Restomaniac wrote: ↑18 Oct 2017, 08:25
He also put his new car 4th in 2013 when his team mate who had been there far longer could only manage 9th. In qualifying he had dragged it into 5th when Rosberg could only manage 12th.
Sometimes a driver is just totally in tune with a track.
and on the year before, Schumacher put a gigantic gap of 1.7s over Rosberg, on qualifying. And on the year after("when Hamilton was already used to the team", I always laugh at this kind of excuses), Rosberg put an almost 4 tenths over Hamilton.Last year, Rosberg only lost pole because of his mistakes on T1, btw. But yes, as we already learned, no matter how poor/good Hamilton's track record is, he's always regarded as an expert on any track, by his hardcore fans
Restomaniac wrote: ↑21 Oct 2017, 08:48
He did something in Malaysia that only the likes of Senna and Schumacher could do. Put a car on Pole that had no right to be there. With everybody asking 'how?'. Then we have him being a whole second clear of everyone in changeable conditions in Italy (IIRC).
He is now doing the other thing. Be 0.5sec ahead of a team mate in the sister car consistently.
When I thought you couldn't write funnier stuff...
If Hamilton did something a la Senna or Schumacher(something like Kubica almost putting a rubbish Renault car on pole, at 2010 Monaco, or the Alonso poles of 2010/2012), he would've put the Mercedes on pole at Monaco and/or Singapore and/or Hungary(the rare places where Mercedes didn't really have an advantage/upperhand on Ferrari/RB)..... Mercedes was the fastest car on Sepang's QLF, as it was expected to be. What wasn't expected was how close Kimi got to him and that was what "everybody asked how". That and how that Verstappen beaten him on a inferior Red Bull, on the race day. It seemed Mercedes screwed with their overall or aero setup on that weekend because the W08 was always expected to be the quickest on Malaysia.
Bottas' performance is meaningless. Mercedes, either intentionally or not, made some changes on the car that turned Bottas into the Hamilton of Sochi/Monaco.
Btw, Mercedes is blatantly the fastest car again (as almost always) and that is clear by Massa's time. When Mercedes is not a dominant car for pole, Renault and Mclaren have a margin ahead of the FIs and Williams, which is not the case here and nor will be in any of the remaining tracks.
But don't worry, after this odd longer gap between FP3 and QLF, Hamilton will get another pole on a dominant car(0.3-0.5s gap to Ferrari is my guess) but because Bottas could be like 5th, you'll be able to claim that Hamilton did something magical and dragged a slow car to pole beating the mighty Ferrari of Vettel and the super duper Red Bull of Verstappen.