2018 in-season testing thread

[jjn9128]

How have You jumped from that to the conclusion that it's an obvious instance of a nationalistic based over-criticizm is beyond me. There has been no evidence of such bias in Wynter's post, I'd even say that he merely tried to give a different, perhaps wider, perspective to Your statement. Ironically, that would make Your post, in my view at least, THE selective, biased and nationalistic by imposing such things without any meaningful evidence whatsoever.
That being said, subjective opinions are what they are - biased by definition. It doesn't automatically imply nationalistic background, though some of it naturally may be a factor.

The first half of my post answered Wynter's point - where I pointed out that the idea that Raikkonen beat Vettel over the final 2/3 of the season is frankly nonsense. The last 4 races, maybe, but qualifying, race results, laptimes...etc would all point to Vettel having the beating of Raikkonen over most of the 21 races, even the ones where Raikkonen retired. Otherwise Ferrari would have paired Leclerc with the cheaper, "better" alternative or kept Raikkonen alongside Vettel.

The second half of my post was aimed at the boards where there is undoubtedly a strong anti-Vettel sentiment, which I cannot understand. The fact this is a in season testing thread which has been taken over by the Vettel bashers is another case in point. I don't particularly like Vettel or Ferrari (I would like to have seen them win if only to break up the monotony of Mercedes championships) but, like Hamilton, there should be no doubting that he is a quality driver.

[Just_a_fan]

There's a weird phenomenon where certain drivers have their performances selectively dissected and over-criticized for what appears, to me anyway, to be nationalistic sentiment from Brits against Germans - "2 world wars and 1 world cup" and other crud like that. Rosberg beat Hamilton fair and square in 2016 - not because Hamilton had more failures. Those people never go the other way and consider Rosberg's failures in 2015 as an explanation for Hamilton winning the title. Vettel seems to be the current whipping boy and I just can't think of a reason for it - other than a sort of 1970's British nationalism and because he is German.

Sorry, but no need to try to bring in nationalism where there is none!

Rosberg beat Hamilton in 2016 by 5 points. Hamilton had 2 failures to Rosberg's one. Rosberg's failure being the one where he took out Hamilton having messed up his own start. Hamilton's other failure was from the lead, in a race that Rosberg still only finished in third place. So, yes, reliability played the deciding factor in that season. Hamilton won 10 races to Rosberg's 9. Had he won instead of having the only Mercedes engine failure of the season, he would have won the title by more than 20 points.

In 2015, Rosberg had two retirements to Hamilton's one. Hamilton won by 59 points, having won 10 races to Rosberg's 6.

So, your point is entirely invalid. Rosberg's 2016 title was down to the reliability of Hamilton's car.

Oh, and stop with the nationalism rubbish, please.

[Bill]

2015 we had double points in the last race 50 points gained by Lewis at rosberg expense if it was Lewis retiring Rosberg would have been champion, so no is not irrelevant

[GPR-A]

2015 we had double points in the last race 50 points gained by Lewis at rosberg expense if it was Lewis retiring Rosberg would have been champion, so no is not irrelevant

That was 2014!

[Just_a_fan]

2015 we had double points in the last race 50 points gained by Lewis at rosberg expense if it was Lewis retiring Rosberg would have been champion, so no is not irrelevant

Wrong. That was 2014 - and in 2014, they both had three retirements and Hamilton beat Rosberg by 67 points anyway.

[GPR-A]

2015 we had double points in the last race 50 points gained by Lewis at rosberg expense if it was Lewis retiring Rosberg would have been champion, so no is not irrelevant

Wrong. That was 2014 - and in 2014, they both had three retirements and Hamilton beat Rosberg by 67 points anyway.

Worth remembering that, Hamilton had loads of mechanical failures in qualifyings while Rosberg had none, which allowed Rosberg to lead at the front without any challenge.

[Wynters]

That's utter hogwash. How do you explain 2015, 2016 and 2017 - all of which Vettel beat Raikkonen. Raikkonen had 4 DNF's this year, 2 were mechanical failures, 1 from the pit stop fiasco in Bahrain, and 1 from accident damage. In none of those was he ahead of Vettel. I can only think of 2 events where he significantly outperformed Vettel and that's USA and Brazil. There were many events where they were close, certainly in qualifying, mostly though Vettel was ahead.

