2016 Grand Prix of Brazil - Interlagos, 11-13 November

[Manoah2u]

Great drive by Max. He had the instinct to choose a different line.

Not just instinct.
Look at the safetycar runs again.
While everybody is following that in a docile manner, Max is all over the full width of the track.
He is feeling out the grip levels

At first it was funny, but now it is just getting annoying how commentators can turn literally anything into praise for Verstappen.

haters gonna hate.

[Unc1eM0nty]

The Redbull decision to go to inters was just pain daft, if your running 10th or 12th and have nothing to loose they yes its worth a punt, Verstappen was already in a podium position though so why ? His excellent drive was wasted due to that decision, "always be on the right tyre !".

They gambled for the win. I think they realized that even though finishing 2d was pretty much a guarantee with the normal strategy, to take the fight to Hamilton they needed more pace. That pace was in the intermediate tyre for a while, but when the rain came down harder and with the last safety car making the race line too wet again, this fell apart.

I think regardless wether it was a smart idea or not, you have to give Red Bull some credit for not simply settling for second and trying to force a win, albeit far fetched.

I guess that the crux of it, Redbull without an interest in the title race could afford to gamble, whereas Lewis and me just wanted them to do enough to push Nico down the order

Great race thought it has to be said, it's just such a pity it needs rain to make an interesting race these days

[Fulcrum]

Your veneer of taking the high road went all kinds of sideways with your last line. Anyone saying there's little to pick between Hamilton and Rosberg is either delusional or extremely biased.

Most of the time they end up first and second. That is my definition for little to pick between the 2.

If you look at the average difference between them in qualifying, it was 3 tenths last year (until USGP) and 4+ tenths this year. In some races it was 5 tenths. The only reason why Nico starts next to him, is because the advantage that Mercedes has over the field. If this was from 2010, 2012 or 2013, you would have seen another 3 to 4 cars between them in the space of 3 to 4 tenths. That would have invalidated your statement. In races, they have much larger advantage over the field that always gives them a 1-2.

It's certainly not a Mark Webber versus Sebastian Vettel situation, where not only one is being outclassed by his teammate, but also being often beaten by other drivers. It's a receipe for this kind of situation. Is Rosberg beaten on overall performance? Yes. Was he dominated? No, that would be incorrect to claim.

9 wins out of 20 races for Lewis, where once (Spain) he was taken out by Nico and for 3 races (China, Russia and Spa) he did not even had an opportunity to challenge for the win and once (Malaysia) got a DNF while leading.
11 Poles so far, despite 4 times he had no chance to go for pole (China, Russia, Monaco and Spa).

You can decide if that was not domination.

Just to clarify, the average difference between Hamilton and Rosberg this year is actually 0.124 seconds over the season. This excludes those races where Hamilton was unable to set a final qualifying lap (China, Russia, Baku, Belgium).

In Monaco he was able to set a reasonably representative laptime. Even if this were excluded, the average difference remains far smaller than you imagine; 0.143 seconds.

[TAG]

Nico's primary strength has always been his qualifying. He beat Schumacher handily. Despite that, he's still losing out to Hamilton in that stat.

It's funny you'd pick Monaco as an example because its the one race that most underscores his shortcomings as a driver when compared to his teammate.

EDIT: after a little digging, it's also extremely convenient for Nico's numbers to not have comparisons in Spa and China where Lewis has outqualifed him by over a second at times since they've been teammates.

But that's how it rolls, this season he's been the poster boy for the "I'd rather be lucky than good" ad campaign.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Just to clarify, the average difference between Hamilton and Rosberg this year is actually 0.124 seconds over the season. This excludes those races where Hamilton was unable to set a final qualifying lap (China, Russia, Baku, Belgium).

In Monaco he was able to set a reasonably representative laptime. Even if this were excluded, the average difference remains far smaller than you imagine; 0.143 seconds.

You can derive whatever you want from this. I am listing all the races where Lewis took pole.

[Kiril Varbanov]

I checked the last two pages and couldn't find it, so here's a video of MV doing the overtakes:

[Phil]

This is still a mechanical sport. Luck plays a huge factor when there's little to pick between 2 drivers.

I think I'd feel better putting it down to "technical fortune" if they were battling each other from two different teams. Then it'd be easy to say; Driver A in Team X did a better job than Driver B in Team Y. Given that both Nico and Lewis are within the same team, I would ideally want the championship to be purely driver and not influenced by the team's shortcomings.

I'm happy to go as far to say that the starts have been purely down to driver performance, so LH has himself to blame for races like Monza. I'd also go as far to say that races like where there was a collision (with Bottas) is simply down to race circumstance. Equally, Rosberg spun in Malaysia that was pretty much out of his control. But how do you put the Malaysia DNF and the technical glitches he had at the beginning of the year (as Rosbergs gearbox in Austria) down to driver?

I guess it's neither fair nor just. It's just the way it is, in a sport as technical as F1. You can't have it both ways. Either way, if Rosberg loses it, I'll feel bad for him (as a LH supporter) on the grounds of the advantage he holds, but I think I'll feel even worse if Rosberg clinches it the way he probably will end up doing.

