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"

 

[Cookinflatsix]

My point is that over the next 10 years we cant expect Seb and lewis to remain in the same teams and for their cars to always have the same differential.
The top two drivers will have first choice on the best cars over that period whether its a Merc, or Sauber or Williams.

 

[RasputinLives]

I'm not to sure on that one. People expected Alonso and Hamilton to be the top 2 for the next 10 years didn't they? You don't know who's round the corner.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Well, we do know for sure that there will be a top two, and a top three etc

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

...no one really foresaw the rise of Vettel and Red Bull...

I hate to say this but Motor Sport Magazine and others wrote that Vettel was a threat to the Hamilton-Alonso axis as early as 2008.

All Vettel needed was a car and with Adrian Newey penning his cars he was going to be formidable...and since Monza 2008, no one's won more than Vettel. The precdictions came true, thanks to Newey and Mateschitz.

Kubica was also being written about...but he had his accident.

Look at Alonso! Alonso's won nothing of note since Hamilton and Vettel arrived on the scene.

[McLaren was a Lion's Den. It had always been: Prost-Lauda, Prost-Rosberg, Senna-Prost, Hakkinen-Coulthard, Raikkonen-Montoya. And, in 2007, two new Lions went in with only room for one...And Hamilton basically told Alonso "This is my den. Get out!"...and so out went Alonso with his tail between his legs. ]

And, i'm sure if Kubica was healthy and in a similar car, he too would have been a genuine threat.

Lewis got an opportunity of being in a winning car straight away and neither he nor his newly minted fans who came to GP racing in 2007 knew what it was like for him to drive a shit car in his first season... like Alonso did, like Vettel did, like Senna and Prost did.

Lewis avoided all the hardship that comes in your first season in the mid field or worse...and, so, an expectation was built.

If you're a top flight Ace, all you can hope for is 1 WDC every 3 or 4 years on average.

If Lewis's career spans 13 or 14 years, he will have done well to have won 3 WDCs...perhaps 4.

He's on target. He has the talent. All he needs is a winning car. Same for Alonso. Same for Vettel.

PS/EDIT:

He simply cannot allow Button to out-score him.

Lewis has to go to the remaining races and beat Button ...and I don't mean thrashing him in qually...I mean out-score him comprehensively. Lewis needs to finish every race - bar mechanical - and come out with a bigger haul of points than Button. That, along with winning races that are win-able, should be his aim now.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

I don't believe that will be much of a problem now that he concedes the WC is beyond reach

I fully expect to see Lewis take each race as it comes and show the ability that has seen him win every series and best every teammate he has ever had

Even if each race was in changeable conditions for the rest of the year

This is a great chance for Jenson to raise his status, level on points, a few races left, no excuses

 

[RasputinLives]

I hate to say this but Motor Sport Magazine and others wrote that Vettel was a threat to the Hamilton-Alonso axis as early as 2008.

You didn't read my post properly Ray. As you'll see if you read the rest of it I'm mainly talking about the rise of the Red Bull. Yes I'm sure every grand prix rag in the world as of 2008 predicted Vettel would be up their taking championships and winning races(pretty easy to predict) but I'm sure if you look back at your Motor Sport Magazine editions you save under your bed you'll see that none of them talked about him doing it in a Red Bull as despite Adrian Newy being on board no one predicted that Red Bull would be such a dominant F1 team so soon. All the predictions about Vettel were made for when he found a seat in another top team.

My point was that no one expected it so soon but when the 2009 regs came along it shuck the teams up and suddenly Vettel find himself in a position to beat Ferrari's and Mclaren's much earlier than he expected. My point is that predicting any couple of drivers dominating for the next decade is a risky business as you never know who's going to luck in with getting better machinary all of a sudden. As I said I don't think the 2014 regs will shake things up as much as 2009 but I could see Merc suddenly producing a WC winning car in the next few years which could suddenly see a driver like Di Resta or Hulkenberg the equiptment and the oppotunity to put themselves at the front of the pack.

This is why its a dangerous game trying to predict how many world titles Lewis will get in the future. I hope its at the very least one more.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

My point is that predicting any couple of drivers dominating for the next decade is a risky business as you never know who's going to luck in with getting better machinary all of a sudden.

