Heard some story in the williams thread about Hamilton and decided to look it up myself, here are some quotes from various people which is pretty interesting. (driving-related stuff)
“Lewis is an extraordinary driver,” he says. “The first time we ran him at McLaren [as a rookie late in 2006], I recall the guys looking at the steering trace at the Silverstone test. The oversteer corrections in all the braking zones and corner entries were massive. We were waiting for his feedback and he didn’t mention that. We asked ‘How’s the car on entry?’ and he said, ‘Fine’. His natural car control was extraordinary. Most drivers would have been quite unhappy with such instability.”
- Paddy Lowe
“In my time at Ferrari,” says one senior ex-Scuderia man, “Lewis was the only other driver Fernando [Alonso] worried about. Yes, other drivers might have been in faster cars and he’d accept that. But on a Grand Prix weekend whenever you’d discuss the challenges, it was only ever Hamilton that Fernando referenced as being a threat, solely because of what he could deliver as a driver. I think Fernando had matured since 2007 when, as a team-mate, he’d been shocked that a rookie could be at his level, be a threat to him immediately and had not reacted well. With hindsight, he understood that Hamilton alone stands as something beyond the norm. I got the impression that there was no one else on Fernando’s radar as a rival.”
- ex Ferrari Scuderia worker.
Paraphrased:
‘If ever Lewis works out how to get the best from himself and the engineers, the rest of us might as well go home.’
- Jenson Button
“He is one of those drivers that, as an engineer, you want in your car,” adds Lowe, “because whatever he delivers you know he’s wrung the car’s neck and that’s the maximum of what it will do. There are not many drivers of that quality and for an engineer that’s the most satisfying aspect. It gives everyone confidence and such a great platform to work from. So he has massive talent and extraordinarily good racecraft and both were evident right from the start. Remember the number of drivers that got pissed off at being overtaken by him in the early days? He’s great in the team for the reason of his performance and ability to race. That captures the public eye as well, because they just love that fighting spirit. I don’t want to mention any contemporary drivers but someone like Nigel Mansell gave the same sort of reaction. People loved to watch Nigel. There were similarities at Silverstone this year with 1992 – the crowd just love that sort of driver. For me that overpowers all behaviours out of the car.”
- Paddy Lowe
“We were doing a race distance simulation run and I was pointing out through the glass different features of the engine as it was screaming away and Lewis asked which circuit we were running. I didn’t know, I wasn’t running the test. So he listened for maybe 10 seconds, then said, ‘It’s Budapest,’ and it was! ‘Yeah, that’s through Turn Two into Three, running up the hill. Oh, there are fewer shifts compared with before.’ He has huge knowledge and familiarity with it all.
“He learns on track, in the simulator, from watching laps on his laptop, replaying the data log in his head in time with what’s shown on the screen, and watching others driving the cars. He thinks about it a lot. That’s one of the reasons that he’s not only quick – but efficient with tyres and fuel.”
- Andy Cowell
don´t start a sh*t storm about this now people, i see this as interesting as reading about Michael Schumacher and what he used to do behind the wheel or even Senna etc.
Hoping to find some things about Ricciardo and Alonso in the future as well.
Edit: full article here,
http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archi ... ing-enigma
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of sh*t"