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I was reading again about Hank Aaron today. Someone mention a cross handed grip and I googled it brought me to Hank.
Anyway. Hank Broke Babe Ruth's home run record. Babe Ruth was a home name in the US. Everboy who played baseball imagine he was Babe. He was a revered legend. I am not American and Im not baseball fan but his name was global. I liked the candy bar and the baseball movies! Anyway! When Aron was approaching the record he became sort of the bad guy for various reasons. He was increasingly scrutinized and assaulted by fans and media, he was sent threats even! Of course this added to the pressure. Perhaps Lewis will be affected by more pressure as he approaches the record too?
There are some interesting parallels to Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, buy also some major differences. Babe, the established Icon, the God, the home name. Schumacher. Hank the enigmatic minority player, going against the establishment - Lewis. I think though.. Schumacher was not universally loved... And Lewis while enigmatic at one point... Is not really so anymore. He is actually quite outspoken and runs with celebrities and such. The other thing is playing baseball is not too much affected by equipment.. Motorsport is the total opposite - so supporters and detractors alike are free to subjectivise who was really better. Even after the record is broken - and MSC endured this with Senna / fangio etc- it is still out in the air who was really the GOAT.
Anyway... It will be interesting to see how the media and fans will react.. And how Lewis himself with react to the pressure.
Even if he doesn’t break any of the records he will be in the history books for along time coming.....
I was reading again about Hank Aaron today. Someone mention a cross handed grip and I googled it brought me to Hank.
Anyway. Hank Broke Babe Ruth's home run record. Babe Ruth was a home name in the US. Everboy who played baseball imagine he was Babe. He was a revered legend. I am not American and Im not baseball fan but his name was global. I liked the candy bar and the baseball movies! Anyway! When Aron was approaching the record he became sort of the bad guy for various reasons. He was increasingly scrutinized and assaulted by fans and media, he was sent threats even! Of course this added to the pressure. Perhaps Lewis will be affected by more pressure as he approaches the record too?
There are some interesting parallels to Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, buy also some major differences. Babe, the established Icon, the God, the home name. Schumacher. Hank the enigmatic minority player, going against the establishment - Lewis. I think though.. Schumacher was not universally loved... And Lewis while enigmatic at one point... Is not really so anymore. He is actually quite outspoken and runs with celebrities and such. The other thing is playing baseball is not too much affected by equipment.. Motorsport is the total opposite - so supporters and detractors alike are free to subjectivise who was really better. Even after the record is broken - and MSC endured this with Senna / fangio etc- it is still out in the air who was really the GOAT.
Anyway... It will be interesting to see how the media and fans will react.. And how Lewis himself with react to the pressure.
Even though baseball is not as equipment dependent as motorsport Ruth had a major advantage in that baseball was segregated when he played and it is universally accepted that the talent in the black leagues was far better than the "major" leagues.
I'm not sure if I buy Hamilton's aloofness towards the records he racks up, but I don't think the "pressure" will bother him any. He seems to have an ability to focus singularly on the task at hand. The wins record is definitely going down this year.
The race record is the most likely to be broken, realistically only by Hamilton.
With respect to Hamilton, his longest interval of time taken to win 20 races spans 2008 to the beginning of 2014; 7 years of race entries - even though this was achieved early in 2014. Bear in mind that during his entire McLaren career, 6 years, he "only" won 21 races.
Since joining Mercedes, his average time to achieve 20 race wins has averaged 3 years, if you include the 2013 year; 2 since then.
Schumacher himself took 3 years (2004-2006), including the mega-dominant 2004 where he won 13 of 18 races, to move from 70 wins to 91.
Considering the increased competitiveness of Ferrari (hopefully Red Bull), my vague forecast would be for late to mid-2021. Any major shift in competitiveness pushes this out by years though.
The best case scenario is, 2 more years like the last 5, end of 2020 he has 7 championships and 90-92 race wins.