Top drivers hardly stay in the same teams for a decade, they end up at top seats

Williams would sack a WC if they felt that it was all their car, they would then replace him with the top driver that excited sponsors

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Top drivers hardly stay in the same teams for a decade, they end up at top seats

Yes...Fangio, Lauda, Piquet, Prost, Senna, Mansell, Schumacher and even Alonso are such examples. Each of them drove for 2 or 3 or even 4 top teams.

Hakkinen and Clark (RIP) and even Stewart (kinda) were the exceptions.

 

[racecub]

McLaren was a Lion's Den. It had always been: Prost-Lauda, Prost-Rosberg, Senna-Prost, Hakkinen-Coulthard, Raikkonen-Montoya. And, in 2007, two new Lions went in with only room for one...And Hamilton basically told Alonso "This is my den. Get out!"...and so out went Alonso with his tail between his legs. ]

And lots of stuffed toys, rattles, baby soothers and mayhem left in his wake. Sorry. Very sorry.Couldnt resist. i will work on my willpower

 

[Sarinaide]

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Sari, to be honest, I think Hamilton would have a tough time in the Ferrari den with Alonso there.

Alonso's a very political animal and knows how to work the Italian managers (like Briatore before, Domenicalli and di Montezemolo now) behind the scenes, especially with Santander bringing in Spanish money.

Hamilton would be foolish to go to Ferrari with Alonso there. Even if Lewis was fluent in Italian, it would be a tall order.

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

And lots of...mayhem left in his wake. Sorry...

I doubt the $100 Million "mayhem" that he left McLaren with was a very amusing matter to the people at McLaren.

There are cynics out there who say McLaren secretly wanted Vettel to beat Hamilton to the win in Abu Dhabi for the simple reason that they didn't want Alonso winning the WDC. Many of them still hate him there.

 

[racecub]

I doubt the $100 Million "mayhem" that he left McLaren with was a very amusing matter to the people at McLaren.

There are cynics out there who say McLaren secretly wanted Vettel to beat Hamilton to the win in Abu Dhabi for the simple reason that they didn't want Alonso winning the WDC. Many of them still hate him there.

Im sure they do!

 

[Cookinflatsix]

I think Ron, Whitmarsh and the team paid up, wrote it off and carried on in a dignified manner.

And Lewis delivered the WC the next year

Imagine it had been Ferrari that got stitched for 100Mill, I suspect Alonso would have woken up at some point in 2008 with a horses head in his bed

 

[Sarinaide]

Sari, to be honest, I think Hamilton would have a tough time in the Ferrari den with Alonso there.

Alonso's a very political animal and knows how to work the Italian managers (like Briatore before, Domenicalli and di Montezemolo now) behind the scenes, especially with Santander bringing in Spanish money.

Hamilton would be foolish to go to Ferrari with Alonso there. Even if Lewis was fluent in Italian, it would be a tall order.

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Does anyone here know if Lewis speaks Italian?

And when I mean speaks, I mean more than Raikkonen's vocabulary of one word. "Ciao"!

 

[Brogan]

Can we stop with the puerile captioned images?

They add nothing to the thread and those are not the sort of posts we want here.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Italian? Lewis doesn't even speak English, he speaks American

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Italian? Lewis doesn't even speak English, he speaks American

Well, ok, so Hamilton speaks "American". That's very nice...But does he know any Italian?

Didn't he spend lots of time in Italy during his karting days?

Raikkonen actually didn't want to be bothered speaking Italian and that didn't help him as it sent out the wrong signal about how much he cared after winning his title.

Alonso speaks all the Latin languages and it's an obvious advantage at Ferrari.

Mansell was the King before Prost arrived at Ferrari...and Prost was very fluent in Italian. I don't know if Mansell spoke a lot of the language but Prost was a very political animal too and he did a good job of stitching up Nigel both on and off the race tracks.

It's not an insignificant advantage. Language.

 

[Sarinaide]

I am lost, whats the relevance of this, may I ask?

The last few pages have kinda drifted into obscurity, one second we are talking about stewarding, next about "the next wunderkind" and now onto who speaks fluent Italian.