Bahrain Grand Prix 2015, Sakhir - Race 4/19

Rosberg wasn't remotely close last year. As with China, we saw all last year Rosberg couldn't pull in a large gap on his own against Hamilton. Hamilton rarely bothered to pull out a gap because a safety car/whatever else can screw you. When Rosberg was ahead in all but a couple of circumstances Hamilton gained on him at a rate of a good half a second a lap most of the time, sometimes faster. He passed him on almost every occasion except at tracks where overtaking is near impossible and they were also in the same team. Had it been Alonso/Vettel ahead of him and a title at stake he may well have made other passes last year as well.

When Hamilton got ahead, he managed a 1-1.5second gap at most races. If Rosberg every tried to close he'd ease out the gap at will. Hamilton was a good half a second a lap faster than Rosberg almost everywhere last year.

Realistically only the pressure of trailing Rosberg got to Hamilton in qualifying, and the brakes were a little unreliable as well so he had less confidence. Had Hamilton won Australia last year, he'd have looked as completely dominant in the first 4 races as he has this year. Bahrain was only close because of the safety car last year, even then with a massive tire disadvantage(you're talking 0.5-1 second a lap speed advantage Rosberg couldn't get by him.
 
I reckon there's a good chance Rosberg will do something stupid at the start tomorrow. He may not admit it but he knows that he'll find it almost impossible to get past Vettel in the race so he'll try everything to jump him at the start and probably spoon it up.
 
Vertigo1 said:
I reckon there's a good chance Rosberg will do something stupid at the start tomorrow. He may not admit it but he knows that he'll find it almost impossible to get past Vettel in the race so he'll try everything to jump him at the start and probably spoon it up.
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What like run square into the back of lewis? or try to get a wing into his rear tyre sidewall?
 
Jono8 said:
There really was.
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Not in times there wasn't. As I said the results were very one-sided, but they weren't half a second a lap apart. They were probably the two closest team mates on the grid in qualifying and not much worse in the race. Hamilton's race consistency was what decided the title.
 
steve45 said:
What like run square into the back of lewis? or try to get a wing into his rear tyre sidewall?
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Possibly! :)

Alternatively, assuming they get away in grid order and Lewis has the pace to pull clear of Vettel, does anyone reckon the team may ask him to back Vettel up a bit to give Rosberg a chance of passing him? If they did, does anyone think he'd pay the slightest bit of attention? :)
 
this_is_gav said:
Not in times there wasn't. As I said the results were very one-sided, but they weren't half a second a lap apart. They were probably the two closest team mates on the grid in qualifying and not much worse in the race. Hamilton's race consistency was what decided the title.
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Then you didn't watch any races obviously. Firstly Hamilton beat Rosberg by large margins in qualifying multiple times, not every time but in general when Rosberg beat Ham it was by very small margins(one big one aside the rain in, was it Silverstone?) but Hamilton generally beat Rosberg by larger amounts.

Multiple races due to reliability and other reasons Hamilton ended up down the order he was passing cars, coming to 2nd with a decent gap 3-10 seconds to Rosberg, and catching him. Ate him alive at Monza after car trouble at the start, ate him alive at Brazil in the final stint again, stayed ahead in Bahrain on the slower tire. At the majority of tracks when a gap had appeared due to traffic or even a mistake as in brazil, Hamilton could catch Rosberg whenever he liked, Rosberg couldn't catch Hamilton.... at all. The only time he was close was when Hamilton purposefully put Rosberg in his dirty air.

More often than not there WAS a half second race pace gap between them, much more often than not.
 
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Vertigo1 said:
Possibly! :)

Alternatively, assuming they get away in grid order and Lewis has the pace to pull clear of Vettel, does anyone reckon the team may ask him to back Vettel up a bit to give Rosberg a chance of passing him? If they did, does anyone think he'd pay the slightest bit of attention? :)
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I did think that Rosberg could be the kind of guy who at some stage this year if completely dominated he may start to think about ways to hurt Hamilton in terms of, 'accidentally' ruining another qualifying session if Vettel is ahead, or knocking him off the track, essentially putting Hamilton under pressure from Vettel gaining points on him.

His attitude to being beaten, the cheating he did last year, that he quite actively chose to hit Hamilton on the track last year. That he said after it that he decided to do it and brought up Hamilton not giving him room at previous races like it was okay to hit him back and like it was revenge. he's got a nasty streak in him, clearly doesn't react well to being beaten.
 
drunkenmaster said:
His attitude to being beaten, the cheating he did last year, that he quite actively chose to hit Hamilton on the track last year. That he said after it that he decided to do it and brought up Hamilton not giving him room at previous races like it was okay to hit him back and like it was revenge. he's got a nasty streak in him, clearly doesn't react well to being beaten.
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See my comments earlier about being a spoilt brat.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Firstly Hamilton beat Rosberg by large margins in qualifying multiple times, not every time but in general when Rosberg beat Ham it was by very small margins(one big one aside the rain in, was it Silverstone?) but Hamilton generally beat Rosberg by larger amounts.
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In 2014 sessions where both set a time in Q3 Rosberg was 0.187 faster than Hamilton. Skewed by Silverstone obviously, but Rosberg was at least the stronger qualifier over all, even if you gift Hamilton the poles at Hockenheim and Hungary.