I remember a '60 minutes' tv episode on lewis as a youngster, he was playing with a nitro rc car, cleared 3 or 4 berms in a leap and holeshots the corner on another car, or something like that, his speed was clear and evident for all to see.
I wont dispute the fans, as with all stardom comes the scrutiny, good and bad.
Looks like race wins could go this season. Actually the 2021 regs being pushed back a year could have given him a golden opportunity to get to 8 titles. It’s hard to say how competitive RBR and Ferrari might or might not be if they switch to 2022 development and effectively write off this year and next. Never count your chickens though. A lot could go wrong.
Once again, just an opinion. And overall even that is hard to form, since differing regs and cars make things tricky. Though he often had clear team advantage, Schumcher was no doubt fast, and was able to pull off some good moves. And it seemed that both Schumacher and Lewis learned to minimize on track risks as they matured in their racecraft. But as an example of regs changes impacting that, Schuey became a master at in and out laps for overtaking through pit stops. Lewis has won his titles in an era where pit stops are limited to tires, and we don't have aggressive tires or a tire war. So he has had to become a master at often playing the long game.
Good point about the changing regs, back in the refuling days the tactic was to qualify as heavy on fuel as you dare but make sure your still on the 1st or 2nd row, the then on the first stint run a couple of laps longer than your competitor, these fast laps with very little fuel were usually enough to gain the lead and track position.
No doubt Schuy could have had more poles but they were always looking toward the race.
Very true, but think how many poles Lewis would have had now if they stuck a barrichello or an Irvine in the other Mercedes instead of Nico. Nico managed 30 poles, it was often said Lewis set his car up more for the race.
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Very true, but think how many poles Lewis would have had now if they stuck a barrichello or an Irvine in the other Mercedes instead of Nico. Nico managed 30 poles, it was often said Lewis set his car up more for the race.
I don't think he set it up for the race, more like he wouldn't sacrifice race performance for the sake of a higher qualifying position. At least not on tracks where qualifying isn't overly important.
for example in bahrain 2013. Nico took pole (1:32.330), and Lewis was P4 (1:32.762) +0.432. Lewis started 9th because of a gearbox penalty. Lewis Finished 5th, Nico 9th. Nico struggled with tires far more than Lewis, and both had an incident free race (if memory serves).
Very true, but think how many poles Lewis would have had now if they stuck a barrichello or an Irvine in the other Mercedes instead of Nico. Nico managed 30 poles, it was often said Lewis set his car up more for the race.
I don't think he set it up for the race, more like he wouldn't sacrifice race performance for the sake of a higher qualifying position. At least not on tracks where qualifying isn't overly important.
for example in bahrain 2013. Nico took pole (1:32.330), and Lewis was P4 (1:32.762) +0.432. Lewis started 9th because of a gearbox penalty. Lewis Finished 5th, Nico 9th. Nico struggled with tires far more than Lewis, and both had an incident free race (if memory serves).
Oh man, how bad that car was at eating it’s rear tires in the races, blindingly quick in qualy though....
Very true, but think how many poles Lewis would have had now if they stuck a barrichello or an Irvine in the other Mercedes instead of Nico. Nico managed 30 poles, it was often said Lewis set his car up more for the race.
I don't think he set it up for the race, more like he wouldn't sacrifice race performance for the sake of a higher qualifying position. At least not on tracks where qualifying isn't overly important.
for example in bahrain 2013. Nico took pole (1:32.330), and Lewis was P4 (1:32.762) +0.432. Lewis started 9th because of a gearbox penalty. Lewis Finished 5th, Nico 9th. Nico struggled with tires far more than Lewis, and both had an incident free race (if memory serves).
Oh man, how bad that car was at eating it’s rear tires in the races, blindingly quick in qualy though....
The 2012 model was even worse. I can't find it, but I remember reading that they got the coanda effect wrong and ended up with a lot of excess exhaust blowing directly onto the rear wheels.