[andartop]

By definition, the WDC is awarded to the driver who has more points after the last race.
Not most race wins, fastest laps, best overtakes or most poles.
Has always been the case and hopefully always will, unless we adopt Bernie's medal system...
Did Nico drive a brilliant race in Brazil?
Nope.
Was he faster than Lewis?
Nope?
Was he faster than Max?
Hell no.
Is he leading the Championship?
Yes he is.
Can't speak for the man, but I guess that was his only goal going into such a race under tricky conditions.
He only needs to do it once more, and I bet that will also be his only goal at the final race.
No matter what he did or didn't do throughout the year, at the end of the day people could find something bad to say if they wanted to, all that matters is who has the most points at the end.
And just for the record I couldn't care less about which of the two Mercs gets it, I'm a Ferrari fan!

[turbof1]

Nico's primary strength has always been his qualifying. He beat Schumacher handily. Despite that, he's still losing out to Hamilton in that stat.

That's not the point. The point was the difference is small. Small enough to be comfortable second in most cases. When Hamilton has a bad start in those cases, he can usually forfeit any chance on winning the race (there are exceptions, I know). When Rosberg is second and starts bad, he usually can recover to third or even second (like Hamilton). The car is good enough for any errors at the start to be recovered to a 1-2 finish. However, the difference between the drivers is not big enough to recover from a setback, back to first position.

That's also what I meant there is too little to pick between them for luck not to play a crucial role. The car plays a big role, of course. And Hamilton too is better then Rosberg in my eyes. However, the difference between the 2 is too little to recover from setbacks. And when you are always gravitating back to a 1-2, you are going to bit extra hard by any disadvantage.

It's not like Hamilton is loosing out to an opponent he can easily beat in the race (again, not withstanding Hamilton overall performs better). If that was the case we would not have this discussion and Hamilton would ne cruising towards a 4th title.

[TAG]

No matter what he did or didn't do throughout the year, at the end of the day people could find something bad to say if they wanted to.

=D>

I love that line because... any Lewis Hamilton fan can instantly sympathize with the sentiment. I mean really, there's little to pick between two drivers where only one of which is the 2nd most winning F1 driver in History, only one is the 3rd man in F1 history to break the 60 pole barrier, only man in the history of the sport to have won a race in every year he's competed, despite the car under him, the only driver in the sport that has double digit wins two years in a row (this year could be three).... and here's the capper. He's finished on the podium 55% of the races he's started. There's no other driver in F1 history that tops that and still he's compared to Rosberg by some as there not being much difference between the two.

Whatever happens in the season closer, it's been a good year a year of supreme records and nothing to be despondent about.

[henry]

In 2014 Hamilton beat Rosberg over 19 races and was WDC.
In 2015 Hamilton beat Rosberg over 19 races and was WDC.
In 2016 Rosberg beat Hamilton over 19 races and .....

Is Hamilton at his best better than Rosberg at his? A little bit. Is his superiority overall worth 3WDCs to 0? I for one don't think so.

[Fulcrum]

Just to clarify, the average difference between Hamilton and Rosberg this year is actually 0.124 seconds over the season. This excludes those races where Hamilton was unable to set a final qualifying lap (China, Russia, Baku, Belgium).

In Monaco he was able to set a reasonably representative laptime. Even if this were excluded, the average difference remains far smaller than you imagine; 0.143 seconds.

You can derive whatever you want from this. I am listing all the races where Lewis took pole.

https://s4.postimg.org/i3gyyhzkd/quali_delta.jpg

What does that prove? When Hamilton is faster, Hamilton is faster?

Even then, the average gap is only 0.282 seconds, not 4 tenths or more as you have previously stated.

[dans79]

What does that prove?

That no matter how the year turns out Nico will always be #2.

[TAG]

It's not like Hamilton is loosing out to an opponent he can easily beat in the race (again, not withstanding Hamilton overall performs better). If that was the case we would not have this discussion and Hamilton would ne cruising towards a 4th title.

It absolutely would be the case otherwise we'd not be having the discussion. Despite Hamilton's bad starts, litany of engine failures and a blown lead that would have shifted the existing points difference 28 points to his favor, you'd still assessing that it hasn't been down to the freak of nature results given the mechanical difference.

I'm not sure what you're trying to assess, yeah anyone in the head and shoulders best car of the field should be coming in first or second. That's the default, and by that conclusion I'm in agreement with you. That's not a reason to assert there's nothing between the two which was my original commentary to you.

You can say you're objective all you want, that's fine, Me? I'd rather have a dialogue with people when they don't try to remain impartial. You can say "I never have expressed favouritism towards one or other driver. " all you want, but unless you're not a part of the human race, not expressing doesn't mean that you don't have them regardless of how fair and balanced you try to seem. It's okay to let your hair down every now and then, you wouldn't have to contort words to make sense of the little slip ups that belie us all.

[Phil]

In 2014 Hamilton beat Rosberg over 19 races and was WDC.
In 2015 Hamilton beat Rosberg over 19 races and was WDC.
In 2016 Rosberg beat Hamilton over 19 races and .....

Is Hamilton at his best better than Rosberg at his? A little bit. Is his superiority overall worth 3WDCs to 0? I for one don't think so.

Maybe it's a question of your definition of beat, but they are both sitting with equal number of wins after 20 races. The two anomalies being Barcelona (both DNF) and Malaysia, where arguably Hamilton beat Rosberg until the engine blew while Rosberg was somewhere down in 4th...