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"

 

[F1ang-o]

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1...n-mercedes-w04-and-2008-title-winning-mclaren
Lewis is happy with his car...........

 

[Lewywo4]

ZakspeedYakspeed......Roscoe definitely has that look, if Lewis doesn't stay on point, he most assuredly will bite him on his ass.

 

[teabagyokel]

This weekend's race was what I would call a typical Hamilton win. It had certain things that stand out as his modus operandi:

• Qualifying on pole
• Getting a good start from pole, leading off
• As a team not getting the calculation quite right on strategy and coming out behind someone
• Clean, assertive overtaking when others are struggling
• No second chance for the rest

One of the things often quoted in the Top Ten threads is that Hamilton wins tend to get higher scores, and we all know one of the reasons for that. However, I also think another reason for that is that Hamilton's wins (excepting China 2008) tend to have a moment of excellence; normally a great overtake or three, but not always (GB 2008). The really great races of the last few years (with a couple of exceptions, of course) tend to have been won by Hamilton.

In a certain respect, this is where his reputation has been bolstered where Vettel's has been damaged. Often, the finish to a Vettel race is met with: "Oh yeah, saw him hit the lead on lap 1 - apparently he's still out there...", and thus the immense skill that dominating to such extent is missed because there's not always that wow factor. Hamilton more often provides the wow moment than all of the other current race winners (with the possible exception of Button); this is a good thing for his PR, one feels!

EDIT: Please don't construe this as a criticism of Hamilton. Or Vettel. Or Button. Or anyone else by omission. It's not intended to criticise anybody.

 

[Lewywo4]

ZakspeedYakspeed......Roscoe definitely has that look, if Lewis doesn't stay on point, he most assuredly will bite him on his ass.

 

[Quintessentially]

I think it's a bit too early to start comparing the WO4 to the 2008 McLaren. The 08 McLaren was an engineering masterpiece.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

I wouldn't go that far. It was as good as it's competition and often better but I wouldn't call it a masterpiece anymore than many of the cars we have seen from many teams since.

 

[RasputinLives]

Yeah come on guys. Brilliant performance by Lewis but they've only just figured out how to stop the car eating tyres and we thought they'd fixed it in Monaco to find they hadn't.

Enjoy a top performance but lets not get too carried away.

Having said that I am looking forward to Lewis vs Kimi at Spa.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Yep. One race does not a championship make. Monaco was an anomaly. Nico drove at 80% with his elbows out. there were no conclusions to be drawn there. What we saw this weekend was something different and an encouraging sign but for it to be declared as a theme it would need to be demonstrated with continuity.

For Mercedes and Lewis fans, what there is now is a reason for hope. There is not yet reason for expectation.

 

[Quintessentially]

I would call the 2008 McLaren an engineering masterpiece but that's my opinion. I think the fact McLaren were under heavy scrutiny from FIA at the time and the obvious disappointment from the previous year gave them extra impetus to deliver something was aerodynamically original and inherently quick across all tracks and under most conditions. No offence to Heikki but the car was so good he even managed to win a race. I'm sure once the novelty of his first win wears off, Lewis will realise the W04 is some way behind the MP4-23.

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

Not to bore anyone to death with stat's talk ... LH had the 4th fastest median lap time of all drivers ... behind Grosjean, Kimi and Vettel ...

Since 2007 ... up to and including this race there have been 120 GP's ... only 7 races have been won by a driver with the 4th fastest median race lap time ...

LH was not the fastest ... but he was the best ... teabagyokel ... I agree with your comments ... and interestingly enough, both LH and JB pop in the fastest median lap time winner outliers ...

 

[RasputinLives]

Brilliant Stats ZakspeedYakspeed.

Interestingly if you take out Buttons Monaco 09 and Kovi's win (Still feel sorty for Massa stopping on the last lap there) The races in question are pretty classic performances from the drivers in question.

 

[cider_and_toast]

I beg to differ RasputinLives on Alonso's 2008 Singapore win.

That should have been Rosbergs first victory but we won't open that old wound again.

Suffice to say, I don't think we should consider Alonso, 2008 Singapore as a classic performance by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

Clearly the "odd one out" is the Crash-gate result in Singapore ... the others pretty much stand on merit ... I need to look at the data for China 2012 ... I thought Nico was untouchable during that race ...

A little snippet ... exclude Singapore and all of these are on Mercedes power ...

 

[Slyboogy]

Singapore 2008....haha...what a joke of a race.

 

[RasputinLives]

Yeah I guess it was a bad un really although Alonso did drive his nuts off that day it has to be said. Japan the week after was a classic.

 

[downforce]

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/07/29/2013-hungarian-grand-prix-stats-and-facts/#comments

It was exactly 10 months to the day since announcing he would move to Mercedes that Hamilton claimed his first win. He did this in his 10th race for Mercedes which incidentally came during the 10th race of season while driving car number 10 in which he won by 10.938 seconds.

Lewis Hamilton has closed to within one point of becoming the highest scoring active Briton in F1:

Jenson Button – 1038 points
Lewis Hamilton – 1037 points

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

 

[RasputinLives]

That end stat is the kind of thing that starts wars on message boards!

 

[Hamberg]

Is that taking into account the change in the points system?

 

[Lewywo4]

Having said that I am looking forward to Lewis vs Kimi at Spa.

I surely would enjoy a repeat of this action between Lewis and Kimi again, but without Kimi crashing towards the end.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xg2dl7_f1-belgium-2008-lewis-hamilton-kimi-raikkonen-scrap_auto