Once again, just an opinion. And overall even that is hard to form, since differing regs and cars make things tricky. Though he often had clear team advantage, Schumcher was no doubt fast, and was able to pull off some good moves. And it seemed that both Schumacher and Lewis learned to minimize on track risks as they matured in their racecraft. But as an example of regs changes impacting that, Schuey became a master at in and out laps for overtaking through pit stops. Lewis has won his titles in an era where pit stops are limited to tires, and we don't have aggressive tires or a tire war. So he has had to become a master at often playing the long game.
Good point about the changing regs, back in the refuling days the tactic was to qualify as heavy on fuel as you dare but make sure your still on the 1st or 2nd row, the then on the first stint run a couple of laps longer than your competitor, these fast laps with very little fuel were usually enough to gain the lead and track position.
No doubt Schuy could have had more poles but they were always looking toward the race.
You also couldn't react to that either. Today with the undercut, you need to use up tyre to make it work, and the other team can react the lap after depending on the gap.
When there was refuelling, you had to pit on X lap and that was it, and if the other guy had a few more laps fuel, he could put quite a large gap on you fairly easily.
It feels just like in Michael's time; sort of non-eventful. Dare I say enthralling but not exciting. And I feel if this run ever happens again it will feel the same too. You just dont rack up these sorts of numbers without dominant machinery. I for one do not believe in dominant drivers. The very good are a couple tenths a part and that is within the margin of competitive cars. Dominant cars on the other hand are anything over four tenths faster than the closest.
It feels just like in Michael's time; sort of non-eventful. Dare I say enthralling but not exciting. And I feel if this run ever happens again it will feel the same too. You just dont rack up these sorts of numbers without dominant machinery. I for one do not believe in dominant drivers. The very good are a couple tenths a part and that is within the margin of competitive cars. Dominant cars on the other hand are anything over four tenths faster than the closest.
I kind of agree with the dominant drivers part but I kinda don’t either, I mean Hamilton’s consistency is on another level man.do you think any driver on the current grid could honestly take it to him? barring reliability...
Why is being a fan of A driver or A team, makes one find reasons to justify your belief that, A driver is superior or A team is superior? Why does it blind one from looking at it from all perspectives and respect everything?
How is comparing drivers across generations, regulations, cars, technology advancements is fair?
Why is a driver who had a dedicated No. 2 becomes of lesser consideration to another who doesn't?
Why is it so difficult to simply enjoy the excellence of a driver and/or a team which is on display, regardless of whether that driver/team is your favorite or not?
Why run down the achievements of the driver, who is not your favorite? Why do it to justify your favorite driver's achievement?
Has anyone of you experienced convincing an individual of opposite views to buy into your views, in the "who is the best driver debate?" I have never seen. Is there a point in fighting on the same topic, thread after thread, year after year?
I have observed a few individuals here, who are the first to jump into these discussions, which amuses me so much.
It feels just like in Michael's time; sort of non-eventful. Dare I say enthralling but not exciting. And I feel if this run ever happens again it will feel the same too. You just dont rack up these sorts of numbers without dominant machinery. I for one do not believe in dominant drivers. The very good are a couple tenths a part and that is within the margin of competitive cars. Dominant cars on the other hand are anything over four tenths faster than the closest.
I kind of agree with the dominant drivers part but I kinda don’t either, I mean Hamilton’s consistency is on another level man.do you think any driver on the current grid could honestly take it to him? barring reliability...
His consistency and his ability/drive to always get the best is a stand out feature. He tops the list of consecutive points finishes. He's in first (currently 39 finishes and counting) and second (33 finishes). The next man on that list is Kimi who had 27 consecutive finishes.
His percentage face finishes in the points is 85.55, ahead of even Fangio who managed 81% all those years ago. I think that's the stand out because it shows that even in his less productive years at McLaren, he was still finding points finishes.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