Hamilton out-qualified Rosberg by a margin greater than he did today precisely... once (in the wet in Shanghai).


drunkenmaster said:
More often than not there WAS a half second race pace gap between them, much more often than not.
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Once. Which however you want to spin it, isn't "more often than not".


drunkenmaster said:
Then you didn't watch any races obviously.
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No, I just read the reports. :rolleyes:
 
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By the way, I do feel they're probably wearing the wrong crash helmets for this circuit.

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So because I said a race pace difference... you've decided to look at qualifying times to prove there wasn't a half second gap.... sure.

Then when I said there has been a large margin more often than not when Hamilton beat Rosberg.... you decided to take this to mean gaps larger than today.... okay, well done. YOu argued stupid points I didn't make at all.

Most of the time he outqualified Rosberg last year he was 3/10ths or more ahead, I think only one was sub 1/10th and one more sub 2/10ths. 1 very close to 3/10ths, a few above 3/10ths and one around 6/10ths.

In races both Hamilton and Rosberg finished, Hamilton finished ahead 10 times to Rosberg's 4. In the ones he dropped out of he looked the stronger driver, either catching Rosberg very fast(as Montreal) or looking the faster driver all weekend(as Australia). When Rosberg went out, Hamilton was catching him very fast also.

Hamilton had every disadvantage last year, and absolutely trounced him in the races and showed a decent margin when qualifying ahead.

EDIT:- looking through Rosberg's poles, first few were 3/10ths, then 5/100ths(in Monaco where Hamilton had the fastest s1 before Rosberg cheated him out of the lap), then 1/10th, Japan 2/10ths, USA 3/100ths. In each of the 3 sessions Hamilton ended up about 4/10ths back they were the qualifying sessions in which he'd complained about glazed brakes during the session. He was struggling with brakes last year. Not struggling with brakes this year and he's destroying Rosberg. This was also remember after his preferred brake material had issues and they changed material. He was using brakes several times that Rosberg preferred, not his own brand. Every driver up and down the grid has a favoured brake. RBR changed material when Vettel left because Vettel also liked Brembo but the team wanted to use something else. Every driver has issues on brakes that work differently to what they are used to.

Same happened in 2013, when Hamilton outqualified Rosberg it was by generally a larger margin.
 
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Wasn't Rosberg setting his car up for qualifying as well last year? I remember there was discussion about it here on the forum but nobody really knew if it was true or not as we were just guessing why he was so fast in quali but in race pace he was well behind Hamilton.
 
drunkenmaster said:
So because I said a race pace difference... you've decided to look at qualifying times to prove there wasn't a half second gap.... sure.
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OK, the first point I will grant you. I missed "race" in your quote. But you'd struggle to argue Hamilton was simply half a second faster per lap when he felt like it. There were occasions certainly, and he was certainly much faster over all in races (probably Sakhir and Barcelona being the odd ones out), but there weren't many races where he was able to turn it up to the tune of half a second, which he can this year it seems.



drunkenmaster said:
Then when I said there has been a large margin more often than not when Hamilton beat Rosberg.... you decided to take this to mean gaps larger than today.... okay, well done. YOu argued stupid points I didn't make at all.
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As I thought I made clear, I was referring to pace in qualifying... seeing as today was... qualifying. Comparing to last year in qualifying, such a gap wasn't even close to evident (except that one time in the wet in Shanghai where Rosberg messed up). I was merely pointing out how much more dominant Hamilton is over Rosberg this season (in qualifying).

I don't think anyone clinically sane would argue anything other than Hamilton being dominant in terms of race pace last year.
 
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lucarocks92 said:
Rosberg owned by Hamilton and beaten by a Ferrari, he's a defeated man.
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He's not looking ragged in the car (surprisingly), but yes, he must be feeling very ground down at the moment. He's so determined to win, yet no matter what he does he just can't get on terms.

His response on the radio after missing out on pole in Shanghai was very telling.
 
this_is_gav said:
He's not looking ragged in the car (surprisingly), but yes, he must be feeling very ground down at the moment. He's so determined to win, yet no matter what he does he just can't get on terms.

His response on the radio after missing out on pole in Shanghai was very telling.
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Ye blaming his team for not being as fast as Hamilton even though he was the one driving.
 
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