967 replies to this topic

[sennafan24]

Overall, yes, he was in 2014. But regardless? There were actual events that did go the other way on certain days, tracks, races, sessions, so surely not regardless of everything.

In straight fights, Nico only beat Lewis twice in 2014.

 

Brazil and Austria. As established, Nico's other wins over Lewis came when distortion was present 

 

Monaco - Yellow Flag in Qualifying, and dirt in Lewis's eye late in the race

 

Canada - Lewis had a break failure, influenced by his brake compound

 

Germany - Another brake failure meant Lewis started from the back

 

SPA - Lewis's race was ruined by a collision with Nico (which was Nico's fault)

 

 

Two mega car failures from Nico obviously helped too.

 

Look, I agree that Lewis is a better racing driver than Nico Rosberg. However, let's not pretend that he is LEVELS above him. Nico is an A grade driver and Lewis has shown he is a A+ driver.  It's not as though Nico is some D-list driver miles slower than the super great Lewis as the fanatics would have you believe.

I accounted that fortune evened out in the end.

 

I never said Nico was a "D-Level" driver". But they are not evenly matched. I think Lewis is better by a moderate margin.

[TomNokoe]

Overall, yes, he was in 2014. But regardless? There were actual events that did go the other way on certain days, tracks, races, sessions, so surely not regardless of everything.

as65p!

Well usually we determine who is a better driver over a number of seasons, grand prix, head to head battles, no?

I think 2 seasons is enough to conclude that as of right now, and everything that has preceded the wonderful Hamilton-mania of now, he is a better driver.

[robefc]

It was extremely close in that it went down to the last race. But when we break down the season, it is clear that in terms of performance, they were not "evenly matched". I like Nico, but there was a tendency on this board to defend him when it was not really justified. The "give him some credit" crew went a tad too far in the end. In qualifying, Nico was superb, but overall he was a good few notches below Lewis. 
 
Lewis scored 11 races wins to Nico's 5. In 2 car finishes, Lewis beat Nico to the flag 10-4. In straight fights, meaning races which occurred 100% organically, Lewis beat Nico 7-2 in accordance to my calculations (and I did not add China or Hungary to Lewis's total).  Lewis was simply the better driver a lot more weekends than Nico.
 
If we accept that luck evened out in the end, there was a 42 point differential between the 2 drivers (I have ignored double points, as it was stupid). 42 points is quite the difference, when you consider that in a dominant car, you can only pull out 7 points on your teammate most weekends. 
 
Nico had a selection of strong performances, and as I said was very strong in qualifying. However, unlike 2013 (where they were "evenly matched", if you watched the races and understood the context surrounding them, Lewis was the better driver by quite a margin.

One thing to point out is that in a dominant car, DNF's greatly favour the 'lesser driver'. If they both have the same number of DNFs then it's reasonable to say that they've had the same amount of bad luck but if one driver was going to win more than half of those races then they've lost out.

Impossible to apply that in any meaningful way obviously!

[as65p]

as65p!

Well usually we determine who is a better driver over a number of seasons, grand prix, head to head battles, no?

I think 2 seasons is enough to conclude that as of right now, and everything that has preceded the wonderful Hamilton-mania of now, he is a better driver.

I said as much. Just not "regardless".

 

In straight fights, Nico only beat Lewis twice in 2014.

 

....

Monaco - Yellow Flag in Qualifying, and dirt in Lewis's eye late in the race

....

Agree in general, but Monaco is a bit hilarious. It's only "not straight" if you subscribe to intent from Rosberg in Q3. Otherwise, yellow flags and issues like empty drink bottles, back pain, cramps, dirt in the eye... are part of the game. And it's quite a leap to assume Lewis could have overtaken Rosberg without "dirt in his eye". He didn't make a single attempt all race, quite the norm in Monaco between equal cars as you're surely aware of.

[P123]

Everybody is correct, sort of... it was close, in terms of the championship fight. Nico was a consistent performer, as was Lewis. However, although the championship fight was close and the individual race day fights were generally close too, Lewis came out on top 10-4, which on the face of it is a fairly dominant display against a driver that was close on pace and very much on form, especially in qualifying. There wasn't a race where Hamilton didn't look to have the pace to challenge; or at the very least make a race of it against Rosberg (Oz and Singapore discounted because one of them was out of it before any comparison could be made).

[sennafan24]

Otherwise, yellow flags and issues like empty drink bottles, back pain, cramps, dirt in the eye... are part of the game. And it's quite a leap to assume Lewis could have overtaken Rosberg without "dirt in his eye". He didn't make a single attempt all race, quite the norm in Monaco between equal cars as you're surely aware of.

How is "dirt in eye" a part of the game. It is blatant bad luck.

 

When such bad luck is present like having your final qualifying lap distorted by yellow flags inspired by another drivers mistake, I find it hard to define Monaco as a straight fight. Also, consider how hard it is to pass at Monaco, qualifying was pretty much everything, and Lewis's final attempted at getting pole was distorted. 

Edited by sennafan24, 05 January 2015 - 17:37.

