And Lewis Hamilton wins his 5th Championship!

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CSMonkeh said:
Until the young upstart outclasses the #1 driver like with McLaren in ‘07.....
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I always wondered how Hamilton's fortunes would have panned out if Hamilton had shown Alonso the same racer respect of the Cevert/Stewart relationship, learn from the Maestro.

Obviously Hamilton did a Senna & then Hell broke loose.

Whether Le Clerc will show respect to Vettel or gun from the outset, it will be interesting.
 
Ninco! said:
I always wondered how Hamilton's fortunes would have panned out if Hamilton had shown Alonso the same racer respect of the Cevert/Stewart relationship, learn from the Maestro.

Obviously Hamilton did a Senna & then Hell broke loose.

Whether Le Clerc will show respect to Vettel or gun from the outset, it will be interesting.
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I'm wondering in what way Hamilton 'didn't show respect' to Alonso. It was Alonso who freaked out when Hamilton was ahead of him in the championship and outperforming him on track. Starting with things like Alonso making multiple mistakes in Canada trying to be faster, to Indianapolis and showing his displeasure in behind unable to pass and asking the team to move Hamilton over, to Hungary and purposefully sabotaging Hamilton's qualifying, etc.

Fact is, if you have pace, you use pace, you don't learn anything by backing off and being slower to let a established driver feel better about themselves. If Hamilton backed off and played the no.2 he'd be a worse driver for it and his pace and the fact he led ALonso on merit in the championship means there was never any reason for him to back off and 'help' Alonso out with points.

Being respectful has literally nothing to do with letting the other person win. If Leclerc is capable of going faster and holds off to make Vettel happy then he's not got the right attitude to be a champion.
 
FYI, Alonso went around the garage with envelopes of cash for all the mechanics on his side of the garage (in the midst of the Hamilton feud).

It was only when Ron Dennis found out that everyone was ordered to give the money back and Alonso was instructed to stop playing games and make a sizeable donation to charity instead ;)

Point being, a top driver will do everything on and off track to gain an advantage.
 
EVH said:
FYI, Alonso went around the garage with envelopes of cash for all the mechanics on his side of the garage (in the midst of the Hamilton feud).

It was only when Ron Dennis found out that everyone was ordered to give the money back and Alonso was instructed to stop playing games and make a sizeable donation to charity instead ;)

Point being, a top driver will do everything on and off track to gain an advantage.
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Wow
 
Piquet did similar against Mansell at Williams. He bought his mechanics expensive watches, tickets to events, even cars in some cases. Even worse was that he'd flaunt it to Mansells mechanics to show how great him and his guys were. He was a dirty little *******. Must be a family thing.
 
Participant said:
How many more championships do people think Hamilton is capable of? I think he'll do another one or perhaps two, but a total of 8 is an enormous ask.
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It entirely depends on whether Mercedes can keep ahead of Ferrari in the development race and what happens when the new rules come in.

As a driver, he’s more than capable of equalling or beating Schumacher’s record. However, there are so many other factors that determine the WDC that’s it’s difficult to predict.
 
Cool if it happens, depends on what the other teams do. Kamikaze max is a problem for any of them in a championship battle. Personally I hope Honda and red bull go backwards on the grid.
 
Maybe Mercedes will keep ahead of the chasing pack as the rules are tweaked over the next few years, or the two Ferraris will take points off each other, in which case at least equalling Schumacher's tally is very possible.

But I can't help but feel that 2007 and 2016 might be the closest Lewis ever gets to seven titles.

I'm not an F1 driver/constructor fanboi, I would much rather see a handful of drivers and teams realistically fighting for race wins week in week out... A bit like 2011 iirc without googling, when there was something like 10 different drivers who won a race in the first half of the season.

The sport desperately needs narrower cars (including tyres), less aero grip that creates less turbulence for following cars (and damages follower's tyres), less mickey mouse street style tracks full of 90 degree bends.
 
Spunkey said:
I think Leclerc may be the force to be reckoned with over the next few seasons. Max is quick, but inconsistent and makes too many rash decisions when battling.
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Thing is, you can never tell with F1. Max was highly rated and tipped to be a champion one day but it's looking unlikely with all the mistakes he makes. Leclerc is becoming the next pretender to the throne, driving very well in his rookie season but it might be another flash in the pan.
 
Max is fast, but like Vettel, he exhibits very poor judgement, a hot head, and temper when it comes to wheel to wheel racing. You can't win championships nowadays unless you are tactically aware, not just jamming the car up the inside at every corner, whether the opportunity exists or not.
 
Merlin5 said:
Thing is, you can never tell with F1. Max was highly rated and tipped to be a champion one day but it's looking unlikely with all the mistakes he makes. Leclerc is becoming the next pretender to the throne, driving very well in his rookie season but it might be another flash in the pan.
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It's not looking unlikely at all, he will win a championship, probably multiple ones. He's still 2 years younger than Lewis was when he first entered the sport. His future is very bright and he potentially has 15+ seasons left in the sport...
 
neckbeardthethird said:
It's not looking unlikely at all, he will win a championship, probably multiple ones. He's still 2 years younger than Lewis was when he first entered the sport. His future is very bright and he potentially has 15+ seasons left in the sport...
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I guess we forget really how young he is, and how a lot of people become more mature with age, especially during their mid to late twenties.

Although you'd have thought he'd have been learning from his experiences but that doesn't seem to be happening quite yet, plenty of time though.
 
Lewis has been fortunate to be in a dominant car, an unlucky season reliability and a few mistakes aside only in 2016 did he lose a championship in the turn hybrid era.

He has now won 49 of the 99 races in the turbo hybrid era but let’s face it against Rosberg and Bottas he’s not had a lot of competition. Up until this year Mercedes has been so dominant that his team mates were his only competition.

As for all the Max and Vettel haters, their time will come! Max is at least as good as Lewis! Ocon should have received a ban for his actions in Brazil.

I wonder how different the outcome of the championship would have been had the “special cooling” on the Mercedes rear wheels was found earlier? A lot has gone Lewis’s way this year, he’s had a very compliant team mate and Bottas should have won in Russia, Germany, and Baku.

He’s been lucky with a couple of FIA decisions this year! He should have got a qualifying penalty for dangerous driving in Brazil as the incident with Sirotkin and the lack of a penalty for crossing the pit lane earlier in the season was a travesty,

Kimi has hardly been the team player since he found out he was being replaced, despite being unable to win the championship for a while. I think back to Monza when he had the opportunity to make sure Lewis didn’t get between him and Vettel at the start and loom what happened.

Germany aside Vettel hasn’t made that many mistakes, he’s given it his all and when you get behind you have to take some risks and some strange spins after minor contact.

Lewis is a fantastic driver, but I’d love 2019 to see Red Bull have a competitive engine and also see how LeClerc will do also.

Lewis is a legend over a single lap, but it’s easier to win championships from pole with an average team mate. But Vettel isn’t finished and I love the way people say that he was only able to win because Red Bull were so dominant at the time and he can only win races from the front. Hasn’t that’s what just happened for Hamilton?
 
I think a lot of people would argue with saying "Vettel hasn't made that many mistakes" - he's put himself in a lot of bad positions through his own doing and ended up being punished for it (maybe a higher proportion than normal). However, compare this with Hamilton who has driven very maturely this year.
 
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