2013 Abu Dhabi GP - Yas Marina

[SectorOne]

It's worth pointing out as well that with Hamiltons 2,2,1 qualifying in the past three years, Button has been 4,3,5 which show how strong McLaren have been around Abu Dhabi in recent times. 2009 is irrelevant as we had refueling and Hamilton was first to pit of the front runners.

I think it´s a bit of both, Mclaren tends to do well here and S3 as Raymond pointed out seems to be a good fit for Hamilton (with the Mclaren at least)

09 you can instead look at Q1 and Q2, -0.793s and -0.289s respectively in Hamilton´s favor.
The Red Bull has been quick around there too, with Webber and Vettel taking 2nd and 3rd in Qualiyfying 09.

2010 RBR pole and both Mc and RB inside top 5 qual.

2011 RB pole with all RB´s and Mc´s taking the top 4 spots.

2012 Mc pole with RBR 2nd and 3rd, Button down in 6th.

As you can see this is just as good of a place for Vettel as it is for Hamilton. Or more correctly RBR and Mclaren.
If it fits Mercedes remains to be seen.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Latest paddock rumors say that in order to avoid the inevitable twist of the fate, also called RB9, Webber is going to drive this way:

[Juzh]

Starting on fumes didn't exactly work out for hamilton in 2009.

[Sevach]

Starting on fumes didn't exactly work out for hamilton in 2009.

It worked out just fine, brake problems took him out of the race while he was in the lead.

Irrelevant now anyway, since fuel load qualifying is a thing of the past (and good ridance).

[Juzh]

Starting on fumes didn't exactly work out for hamilton in 2009.

It worked out just fine, brake problems took him out of the race while he was in the lead.

Irrelevant now anyway, since fuel load qualifying is a thing of the past (and good ridance).

Did you even watch the race? Vettel already jumped him in the pits when he retired.

[iotar__]

It is just like a bank, after being robbed, and having done nothing to catch the thiefs say "We will not tolerate any stealing from this bank. If you do, you are subject to terrible things."

I see it differently, FIA is basically admitting: our stewards were too incompetent to apply penalty for blatant breaking of rules in India so to avoid it we need to spell it out for them, "if driver A... does this or driver B"

[mikeerfol]

Starting on fumes didn't exactly work out for hamilton in 2009.

It worked out just fine, brake problems took him out of the race while he was in the lead.

Irrelevant now anyway, since fuel load qualifying is a thing of the past (and good ridance).

Did you even watch the race? Vettel already jumped him in the pits when he retired.

He was struggling with his brakes from lap 3.

[AnthonyG]

I feel like an idiot, thinking this race would be next week and taking a holiday without programming my tv...

[flynfrog]

Redbull get the donuts out of the way early to avoid fine

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCezxngqO9o&noredirect=1[/youtube]

[Helios]

There are times when he can be up to 1 second faster over a lap, maybe it's enough to beat vettel by a couple hundreths.

Surely you are exaggerating, when have we seen Lewis do a lap 1 second faster than what the car is capable of,or relative to his teammate and the others?

German Grand Prix 2011 - Qualifying

[raymondu999]

German Grand Prix 2011 - Qualifying

And how do you know this was a good Hamilton lap, as opposed to a rubbish Button lap? Don't forget that we're talking of 2011 Germany which was very cold, and people were struggling to heat the tyres up. Given that that's traditionally Button's bugbear, I'd say it's fair to say that he was having a worse time of it than others.

[Helios]

German Grand Prix 2011 - Qualifying

And how do you know this was a good Hamilton lap

How do you know it wasn't?

They were both way off the pace in FP3, with Lewis being 6 tenths and Jenson 7tenths off Vettel. One of them improved dramatically, the other one didn't. And the conditions were not colder in the afternoon than they have been before.

[raymondu999]

German Grand Prix 2011 - Qualifying

And how do you know this was a good Hamilton lap

How do you know it wasn't?

I didn't say it wasn't. Because it was your answer to "when have we seen Lewis do a lap 1 second faster than what the car is capable of,or relative to his teammate and the others?" I was asking how you know it was a lap 1 second faster than what the car is capable of.

They were both way off the pace in FP3, with Lewis being 6 tenths and Jenson 7tenths off Vettel.

What's FP3 got to do with it? They could've been running heavy for all we know.

[Hail22]

180 degree rotating camera on Fernando Alonso' car...finally! xD

[Helios]

They were both way off the pace in FP3, with Lewis being 6 tenths and Jenson 7tenths off Vettel.

What's FP3 got to do with it? They could've been running heavy for all we know.

Well, if you remember back then Lewis was also surprised about his laptime. To me that sounds like they weren't running with much more fuel than the opposition in FP3, otherwise the lap wouldn't have been that much of a surprise.

Was Lewis 1 second quicker than what his car would've allowed? No, because I don't believe that you can "outdrive" the car. It's impossible, you can only get very very close to the limit of the car, but not beyond (unless you want to end up in the barriers). Was he 1 second quicker relative to his teammate? Yes. And that was part of IceIceBabys question, mind you.

But what it is about Hamilton is the fact that he is able to pull out these kind of laps out of nowhere. There have been several occasions where I would just ask myself where he got that time from. Nothing more, nothing less.