I didn't reference the other years. You yourself only referenced 2017. Why expand it? What relevance does 2015 have to now? As I clearly stated, if you negate those four races and only take the results from the others, then he scored more points than Vettel. That's despite regularly receiving inefficient pit stop timings and overall strategies.

If you want to insist that basic arithmetic is an anti-german conspiracy, that's your call. Further, if you want to blame Raikkonnen's mechanical failures entirely on his 'poor perfomance' that is also your perogative. However, please don't level a stream of childish insults at people who dare to disagree with you, especially without providing any evidence to the contrary.

The first half of my post answered Wynter's point - where I pointed out that the idea that Raikkonen beat Vettel over the final 2/3 of the season is frankly nonsense. The last 4 races, maybe, but qualifying, race results, laptimes...etc would all point to Vettel having the beating of Raikkonen over most of the 21 races, even the ones where Raikkonen retired. Otherwise Ferrari would have paired Leclerc with the cheaper, "better" alternative or kept Raikkonen alongside Vettel.

Perhaps if you actually looked at the results and then added up the points rather than going off your self-admitted 'feelings' and 'memories'? If you remove the four results I specified, I think Kimi finishes the season 11 points ahead. If you just focus on France-onwards then I think he's ahead by 2. More than happy to be proven wrong though as, that way, I'll have a more accurate understanding (which is what I feel this whole forum strives to be about). It should be very easy as you strongly contend that Kimi was absolutely crushed.

Crucially, fastest laps, qualifying, etc don't actually matter. What matters is the points that a driver brings home. For instance, Bottas smashed Hamilton by seven fastest laps to three. I'm not certain I would agree that this points to him having the beating of Hamilton?

[Just_a_fan]

Crucially, fastest laps, qualifying, etc don't actually matter. What matters is the points that a driver brings home. For instance, Bottas smashed Hamilton by seven fastest laps to three. I'm not certain I would agree that this points to him having the beating of Hamilton?

Particularly when the fastest laps is sometimes/often made by a driver on much newer tyres due to a late pit stop for some reason. New tyres + low fuel = fast lap times.

Interestingly, Hamilton doesn't usually figure that much for fastest laps over a season. His pole record shows he can knock them out, but when you're controlling a race from the front, fastest lap is an irrelevancy.

[NathanOlder]

double post

[NathanOlder]

There's a weird phenomenon where certain drivers have their performances selectively dissected and over-criticized for what appears, to me anyway, to be nationalistic sentiment from Brits against Germans - "2 world wars and 1 world cup" and other crud like that. Rosberg beat Hamilton fair and square in 2016 - not because Hamilton had more failures. Those people never go the other way and consider Rosberg's failures in 2015 as an explanation for Hamilton winning the title.

So in 2016 Hamilton had 1 more retirement in the races. Malaysia, while leading with only a 1/4 of the race to go. Hamilton lost that title by 5 points. So its quite clear that Hamilton having that 1 failure to Nico's 0 did cost him the title.

As for 2015 , Nico had 2 failures to Lewis' 1 failure. A failure costs a maximum of 32pts in a race. That season Nico lost the title by 59 points, and that was after Nico won the last 4 races after Lewis wrapped up the title.

Its hard to say Nico won the title fair and square. Also hard to say Hamilton only won the title in 15 because of Nico's 1 extra retirement.

Edit, Just seen Just_a_fan beat me to it, almost word for word

[AJI]

So, is this still the 2018 in-season testing thread?

[djos]

Regardless of Kimi's performance against Vettel, one thing that has been very consistent across his career has been his ability to help develop cars, every team he's driven for that I can think of has been in a much more competitive position at the end of the season which kimi first drove for them. TBH I think that's why Ferrari brought him back for a second stint and imo it paid dividends.

I think he'll be a positive development force at Sauber, again too.

[hollus]

So, is this still the 2018 in-season testing thread?

Indeed it is, it says so in the title.

Please, let's keep the driver from seasons past ying-yang out of most threads, including this one. Why doesn't anyone open a thread to discuss it anyways? 2018 or bust (eyes on 2019 obviously can be on topic). Thanks.