, who are just as prone to whims and vagaries as the rest of us. Can you imagine what it must be like to spend a race weekend, where all you really want to do is go out in your sexy race car and drive it as fast as it'll go, but instead having to answer the same banal questions time after time? I know I'd throw in a few deliberately misleading or fatuous answers just to break up the monotony...

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

If i may just quote our friend...

Ya, but I think your English specialist press (and i'm not talking about tabloid rags) built up young Lewis to insanely huge levels. To, basically, Clark- and Senna-like levels...

...and now that he's proving human - likely because he's trying very hard to make up for the Red Bull's pace in Vettel's hands - he's being stripped by those same people who put him on a pedestal.

He shouldn't have been put on a pedestal in 07/08 and he shouldn't be stripped down now.

It's a thought-provoking piece, but it concentrates mainly on the Maldonado incident(s)

What does Dodgins say?

 

[Grizzly]

Don't disagree at all Ray. Stupid bloody media is the point of the day!

 

[Quintessentially]

From pleasant weekend viewing to, unfortunately, this:

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/3839/how-hamilton-year-went-off-the-rails/

Tony Dodgins in an "Opinion" article in the 'premium' section of AUTOSPORT.

I don't subscribe to the service because I find some of the F1 coverage 'cheap' (Like Edd Straw giving Hamilton a 3 out of 10 for the Belgian GP meeting ( )), so I was wondering if anyone's read what he wrote.

Snipets include:

"Sorry about this, but I've read so much baloney on internet forums in the past week about Lewis Hamilton at Spa that it's worth looking at what actually happened and asking a few questions.

Worryingly there are Hamilton apologists, some of them quite experienced...unable to see what he did wrong in the incident ... with ... Kamui Kobayashi."

I wonder who are the "apologists" he's referring to?

I've seen the 3/10 thing and i think it was borne out of frustration if anything and also the belief that potentially Hamilton could've won the race. I think two things that are often ignored when reviewing the incident are that Kobayashi was nursing a lot of understeer from front wing damage and he didn't even make the corner after contact with Hamilton (just goes to show just how much speed he was carrying into the corner). Apologists may be referring to DC and MB.

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

I've seen the 3/10 thing and i think it was borne out of frustration if anything and also the belief that potentially Hamilton could've won the race.

Well, that's Edd Straw's problem. All Straw does, then, is weaken his credibilty and make his future opinion/rating meaningless to irrelevant to laughable.

Hamilton was out-qualified only by Vettel and was doing fine until that unfortunate tangle...and to give him a 3 is pretty stupid, especially as it wasn't entirely Hamilton's fault.

Straw comes across as being a blind dim-wit...and it has nothing to do with him feeling that Vettel could have been toppled for the victory by Hamilton that day. That RB7/Vettel were totally hooked up whilst the MP-26 had disadvantageous downforce and front camber settings to beat Vettel's RBR.

If he's on this website and reading this (obviously Tony Dodgins is likely reading this) my advice would be to be more professional and stop being a child. It does you and your credibility and your publication no credit to give a laughable 3.

 

[Hamberg]

3/10? Please tell me that is a joke?

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

3/10? Please tell me that is a joke?

Here's a sampling:

Vettel 10

Button 9
Schumacher 9

Rosberg 8
Senna 8

Alonso 7
Webber 7
Maldonado 7

Petrov 6

Kobayashi 5

Massa 4 (Out-qualified Alonso; puncture in the race)

Hamilton 3 (the lowest score)

So, Senna gets a high mark for qually and taking care of Alguersauri's race...A higher mark than Petrov...But Hamilton gets the lowest mark of all 24 guys inspite of making a mockery of Button in qualifying.

If qually counts (like Straw makes it count for Senna), then why does he not give Hamilton and Massa credit for their qually performances?

Where's the consistency?

There isn't any...Straw comes across as a bit of a inconsistent dim wit.

[You gotta love what Straw gives Maldonado, eh? ]

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Incidentally, I would have given Maldonado a zero for Qually (heck i'd make it a minus if it were possible) and about an 8 for the race and make the weighting 34% Qually, 66% Race for a number of:

0 * 34% + 8 * 66% =

5 (rounded to nearest whole number)

 

[Quintessentially]

I was more bemused by the report that the stewards considered penalising Hamilton and the only reason they didn't was because of the DNF. This must be a bad joke. The numpties did not even bother to investigate the incident.