To win a world championship you invariably have to win races, something Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa have each achieved five times thus far this season. You also have to be error free, or very close to it. A driver can make no more than one mistake in winning the title, or so the old saying goes.

This year it’s different. Both men have made several blunders, and when the dust settles in Brazil next Sunday it is these moments that will leave the runner-up wondering just which was the one that cost him the crown. We take a look back at Lewis’s lapses and Felipe’s faux pas…

Australia:
Massa’s 2008 campaign gets off to the worst possible start when he spins on the opening lap at Albert Park. He then collides with David Coulthard during a failed passing attempt on the Scot’s Red Bull before retiring with engine failure.

Malaysia:
Things go from bad to worse for Massa in Sepang when, having started from pole, he again spins himself out of contention barely halfway through the race.

Bahrain:
Hamilton blows it when he selects the wrong start procedure on the grid and activates his car’s anti-stall mechanism at the wrong moment. Running into the back of Fernando Alonso on lap two compounds the error and he finishes 13th.

Monaco:
A lucky escape for Hamilton, who picks up a puncture after swiping the barriers on lap six. The team switch him to a one-stop strategy as a result, which ironically helps him to win the race.

Canada:
Hamilton goes from hero to zero when his race ends in near-comedic scenes in the Montreal pit lane. Failing to see the red light, he runs into the rear of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari, putting both men out of the race and earning him a 10-place grid penalty for the following French round.

France:
Eager to compensate for his grid penalty, Hamilton straight-lines the chicane as he completes an early pass on Sebastian Vettel. The stewards deem the move illegal, handing him a drive-through penalty, and he comes home 10th.

Great Britain:
Both Massa and his tyres fail to get to grips with the tricky conditions at a rain-hit Silverstone. He trails home 13th and last after surviving five spins.

Belgium:
Twenty-five seconds are added to Hamilton’s race time after he goes straight across the chicane just prior to passing race leader Raikkonen. He briefly surrenders the place, but not to the stewards’ satisfaction and he drops from first to third as a result, with Massa inheriting the win.

Italy:
Hamilton gambles on standard wet tyres at the start of Q2, but when the rain worsens he is left stranded, just 15th on the grid. The race sees him recover to seventh.

Japan:
Polesitter Hamilton out-brakes himself into Turn One, running Raikkonen off the road. A drive-through penalty is the consequence. Massa is handed an identical punishment for tipping Hamilton into a spin at the chicane while trying to pass his rival.

A quick count-up reveals it is Massa who has made the fewer unforced errors, yet Hamilton still leads the standings. Part of the answer lies with the Ferrari team and their F2008. Its engine let Massa down not only in Australia, but also in Hungary - Hamilton has suffered no mechanical failures. And then there was Ferrari’s botched Singapore pit stop, which, through no fault of his own, saw Massa exit the box with fuel hose still attached. Race ruined, he finished 13th.

Will another critical error affect next weekend’s Interlagos race? Massa will have to hope so - and that it’s Hamilton who comes unstuck. Reliability issues aside, it’s probably the Brazilian’s best chance of becoming champion…



source: formula1.com

Heh. Alonso made two in 2005, and that was one of the most clean and impressively-controlled title campaigns that has ever been fought. So I call bollocks on your old saying. To win the WDC you just have to score more points than everyone else. How you accomplish that is up to you.

The '99 season was full of mistakes from Hakkinen and Irvine.
Does that make Hakkinen an unworthy champion?

I thought Hakkinen made two mistakes. He also had several reliability issues.

Who's talking about unworthiness? This is just a summary of the mistakes both Hamilton and Massa have made so far, that could cost one of them the championship

Australia:
Massa’s 2008 campaign gets off to the worst possible start when he spins on the opening lap at Albert Park. He then collides with David Coulthard during a failed passing attempt on the Scot’s Red Bull before retiring with engine failure.

Malaysia:
Things go from bad to worse for Massa in Sepang when, having started from pole, he again spins himself out of contention barely halfway through the race.

Great Britain:
Both Massa and his tyres fail to get to grips with the tricky conditions at a rain-hit Silverstone. He trails home 13th and last after surviving five spins .

You could also quote the "Hamilton driving into someone's rear" or "Hamilton cutting the chicane" if you're looking for repeats ;)

So what about Spa - doesn't that count as a mistake?

We could argue whether it was a mistake by Lewis or the stewards - I'd argue it was the stewards but it's bit immaterial now...

Belgium is listed

FM.. Massa had ONE mistake in Australia but so what, his engine died.. therefore it did not cost him anything..

Have yoiu just made that up?!!

Not so long ago they used to 'drop' their worst scores, rendering mistakes and retirements less important. That used to encourage more 'racing' for obvious reasons. Then Max took the sport in the direction of a consistency contest and now some people think that the lower the errors the better the driver.

Trouble is, the slower you drive, the less errors you are likely to make...