[Newbrray]

I think the timing of the DNF's played a major part in how people view the season and the competition between HAM - ROS, Hamilton was for the latter part of the season behind due to the DNF's (sometimes by as much as 29 points). I we take another view of things and imagine if say we switched the Abu Dhabi race with Australia, the results at the end of the season, though the same will be viewed by most in a different way.
 
it will suggest that Hamilton largely outperformed Nico by a considerable margin over the course of the season and would have won the championship by Russian Grand prix (with 3 races to spare) 
 
The spreadsheet below is just to present another angle with the points allocated being the same but showing when the DNF's occurred largely skews the perception on how much one driver performed relatively to the other.
 
before I get bashed in the head by the naysayers, this is not a gospel but just another angle to buttress the fact that the timings go DNFs could change how things are perceived even if we apply the same score throughout the season 
 
Obviously if re-arranged in another way it is quite possible that Rosberg could have appeared more competitive than hamilton if we place all Hamiltons DNFs in the first half of the season (wait a minute, thats actually what happened)

 

 

Race                               Hamilton                    Rosberg

 

Abu Dhabi                           50                              0

Malaysia                              75                             18

Bahrain                               100                            36

China                                  125                            54

Spain                                  150                            72

Mon                                    168                            97

Can                                     168                           115

Austria                                186                           140

UK                                       211                          140

Ger                                      226                          165

Hun                                     241                           177

Bel                                       241                           195

Ita                                        266                           213

Sin                                       291                           213

Jpn                                      316                           231

Rus                                     341                           249  Title won with 3 races to spare

US                                       366                           267

Bra                                      384                           292

Aus                                     384                           317

Edited by Newbrray, 05 January 2015 - 21:34.

[sabjit]

I had 2 more tables but I lost them when my computer froze.

 

To summarize, if you put all of Rosberg's better races first, he has a 92 point lead after 7 races before losing the lead at the penultimate race and Hamilton winning the title at the last.

 

If you put Hamilton's better results first he opens up a gap of 159 points are 12 races and wins the championship with 6 races to spare.

[Newbrray]

Rosberg has a cheeky dig at Hamilton age......

 

Nice to see the banter is alright with them

 

http://www1.skysport...m-mate-turns-30

[Neomaster121]

Rosberg has a cheeky dig at Hamilton age......

 

Nice to see the banter is alright with them

 

http://www1.skysport...m-mate-turns-30

think its right to say Hamilton is the more experienced driver 

[GoldenColt]

think its right to say Hamilton is the more experienced driver 

 

He's only a couple of months older than Nico and has one year less of experience in F1 though.

[BlinkyMcSquinty]

He did. Nico has had so much more mileage in the W05 than Lewis prior to Malaysia, it's ridiculous. Nico had done several race sims in practice (which Lewis was never able to complete), and then a full race in Australia. And yet Nico was the one needing to study Lewis' telemetry.  Given that mileage gap, you would have expected Lewis would have to copy Nico's settings, but it ended up being the other way around.   

 

Nico by himself wasn't able to extract as much as Lewis from that car. 

 

And then Lewis had to fix Nico's starts. 

Is this belief based on ALL the facts? Because if anyone took the time to go back and study the practice sessions, in many cases Rosberg was quicker in P1, Hamilton in P2, so on and so on. Based on your logic and considering that each driver had access to the other's data, the logical conclusion is that where Rosberg was quicker in P1, Hamilton had to lean on Rosberg's data to make it up.

 

Get over it, it went both ways for both drivers, they benefited from each other. Access to data is a tool to improve a driver's pace. If any team had a method or tool to improve their driver(s), they would use it and demand that the driver use it to improve.

[sennafan24]

Get over it, it went both ways for both drivers, they benefited from each other. 

We don't know how much each driver benefited though.

 

In regards to practice. There is very little time between P1 and P2, so I doubt Lewis or Nico would have much time to study data. Plus, P1 is usually used to tune the car, and for the driver to find a set-up which suits them individually.

 

Really, I don't know who benefited more. But from my subjective observations, I think Nico was helped more. 

Edited by sennafan24, 08 January 2015 - 16:25.

[MP422]

Is this belief based on ALL the facts? Because if anyone took the time to go back and study the practice sessions, in many cases Rosberg was quicker in P1, Hamilton in P2, so on and so on. Based on your logic and considering that each driver had access to the other's data, the logical conclusion is that where Rosberg was quicker in P1, Hamilton had to lean on Rosberg's data to make it up.

 

Get over it, it went both ways for both drivers, they benefited from each other. Access to data is a tool to improve a driver's pace. If any team had a method or tool to improve their driver(s), they would use it and demand that the driver use it to improve.

 

Much to learn about F1 practice my friend.

[Sheepmachine]

I don't think this has been mentioned anywhere in this thread (apologies if it has.) but Lewis Hamilton is sticking with number 44 instead of going for number 1.

[sabjit]

I don't think this has been mentioned anywhere in this thread (apologies if it has.) but Lewis Hamilton is sticking with number 44 instead of going for number 1.

 

That's numberwang!

[Fatgadget]

I don't think this has been mentioned anywhere in this thread (apologies if it has.) but Lewis Hamilton is sticking with number 44 instead of going for number 1.

Who will be numero uno then?...Shades of  the year back in 80s there was a number 0?

[bonjon1979a]

Who will be numero uno then?...Shades of  the year back in 80s there was a number 0?

No one will be. I like the attitude. Forget that you won it last year, starting from the same place as last year.