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Why does Bottas get so much stick when getting badly beaten by Hamilton, yet no one gave Webber a hard time when he was being stomped by Vettel?
And Lewis Hamilton matches Michael Schumacher's 7 titles!
- Thread starter Merlin5
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Let's see how George Russell does this weekend then.
George Russell is hardly "almost any driver".
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Hamboys getting the excuses in early in case GR cruises to victory.
Caporegime
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Overhyped because he is English. Pretty much unproven. If he goes and wins it will just show how one sided the championship has been for the past 6 years.
Unproven in F1, sure, at least outside of his stunningly good qualifying record, but he has back to back win in GP3 and F2 to his name, and solid wins at that. Few drivers in F1 have such glowing pre-F1 records. Of course for now, that's just promise, but he needs a seat in a car that isn't a shopping trolley before he can prove that he can live up to that promise in F1.
That won't tell us much. Its not a car he has driven before so you can't expect him to be as competent in it as a driver who has been driving it for 3 years. If he does that well I will be amazed and it really will show how good the Merc is.
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Both Pastor Maldonado and Jolyon Palmer both won GP2. I don't really watch it as I am more a rally man but I guess George Russell was racing for a dominant team in the second tier.
Did they do it back to back with a formula 3 win? There are only 3 drivers in F1 who don't have single seater championships behind them, but very few have back to back wins in the lower formulas. As for his team, firstly both tiers are spec series so the team makes far less difference, but also his teammate (Jack Aitken, as it happens) in 2018 came 11th so I don't think you can really chalk that one up the team regardless.
Honestly, if you don't think Russell has a very, very impressive record coming into F1 then you simply haven't been paying attention. Of course, all that counts for nought once you reach F1, and he needs to go on to prove that he can do it at the higher level, but every indication so far is that Russell is something special. We shall see.
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There's been a few iffy drivers in F2, but Russell was against his current teammate (well former and future teammate technically), Lando Norris and Jack Aitkin and several other noteworthy drivers and destroyed them all.
Both Pastor and Jolyon took 4 seasons to win their titles. The good drivers tend to win the championship in their first.
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Wasn't Palmer sacked by Renault and has now become a "talking head" for the BBC - or is that a different Palmer?
Yup, that Palmer.
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I bet if GR cruises to victory with 30s to spare, Merc wont be offering Hamilton quite so generous a contract 
This is a good point.
It was the same with Massa, yet even though bottas benchmarked above Massa as teammates bottas is not getting any slack.
I rate Hamilton titles much more than Schumacher. Schumacher never had decent competitors the standard was poor. I don't even rate hakkinen, perhaps slightly above average who was invisible from 91 to 97, and did his best to throw titles away despite dominant car in 98 and barely scraped past Irvine in 99.
Also Schumacher had a much publicised teammate veto in his contract.
Ps. Barichello has come out and said Hamilton better than Schumacher.
https://www.grandprix.com/news/hamilton-better-than-schumacher-says-barrichello.html
Martin brundle said the same thing in Bahrain ssf1 on Sunday pre race show.
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Also I think this comparison is temporary as Hamilton will push on towards 8-10 titles so makes this a moot point.
The great car leveller of that turkey race with track and rain showed me max and Leclerc still don't cut it when all things are equal as you'll get.
The great car leveller of that turkey race with track and rain showed me max and Leclerc still don't cut it when all things are equal as you'll get.
I always have a bit of trouble with rating drivers in F1 - for pure driving skill I've not seen anyone come close to Hamilton's honed precision but others are arguably better when it comes to visualising [racing] strategy, etc. - in the same car I think Max could take a lot of wins (maybe not more than 50/50 - but definitely could be winning a lot more) from Hamilton if he had more discipline/patience as he seems to understands when to hold back as well as pushing forward, etc. etc. at a higher level but often gives in to frustration.
Comparing the onboard of them when purely lapping and when working the field is quite interesting.
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I find that a pretty strange thing to say when Hamilton has been calling his own strategy lately overulling the team strategy.
Agree max would take some wins of Hamilton but wouldn't beat him over a year. Riccardo took more wins and poles Vs max, not bad for a #2 driver.
I'm not saying Hamilton is bad when it comes to strategy not at all - but if you remove everything else from the equation Max is capable of some serious race strategy if he doesn't give in to frustration, etc. and I think would come much closer results wise to Hamilton despite Hamilton being significantly the better driver. Although in a straight head to head in the same car with just the two of them, no considerations like tyres or other race management factors, etc. on the track it would be Hamilton every time.
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Of course brundle and barichello would say that. They both raced against him and got battered. Schumacher won a double title at Benetton which wasn't the best car. He also took Ferrari from the ashes into a dominant force. Both drivers didn't have the competition like in the 80's although Schumacher caught the tail end of that in the early 90's. Hamilton bar the initial rule change in 09-10 has had a car that was either the fastest or close enough to be challenging for titles. Hamilton's decision making was extremely poor in his McLaren days and has only gotten better in recent times. Schumacher very rarely made mistakes in that regard. He was like the ultimate combination of Prost and Senna.