So, mistakes doesn't come into it as far as I'm concerned. To really caliberate drivers ability, you need to be comparing their 'highs'.

All in my opinion, of course.

You should count Belgium at least as similar to a mechanical problem for Hamilton(certainly not in the mistakes column).The penalty was simply BS.

So both Hamilton and Massa then have one mistake less than mentioned in the opening post.
For Massa fans: we will not count the Australia spin
For Hamilton fans: we will not count the Spa chicane cutting

;)

Load of old horse excrement.

Doug

sure , you can edit the first post..

People seem to insinuate that neither Hamilton nor Massa would be a worthy champion this year because of the mistakes they made.

Although I don't think either would make an unworthy champion because of their mistakes, if Massa'd take it, his championship would be heavily FIA-tainted for me personally.

So was France. And Fuji.

In France all four wheels of Hamilton's were off the designated racing circuit.

France was at least arguable. Fuji was solely because Massa had punted him.

I personally dont think mistakes have anything to do with winning/losing championships. Just look at kova, he has rarely made mistakes but is no where near contention, he's just painfully slow. As somebody else stated, if you dont make mistakes, you aren't pushing hard enough, if you aren't pushing hard enough, your not likely to win championships.

and if lewis takes it his championship will be heavily reliability tainted

Even though Kimi, Massa and Hamilton made lots of mistakes and Hamilton had some issues with some decisions ( not saying if they were fair or not! ), i think Ferrari will have to blame themselves. All drivers made mistakes, but Hamilton had a rock solid team behind him, at least reliability wise.

I agree, in any close championship reliability is the primary deciding factor..

Kerbs are circuit, so two. After he'd passed Vettel. Never seen conclusive evidence of it, then again I - like you - never got to see the closed circuit TV camera footage the FIA had to dig into to hand down the penalty.

something similer happened at surfers paradise on the first lap. officals had notified the teams and the order was corrected at the start of lap2, it was more clearcut than what happened in france, but still...

iirec charly whiting said the pass was ok in france...

Missing an off for Massa on this one. But otherwise a pretty decent summary of their "mistakes".

hammy spin at la source.


which was actually more of a 'mistake' than the chicane cutting incident.

You gotta admit his championship worthiness is not all that great after he stuffed the car twice from the lead.

And you probably made twisted this part to suit you needs. Please quote a source that says that the system used "not so long ago" was to encourage racing and not to filter out their mechanical failures.

Yeah, if it hadn't rained it would have cost him 2 points

A half spin is not "stuffing the car". What's the other one?

I beleive he would be referring to Imola and Monza.

Mika? Oh I see

Well then Schumacher's many championships where he has been helped by his teammate are?
I don't want to go into that discussion again, but every champion has had his bad races.

Massa had less driving errors which resulted in lost big points but his team failed too many times. It's Ferrari's lost WDC and Felipe's imho.

This year's title seems like a hot potato. Neither Massa nor Hamilton seem to be able to hold on to it.
The last guy to drop it loses.

i'll tell you what, i'm listening to the lewis/crofty interview on 5live atm and he sounds shit scared.......mclaren are suddenly cautious ahead of sunday....i think the mood's changed at the death star....

I thought it was funny that Barrichello brought up in the press conference how everyone wanted Massa fired after a couple of races this season.

It's available as a podcast now.

He does sound a bit tight. Hopefully he'll loosen up in FP when he's driving instead of doing hours and hours of interviews, saying the same things over and over again.

And I was surprised to hear DC say something possitive about Massa . Massa's impressive move in hungary earned him lots of respect from the other drivers.

Most impressive thing Ive seen him do wheel to wheel by some margin.

those 2 team failures at singapore and hungary were critical as massa also had hamilton beaten fair and square both races. 20 points lost. wdc over

The Massa FIA teamwork has been more impressive and reliable than the Ferrari teamwork and reliability!

massa lost 6-8 points at singapore, im dubious he could of passed the cars quickly enough to get past alonso to take the win...

kinda amusing to say that the dubious dicisions by the FIA that have benifited massa, are equal to ferrari's messups and failures, i surpose points wise they are, but...

What about all the unforced driving errors that you don't notice on TV? The ones that cost say three tenths in Q3 and lose 3 places on the grid? Or the similar ones every five laps or so in the race that mean the strategy doesn't work? You guys are so simplistic is hilarious.

If you dont notice them on tv then how do you know about them?

Well, you can read it from live-timing perfect driver should gradually go down with lap-times because with every lap you have less fuel onboard. But as there are no prefect drivers you just look at the times and compare every lap-time to the previous one: if it was faster driver did good lap, if it was slower he made some mistakes. It's called pace consistency and I believe it's the best factor to compare drivers' skills excluding performance of the car.

Live timing for one.

So coming up behind a backmarker who doesn't yield and who costs you a second or two before passing now classifies as a "mistake"?

Of course I meant stints in "clear air".