Current Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton MBE

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"
 
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I was unaware that it was an either/or.

Anyway, there's no question. He's going to have won more races than Senna within the year. He's won the title in an inferior car (in 2008). He's won races in both exciting and dominant styles, in both wet and dry. He's defeated a competitive team-mate in a title battle. His worst season saw him win three races, and he's won one in all his seasons. He's kept McLaren in title races they weren't quick enough to be in. He's lapped a World Champion team-mate on merit. He's never sought or received number 1 status.

If that's not a great, I don't think I can countenance including anyone in that category.
 
IMO the entire ideal of "all-time great" has become virtually meaningless when comparing today's drivers to those of yore, and the numbers of wins, poles, points etc is equally meaningless because:
1. Vastly more races than in bygone eras

2. Virtually bulletproof reliability of today's cars vs. those of previous epochs (this makes it possible to com;letely maximaze any advantage bestowed by having the best car). This also means that driver mortality is greatly reduced (thank God) and careers are therefore much longer than they used to be.

3. What I feel are the demonstrably the weakest fields ever, and increasingly becoming ever more so do to the preponderance of pay drivers vs those who have, at least for the most part, gotten there on merit alone.

4. The fact that, with the ever longer seasons in all series, there are ever fewer drivers crossing over from other series to F1, so F1 can no longer credibly claim to being "the world's greatest drivers" as it once could.

5. All of the "driver aids" and adjustments (as evidenced by the number of buttons and knobs on the steering wheels) plus constant stream of communication/instructions from the pit mean that the car is an ever-greater determinant of the championship, rather than the skill of the driver.

As to Hamilton specifically, while he is undoubtedly extremely talented, there are also these caveats on his record:

1. Couldn't outscore Alonso despite undoubtedly being given preference after the latter's reputed attempt to blackmail RD

2. Button outscoring him overall for the three seasons they were teammates. Or does make Button an all-time great as well?

3. Only decisively dominating Kovalainen of all his teammates. He hasn't exactly embarrassed Rosberg the last two years. Does mean Rosberg is a great as well?

4. His statistics are flattered by having possibly the most dominant car in F1 since the 1930's Mercs.The unbelievable number of 1-2 finishes over the last two seasons bears undeniable witness to the absolute greatness and superiority of the car. This makes it extremely difficult to put Hamilton's achievements into any historical perspective.

All of these things (which are also true in virtually all other racing series as well) combine to make it impossible, IMO, to make any "all-time" claims for any driver in any series. One should be content with stating that driver x is one of the greatest or best of his era in a specific series and leave it at that.
 
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siffert_fan said:
1. Couldn't outscore Alonso
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Silly me, I always thought it was the WDC position in each season which counted, rather than overall "score".
How dare that rookie not comprehensively beat a double world champion!

siffert_fan said:
2. Button outscoring him overall for the three seasons they were teammates.
Click to expand
Silly me, I always thought it was the WDC position in each season which counted, rather than overall "score"
 
Hamberg said:
I guess Schumacher is shit as well then.
Click to expand

A lot of people will try and argue that as well. People do not like a winner. People used to say it about Senna until he died too. They'll continue to say it about Hamilton and Vettel now. Although they say it less about Vettel now days because he's not winning.

Its a oddity in people that if someone dominates something the instinct is to a) dislike them and b) discredit them. Especially in F1. I can't think of an F1 champion recently people haven't said it about (at the time).

On internet forums in the 50's I'm sure that there were hundreds of posts on how Fangio was not really that good. It was all the car you know ;)
 
siffert_fan -
  1. He equalled Alonso - in his rookie year. There is, of course, no evidence he was favoured, and if McLaren favour a driver by leaving him out on shot inters, then I'd probably want to be the number 2.
  2. Hamilton had a bad season in 2011. Even so, had Hulkenburg not ran into him, then that stat is void. We're not actually discussing if Button is a great, but Hamilton won more dry races in a non-dominant car by the end of his second season than Button has still.
  3. Did better than Schumacher by a long way against Rosberg. This argument seems to suggest that beating competitive team-mates makes one's achievements lesser; it's more difficult to beat the All Blacks by 1 point than Norway by 100.
  4. He was clearly a great by 2013. I fail to see how winning since had proved he doesn't belong in the category of greats.
If you don't consider Hamilton as one of the all-time greats, you cannot consider that there is such a thing. Applying that level of scrutiny, I could rule out all historic drivers.
 
Lewis Hamilton is probably the best driver on the grid today. My problem is that none of the drivers are very exciting to watch which might be the cars, the tyres or just that modern drivers don't want to throw the car around in the way drivers used to. This in no way detracts from Lewis' ability in modern F1, he's without peer at present.
 
I believe that greatness in F1 isn't just based only on the accumulation of numbers in any particular category, which is important, but on overall performance that a driver might achieve under various, and challenging conditions. Sir Stirling Moss has never won a WDC, but imo he is in the top 4 on my list of great F1 drivers, along with Fangio, Clark and Senna. Lewis as you well know is my favorite driver today....hell I'll give him a 10 for every race that he wins, no matter if the damn race is as dull as watching paint dry. Lewis without a doubt is on the top of his game, and is one of the leading drivers in the sport today. I'm willing to wait, and let time determine at what level of greatness that Hamilton will achieve.
 
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A great dominating win for Lewis today at Spa, hopefully more of the same to follow this season. Congratulations are in order already for Hamilton in winning the FIA Pole Trophy...:1st:.
 
My feelings last season were that Lewis would go out on Friday and Saturday and set blistering lap times, then Nico would study Lewis's data and beat him in quali. I know from my own experience that the ability to interpret data and improve your driving is a separate skill that some drivers have and others don't. This year I think Lewis sandbags on Friday so that Nico has nothing to look at then Lewis goes out and gets Pole.
 
I wouldn't use the word "sandbagging" but I think it's something that comes with experience. The best and most experienced drivers will not go all-out during practice or testing sessions because they know that pushing like hell before it matters can be detrimental to how they "feel" the car and will for one thing mask whatever car deficiencies there may be.

The idea is to keep perfecting their set-up until quali and the race and by then they know exactly what they have under them and only then will they feel they know exactly how far they can push the car and they produce the lap-times when it actually matters.
 

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