SectorOne wrote:Stradivarius wrote:I am wondering, do those who now rate Hamilton in front of Rosberg because he has more points, also rate Button in front of Hamilton from 2010 to 2012? Keep in mind that Button scored more points than Hamilton while they both drove for McLaren.
Now you are isolating the situation though.
The fact that Hamilton has more points then Rosberg is just one part of the puzzle.
Other parts are that despite ROS has taken three poles, Hamilton is the quicker guy on average with higher average grid position.
I don´t think anyone is saying "Hamilton has more points then ROS, that means he´s better".
Actually, Rosberg has a higher average grid position than Hamilton. Rosberg has started 6th, 6th, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st. Hamilton has started 3rd, 4th, 1st, 9th, 2nd, 2nd. Rosberg's average is 3.167, while Hamilton's average is 3.5.
But we are not simply looking at the results, are we? You seem to imply that we are trying to look a bit behind the results, since points is just one part of the puzzle. But eventually, results need to be converted into some sort of comparable parameter, such as points, in order to perform a comparison. So maybe we could do that?
In Australia I think it is fair to assume that Rosberg would have finished on the place behind Hamilton, as that is where he was at the time he retired, running on similar pace to Hamilton. So that would have gotten Rosberg 8 more points.
In Malaysia there was a team order that most probably made Rosberg loose 3 points, while Hamilton gained 3 points.
In China, it is not so simple. Rosberg was behind Hulkenberg when his troubles started and Hulkenberg ended up 10th. On the other hand, Rosberg was in front of Grosjean, di Resta and Ricciardo, and they all beat Hulkenberg at the end. So Rosberg might have taken 6 points or 0 points and it is not possible to tell what was more likely. Let's put him in between and say that he lost 2 points, i,e. that he would have finished 9th.
Then we have Bahrain, where Hamilton was 4th quickest in qualifying, but started 9th due to a gearbox change. Here it is also quite difficult to say what he could have done, but considering Mercedes' tyre struggle, I don't know if Hamilton could have done much better. On one hand, di Resta and Grosjean are normally drivers that Hamilton could beat. On the other hand, if Hamilton had started 4th, he would be more likely to run into the same problems as Rosberg, fighting for positions through the race and eating his tyres, forcing a 4th stop. So he could have gained 2 or 5 points, if he had started 4th or he could actually have lost points and ended up like Rosberg. It's not really possible to tell, so let's give Hamilton 2 points more as compensation for the grid penalty and see where it leads us.
Hamilton then ends up with 1 point less (looses 3 points in Malaysia and gains 2 in Bahrain). While Rosberg ends up with 13 points more. So then it is 61 points to Hamilton and 60 points to Rosberg when trying to look behind the results. And to me it becomes very clear that they are too close to make any call. Even if you argue that Rosberg wouldn't have scored any points in China even if his car had been working, and that Hamilton would have taken 3rd in Bahrain if he had started 4th, you will see that the total difference is too small to say anything else than that they are at the same level.
In my opinion, the difference between Rosberg and Hamilton is too small to draw any conclusion. One single race is enough to change the average both in points, qualifying and race, and to me that simply means it is too close to make a call yet. It is possible that Hamilton has just had a difficult period and that he will go back to consistantly beat Rosberg in most qualifyings and races. But it is also possible that what happened in the beginning of the season was an abnormality and that Rosberg will continue to be quicker than Hamilton overall. Or maybe Hamilton still hasn't adapted to his new team? The truth is I don't know, and neither do you. I am guessing that they will keep performing at a very similar level and then it makes no sense to rate one driver higher than the other after just a few races. It's like predicting the weather by measuring the temperature. We need more data.
Claiming that Hamilton is the quicker guy seems very odd to me when Rosberg has been fastest in half the races and half the qualifying sessions. Another quality that defines a driver other than speed, is his judgement. Hamilton may be quick, but I think he is lacking in good judgement. He gave up 2nd place in Monaco and I would put that on the account for lack of judgement. There was no reason not to follow Rosberg. A couple of seconds margin would have been ok, but the tyres are changed in less than 3 seconds, so there was no reason to back off as much as Hamilton did and the result was that Vettel and Webber got past him. He then was about to destroy his tyres trying to pass Webber, when his team had to remind him that he would need those tyres for the rest of the race. At McLaren there was no doubt Hamilton was quicker than Button. But his bad judgement resulted in him scoring fewer points than Button. Even in 2011 when Button beat Hamilton by quite a margin, Hamilton still was quicker overall. But Button was more clever.
