Belgium Grand Prix 2011, Spa Circuit - Race 12/19

Soldato
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I fell asleep....

Rough as a dogs left bollok, i am.

I woke back up as soon as Hamilton crashed , then nodded back off. So was a the race a good one? Think ill watch what ever happened after the race later.
 
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Yep, fair play to Lewis for admitting he was at fault. When it happened I just thought it was a racing incident and I didn't blame either driver. Both of them could have done more to prevent it happening but I felt neither was to blame.

I just wonder if now that Lewis is 113 points behind Vettel with 175 left to score, Lewis can afford to say he was at fault because the title's well out of reach. If that same incident had happened in Australia, would Lewis have taken the blame so willingly?
 
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I just wonder if now that Lewis is 113 points behind Vettel with 175 left to score, Lewis can afford to say he was at fault because the title's well out of reach. If that same incident had happened in Australia, would Lewis have taken the blame so willingly?

To be fair, lewis has been acting a lot more mature since the "its coz im black innit" comment.

I prefer the immature lewis what says what he thinks :)
 
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To be fair, lewis has been acting a lot more mature since the "its coz im black innit" comment.
He has, although hasn't he made a few comments about having a loyalty card with the stewards or something in the last few races? I'd like to think that someone fairly senior at McLaren took Lewis to one side after Monaco and, in no uncertain terms, explained how pathetically childish and immature his comments were and not to do anything so stupid again.

I prefer the immature lewis what says what he thinks :)
Well it is funny and we always love soundbites!
 
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He has, although hasn't he made a few comments about having a loyalty card with the stewards or something in the last few races? I'd like to think that someone fairly senior at McLaren took Lewis to one side after Monaco and, in no uncertain terms, explained how pathetically childish and immature his comments were and not to do anything so stupid again.

Well it is funny and we always love soundbites!

I quite like it when there is a bit of personality and emotion in the interviews rather than just the corporate line being regurgitated. I'm not saying I always agree when drivers lash out, but it's certainly more entertaining and honest. I can understand why the sponsors dislike it, but I can't see why some viewers would prefer the corporate dribble. The Monaco comment was only a joke anyway, which I think has been blown out of proportion. I find the stewards loyalty card thing quite funny and it's good he can look at previous events without taking it too seriously.

Just as a viewer why would you like to think McLaren would prevent him from making harsh comments again?
 
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I quite like it when there is a bit of personality and emotion in the interviews rather than just the corporate line being regurgitated. I'm not saying I always agree when drivers lash out, but it's certainly more entertaining and honest. I can understand why the sponsors dislike it, but I can't see why some viewers would prefer the corporate dribble. The Monaco comment was only a joke anyway, which I think has been blown out of proportion. I find the stewards loyalty card thing quite funny and it's good he can look at previous events without taking it too seriously.
Same. I don't mind them having a laugh, it's much better than saying how excellent the engineers from "Team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes" have worked, blah-blah-blah but for Lewis to imply he's getting to spend a lot of the time with the stewards because he's black, and therefore the stewards must be racist, is pretty damned stupid.

Just as a viewer why would you like to think McLaren would prevent him from making harsh comments again?
Because McLaren are quite a serious and corporate outfit. I don't think the sponsors at McLaren would be too impressed with repeat performances similar to the Ali G comment and I can't see the team liking his inference too much either.
 

JRS

JRS

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Mr_White said:
Hamilton's Twitter comments

Much respect to Lewis for taking the blame for that one. He's acting once again like the Lewis Hamilton we saw mid-way through 2009 when he and McLaren began to find front-running form again after the bruising start to the year. Much better. He may be good for headlines when he's railing at anyone and everyone, refusing to take any blame for an incident that he's involved in, but it's an ugly side of him and I hope it doesn't re-appear any time soon.

***edit***

The Tamara thing with Jenson - apparently she was interviewing him for Sky Sports, and he answered his phone in the middle of the interview. Seems she was offended at not getting his full attention for her doubtless insightful and thought-provoking interview questions....
 
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JRS, I'm sure you will be the first one to agree that ALL top drivers, at the peak of their powers believe that they can do no wrong. If an incident happens, it is always somebody elses fault.

I believe that Hamilton is very much at the peak of his powers and that we are very likely to see more "wasn't my fault" quotes from Hamilton.

