Formula One ( F1 )

He beached it in China.

Close enough.

Because his rear tyres were down to the canvas and he had no grip. He should have been pitted several laps earlier

Meh. If he was that talented he could have brought it home on the rims.

Oh so much this. Lewis Hamilton has the charisma of a Stevenage estate agent, which is funny because that's what he would probably be if it weren't for Ron

Nope the move to Mercedes was pretty petulant and childish, as I said before Ron Dennis and McLaren gave him a pretty nice life that he could not have done by himself. I may actually have respected the man child if he had stuck it out and helped the team rather than throwing various strops and telling the world about his future music career like the cunt he is.

Now you know your shit, but this is absolute fantasy.

He'd be more likely to be an estate agent if he stayed with McLaren. No, he wanted to win (and the cash) and made a shrewd move. Maybe Schumacher should have stayed with Jordan or senna with tyrrell or vettel with toro Rosso.

I don't see Jenson's ability to "develop a car".

Honda were nothing until Ross Brawn arrived and now McLaren are nowhere.

Hamilton's driving style is significantly harder on the car than that of Button, which gives the engineers something to look at and work from when the race/test is completed.

Hamilton has changed his driving style in recent years to suit the faster degrading tyres. I know he was in clean air this weekend, but look how long he stretched out his first stint.

I also don't understand how running longer on a set of tyres helps with aero set-up/ balance improvements.

Maybe because the aero set-up/balance improves as the tyres degrade?

We do know that there's an optimum period for the tyres to perform well in. Maybe Hamilton went through this period quicker whilst driving harder than Button?

Gridds will know better than any of us.

I don't buy all of the stuff about him being a god settting a up a car. if he was so good at it, why has every single car, except the brawn, sucked?

Extreme bad luck on the day?

Every race? His post race interview is always about how much the car sucked.

He's not Aryton Senna, able to drive beyond the car and so forth.

But he can get more out of the car than others- look at what McLaren said about his team mate from last year in comparison, they said that Perez would never be as fast as Jensen in the same car and that was a large part of why they were binning him.

I also suspect that the car needs to suit him- but that's true of Vettel, who much as I think is a twat, can really drive.

Jensen had the car, the team, and enough ability to win when it counted- and did so.

You may not like the political aspect of being a driver, but you could be the fastest person to ever sit in a car- doesn't matter if you spend your entire career in a Mindardi because you can't get a drive with Williams, as it were.

I also don't understand how running longer on a set of tyres helps with aero set-up/ balance improvements.

Maybe because the aero set-up/balance improves as the tyres degrade?

We do know that there's an optimum period for the tyres to perform well in. Maybe Hamilton went through this period quicker whilst driving harder than Button?

Gridds will know better than any of us.

It's basically about understanding performance changes as the tyres wear. As well as grip levels the aerodynamics also change. As the tyre wears it will reduce in diameter slighlty which will change things like ride height and the gaps to the bodywork and floor at the rear etc. There's also the influence of any lips that are formed on tyres as the rubber rolls off the sides of the tyre. This will affect the vortices coming off the tyres. So these seemingly small things have a significant influence on the aerodynamics and hence balance (rear/forward downforce levels).

Understanding these influences are why they would maybe want to run on tyres in these conditions as it's something you can't test in the tunnel but would be benficial to know in the event that you would need to run on worn tyres from a strategy perspective. Or how to minimise any adverse effects.

Added to that it's about how to work the tyres properly, i.e. getting them to and keeping them in their optimum temperature performance window and how to maintain that as the tyres wear. As well as mechanical set up, aerodynamics plays a significant role in how the tyres are worked.

Told you all he'd know!

If Mercedes can withstand the serious challenge from Honda next year, Hamilton may move up in people's considerations.

Again, I agree.

has a sit down

Back to power plants though. It must be concerning to the non-Red Bull teams, that their own Renault engines look anemic in comparison to Red Bull's. Are Renault putting all their efforts into Red Bull, and allowing the others to catch up... if and when?

Also, Ferrari came close to the same exhaust-turbo solution that Mercedes did, but bottled going as far, possibly due to the risk from vibrations along an extended shaft? That must hurt the Ferrari engineers, to know they were so close, and the same idea was better executed by their competitor.

I think Renault users may look at Honda as a solution, if Renault can't match the Merc unit. It's all speculation, but one engine is so far ahead of others, we can't properly assess the chassis of Ferrari, for example.

Lastly, why is Force India punching above their weight?

Although Renault will never admit it, Red Bull do get preferential treatment, being their 'works' team and all that. So they get the latest engines and parts before the other teams. They also get the best Renault engineers working with them.
What Red Bull also did was to employ their own code writer(s) for the mapping because the Renault code was so terrible. One example I heard about was the values in one of the parameter look-up tables in the Renault code was an order of magnitude out!

Force India are doing do well because they've designed and built a good chassis, thanks to their engineers, and their drivers are good. Simple really.

Thanks.

It's fascinating having a chap on the inside.

In this discussion, I've still not seen any evidence of Jenon's legendary ability to develop cars.

Even if it is the case, he's still only pushing McLaren from 6th to 7th (for example).

F1 teams want to win races, not take decent results mid table. Lewis' raw pace gave McLaren that. It's the reason he has won a race in all of his seasons to date - even with some of the utter dogs that McLaren have churned out. Jenson just doesn't have that talent.

Given the choice between two drivers, I'd take the faster one any time.

And the chat about Jenson being a great guy - I don't think he is that likeable at all. Every time he hops out of the car it's just another stock excuse about understeer or lack of balance.

The best racing drivers are born to race. They are competitive and they are cunts. What they do off track doest really bother me, as long as they are good to watch behind the wheel of a single seater.

But if they lack the political savvy to get into a winning car, then you've got the Jimmy White situation.

^^ Competitive, yes. Cunts, not necessarily. As for Hamilton, he's a great driver on his day, but those earrings...

But if they lack the political savvy to get into a winning car, then you've got the Jimmy White situation.

That's what he's done... With Mercedes.

You're mistaking me for someone dissing Hamilton, I like him and think he's a great driver.

I simply don't think that Jensen tripped, fell, and when he got up again he'd somehow picked up the World Championship trophy- I think he worked for it.