Why Hamilton is so good in the rain

Brogan

Legend
Staff Member
There's an interesting article here by Mark Hughes explaining why Hamilton is so good in the rain.

I haven't had a chance to read the full article yet but he certainly makes some bold claims about Hamilton's driving style.
 
Thanks for the link, interesting read. I think the rear wing aspect was particularly important on Sunday due to the constantly shifting conditions.
 
Attacking drivers have always gone well in the rain. He seems to have exceptional feel for what the car is going to do, he holds some pretty big slides (by modern standards) and seems to take them in his stride.

I didn't think modern cars and tyres would still allow this sort of style to be successful. Although admittedly he has had his problems with tyre wear. But diversity is always a good thing, and a driver who is visually exciting - even when he's alone on track - is a rare thing.
 
Fascinating stuff. MB was commenting at Silverstone about how it seemed like Massa's car was set up with too much of an on-off throttle, which would explain why he stood no chance of driving like Lewis. Where Lewis could ease the throttle to get the power down and control the slide, Massa's car just kept bolting out from under him.
 
While Massa's performance was not great Raikkonen had the same problem a couple of times, it could be that the Ferrari engine/throttle/chassis just isn't great in the wet.

If anyone knows someone at McLaren then see if they can "leak" his diff setup, he does drive an F1 car similar to a kart and the only way you can do that is to almost lock the diff... it also would explain his tyre wear!

(I'm new)
 
LH certainly has a unique style compared to most (all?) other drivers.

Perhaps the sliding he's renowned for helps to get more heat, more quickly into his tyres on a wet track which will obviously help with traction and grip.
As we've seen though, that can be a disadvantge in the dry as he seems to be very hard on them.

Welcome to the site
 
It should be interesting to see how the Ferraris and McLarens fare this coming weekend.

We've seen that Lewis Hamilton can do very well in the wet, the Ferraris less so.
The Hungaroring however is not known for being a wet circuit.

Have McLaren really managed to eke out a lead over Ferrari in terms of performance or was it the wet track conditions that were hampering Ferrari in Germany?
We shall soon see.
 
I personally think that McLaren have taken a step forward with the car compared to Ferrari. Whether they will stay ahead or not is debatable, but I am hoping they do for at least a couple more GPs, just to mke things more interesting. Even HK seems to have picked up his pace, which is why I think they have moved forward compared to Ferrari.
 
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