My gut feeling is that those tweets have been contrived by McLaren's PR gurus.
 

JRS

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JRS, I'm sure you will be the first one to agree that ALL top drivers, at the peak of their powers believe that they can do no wrong. If an incident happens, it is always somebody elses fault.

In some ways, he's a bit reminiscent of James Hunt. There were times when Hunt would hold his hands up, ruefully admit that he'd made a mistake, and apologise to the team. Indeed, at Brazil in '76 he even took the heat for his race-ending spin before the team investigated and found that the throttle had jammed. But then there were times that he simply wouldn't accept that he'd been over-aggressive or screwed up, and those were usually punctuated with profanity-laden rants. Hamilton has a lot of that dual nature about him. The days when he sheepishly grins, holds his hands up and says 'sorry, I buggered that one up' are the days where he goes up in everyone's estimation. The days where he rants like the entire world is against him are the days that we don't need to see any more of.

Drive and ambition are not the same as an arrogant belief that you can do no wrong.
 
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Totally agree. Nice to see Hamilton admitting his was at fault again. I think his rants are because he's not that bright, where as Direstas car explantions after the race is something you never see from Hamilton or to some extent Button. More technical knowledge in one interview than I've ever seen from Lewis. I really hope that boy has a big future because he's good to listen to.

I don't get the love fest for Schumachers drive though, the Merc engine had mental top speed especially with the DRS zone as it was. Driving to the top 8/10 was going to be a walk in the park. Kudos for staying out of trouble and he's starting really well this year, but the only reason he got on his team mate was because of the safety car. It also made sense to start MS on the harder tyre because he would still be able to fly past the back markers. By the time he was past them he wouldn't have lost much being on the harder compound.

I still do not get the fuel save call to rosberg. Rosberg finished on his tail so clearly rosberg was either making a point against a disguised team order?

:confused:

Especially as Rosberg was defending well against much faster cars than MS.
 
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Well JRS, if you go back in the history of F1, you will see that all the top drivers, at their peak would do things (sometimes wrong) and believe that they were in the right. Some were also paranoid that the World was against them. Perhaps this is what made them great.

I don't think I've yet to come along a top driver, at his peak who doesn't get embroiled in some form of controversy.

Senna, Mansell, Prost, MSc, Alonso - they all had some strange thought processes.

Even if you look at Vettel - at Turkey, when he collided with his team-mate, he made out as if it was completely utterly Webber's fault and he refused to share no blame for the incident.

In summary, Hamilton's "it's not my fault" attitude is quite normal for top race car drivers.

On the subject of Vettel - he has now won 17 races. It really does look like Hamilton, who was supposed to be the one to dominate F1, is getting left behind. With every season that goes by, Vettel is racking up race wins and pole positions and Hamilton is being made to look (statistically) ordinary, compared with Vettel.

Surely, Hamilton must make a play to move to Red Bull, if only to rescue his career which appears to have stalled?
 
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Hamilton drives purely on natural talent and instinct..that's it. He can't seem to drive fast and engage his brain at the same time. If there is someone in his way he will either try a high risk overtake or hit them.

He seems more humble lately and is clearly being advised differently on what to say and how to behave since the catalogue of incidents. Maybe he is also realising he might not live up to what he was supposed to be.
 
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I'm surprised no-one mentioned or asked questions about Kobayashi's sudden closing in of Hamilton at the end of the straight. Hamilton overtook Kobayashi easily and had his DRS open, yet Kobayashi was right on Hamilton's rear wing by the end of the straight? The on-board shots of Hamilton don't show him lifting or anything going wrong, so I wonder if he was right in his interview during the race in that he had a little too much down force on and so had his top speed compromised. If true, I'd wager it being the reason for Hamilton's somewhat lacklustre performance over the first few laps where he didn't really have an answer for the Ferraris and the four in front of him escaping a bit.

Still, I could be wrong. Would be interesting to see some stats on Hamiltons top speed down the Kemmel Straight relative to the others, though, especially as in each and every replay of the incident, the speedo graphic was never shown (bugged me no end :o). Maybe some kind soul can dig something up?
 
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Hamilton's tweets are managed by McLaren - all part of the PR machine.

Just watched the race again, and Jenson's overtaking was brilliant, daring yet safe. He left room for the other driver in virtually all of them.

Really impressive drive.
 
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