turbof1 wrote:TAG wrote:Vasconia wrote:With better starts Hamilton would have won this champioship even with the Malaysia´s DNF. This is a a fact., just face it. If Hamilton makes starts like the ones done in the last races he could win more easily next year.
And with a couple of reliability issues Rosberg would have lost the championship. What does that even mean? Seriously to keep harping on the starts as the issue is like complaining your shoes are too tight because an anvil fell on your foot.
I really, really do not want to go much further on this, but mechanical failures is something you cannot control, while you can avoid bad starts. Ok, I can hear it coming: "who says the bad starts were to blame to Hamilton?". I spend a couple of posts already on that and I am sure not going to do that again
.
Personally, why argue over the starts where there never will be an ounce of certainty how much he lost through it? What if start had been better? Would he have still won the GP? Probably. Guaranteed? No.
However, Malaysia is much more certain beyond any reasonable doubt. Hamilton was leading with a significant margin with just 14 laps to go. Rosberg at that point was down to 4th. Was Hamilton going to win that GP if his engine hadn't blown? Very probable. Guaranteed? No, but almost. At worst, he was going to be 2nd (Verstappen I think on that alternate strategy of stopping one time less that might have had track position), but Rosberg was still going to be down in 4th. Best case: Hamilton 25 points, Rosberg 12 points instead of 0 points and 15 points for Rosberg. Point swing: 28 points in Hamiltons favor.
Lets assume Hamilton had finished 2nd with Rosberg 4th: 18 points to 12 points instead of again 0 points and 15 points. That's 21 point swing.
We can discuss about starts all day long, the matter of fact is, Rosberg had his fair share of bad starts as well. Why do we demand Hamilton to drive a flawless "perfect" season of 21 races just to ignore that one DNF that made a significant difference to the championship race?
There is one point though that needs to be brought up though: Had Hamilton not have his DNF, I would have expected a more strong (but maybe more nervous) Rosberg towards the end of the season. There is always a "butterfly" effect of sorts. Had that one race gone different, there's a large likelihood the other races would have panned out different as well. You do need to wonder though: Having all these technical issues at the beginning of the year did make a difference for Hamilton. You lose confidence in the car and the pressure was higher to deliver. He also was further handicapped by the necessity of requiring more engines that again limited his ability in Spa. And he still had the blowout in Malaysia. All that vs. the bullet proof car of his team-mate who had one minor issue - that being the gearbox that needed to be replaced under park ferme and set him back 5 positions in Austria.
Anyway - the best post of this topic for me goes to Ben:
bhall II wrote:Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. (Ask the average Vettel fan what that's like.)
+10000. =D>
PS: I would love to put that in as a signature. I might just do that.