Singapore Grand Prix 2011, Marina Bay Street Circuit - Race 14/19

therealnerd2 said:
Wierd how everyone focuses on Hammy, when MS did basically the same thing, but worse.
Click to expand...

That may have something to do with the fact that Schumacher has admitted when he's screwed up this season, and not just said "It's 'cos I is German, innit?"....;)

In fairness to Lewis, there have been occasions this year when he's taken the heat for hisi race weekend not going to plan. Unfortunately, there are many more occasions when he's simply not been prepared to admit fault not only to the TV cameras but even seemingly himself. It's one thing to put a front on for the world that you aren't prepared to accept blame, but if you're managing to kid yourself that you are in no way at fault then how the hell are you going to learn anything?

Lewis came out of Liegate in '09 fully accepting that he was part way to blame (even if McLaren were trying to pin it all on Dave Ryan). His season thereafter was actually a lot more impressive than his championship year. He knuckled down, got on with improving the car, and was a race winner by the end of the year. This should have been the springboard for him becoming one of the best drivers of this generation. Instead, we've ended up with a petulant, unlikeable sod who refuses to accept that he is not The Messiah™ and is in fact a very naughty boy.

Oops, sorry sunama - a Python reference slipped in. Forgot that I wasn't supposed to be making those any more, wouldn't want to confuse you.

;)
 
Overtaking stats so far

1. Jenson Button - 69
2. Felipe Massa - 62
3. Michael Schumacher - 60
==. Mark Webber - 60
5. Lewis Hamilton - 58
6. Sebastien Buemi - 56
7. Kamui Kobayashi - 51
8. Jaime Alguersuari - 49
9. Sergio Perez - 45
==. Paul Di Resta - 45
11. Pastor Maldonado - 40
12. Adrian Sutil - 36
==. Nick Heidfeld - 36
14. Nico Rosberg - 35
==. Rubens Barrichello - 35
16. Vitaly Petrov - 30
==. Fernando Alonso - 30
18. Sebasian Vettel - 22
19. Bruno Senna - 15
20. Jarno Trulli - 14
21. Heikki Kovalainen - 11
==. Timo Glock - 11
23. Jerome D'Ambrosio - 9
24. Vitantonio Liuzzi - 8
25. Pedro De La Rosa - 4
26. Narain Karthikeyan - 3
==. Daniel Ricciardo - 3
28. Karun Chandhok - 0

897 overtaking in 14 races = 64 overtaking per race.
 
With the rapidly degrading Pirelli tyres that cost you 3 seconds a lap when they go off, and DRS, the overtaking stat is rather meaningless.

Of course Chandhok passed nobody, he spent Nurburgring at the back spinning off repeatedly and finishing 2 laps down on his teammate :p
 
http://www.ferrari.com/English/

The Horse Whisperer and Shakespeare
10.4.2011

Words, words, words...Reading some of the English daily papers, it seems the Horse Whisperer is not alone in having his thoughts turn to William Shakespeare when he stumbled across the polemical mountain made out of the molehill that was the phrase delivered by Rob Smedley during the Singapore Grand Prix.

It’s true that Felipe Massa’s race engineer was caught up in the heat of the moment and chose to use the verb “destroy” at some point. It might not have been the most politically correct choice of word, but it definitely carried no malicious intent, especially when you take into account that Rob is a Middlesbrough lad, born and bred! It is also true that this exhortation to Felipe came at the exit to Turn 5 on lap 11 of the race, at the end of which both the Ferrari man and Hamilton were due to come in to the pits together. In other words, it had nothing to do with the collision between Felipe and Lewis that happened on the following lap.

It would not have taken much to avoid this misunderstanding, but that’s what happens in the frenetic world of Formula 1. When all is said done, as the Bard of Avon himself might have put it, it was all much ado about nothing.
Click to expand...

Love it :D
 
Skeeter said:
It is that simple.

Success in F1 is measured in race results, which are rewarded with points, which are totalled up into a championship.

The best F1 driver at any given time is the one leading the championship.
Click to expand...
I acn't help but laugh and think that the car doesnt half help though.
 
hes one of those "points are all that mttters if you dont have them your crap" kind of guys...

he doesnt bother looking into the details of races just turns his brain off and eats popcorn
 
skeeter knows a bit about F1 and anyone who knows something about F1 knows that the car has a massive bearing on your points total.
Put Alonso, Hamilton, Button and Vettel into HRTs and then we shall see if they can finish in the top 4 positions of the WDC.

You can only compare drivers directly, who drive the same car, which is why the most important opponent for any driver is his own team-mate.
 
Lol.

I'm not ignoring the car, and neither am I trying to stir some sort of massive fight.

Yes, the car makes a massive difference, but, applying a massive generalisation, good cars are built by good teams. Good drivers get into good teams and therefore into good cars by being good drivers either in lower cars, or lower divisions. You don't just luck your way into a fast car and breeze to a championship without being a bit good.

(I state this is a massive generalisation as I know its not as simple as that. Things like Button/Brawn are exceptions).

So, to be in a good car in a good team you need to be a good driver. So, if you therefore assume that the drivers of cars at the top of the field have got there on merit, then you can compare them relative to each other. The added fact of a team mate allows you to more easily pick out where the advantage is the car or the driver.

And, as much as arknor would like to think otherwise, I do like all the other comparisons that are done. Theres loads about and they make some interesting reading. Things like overtaking stats, qualifying stats, lap time comparisons, etc etc. They all enrich the experience of being an F1 fan.

However, the pinnacle of it all is the WDC. The sole aim of this championship is to find the best F1 driver in that given season. The WDC is decided based on points, which are given based on race finishing positions. Now I am not ignorant, I know that the race result is just the tip of an iceberg that includes a combination of driver skill, car performance, individual track conditions, the performance of the whole team at the track and back home, and everyone else directly or indirectly involved with the team and driver. But the measure remains points.

The race result is the final measure of a drivers complete performance. The WDC is therefore the measure of the drivers complete performance, all things considered, over the whole season. The guy with the most, is the best.

Questioning the validity of using points as a measure of performance questions the entire validity of the WDC, and in turn opens up the utterly pointless annual 'did X driver deserve the title' discussions.

I am not ignoring everything else, I am merely judging a drivers success using the same measure that the sport itself uses.

So, as I have said, using the sports own measure, the driver at the top of the table is the driver who is performing the best. His performance is based on a million and 1 things, but the position in the WDC represents the collective performance of every one of those million and 1 things.

If you are a good driver, you increase your chances of getting into a good team. If you are in a good team, you increase your chances of getting into a good car. If you are in a good car you increase your chances of getting good race results. Yes, each one of the 'goods' in that are sliding scales with lots affecting them, but when all added up, the end result is... points. And the one with the most, is the best.
 
Last edited:
What you're actually saying is that the person who is leading the WDC is the best driver and car combination at the time. You've just left off the second part of the equation.

It is as wrong to say that the winner of the WDC is automatically the best driver as it is to say that the winner of the WDC must have had the best car.
 
Best driver, best driver and car, best driver and car and engineer and team boss and mechanics and enginers and designers and lorry drivers and cooks and cleaners. However you cut it, the best is at the top.

I'm not saying its the definative way to identify the outright best driver at that given second, I'm just saying its the way the sport orders its drivers, so therefore is how best to acertain who is better than who.

You can make up any sort of statistic you like to order the drivers however you see fit (like arknor does), but at the end of the day, its WDC points that count.

I think its worth pointing out, this is not a go at people trying to sing the praises of a single driver, its more a response to those people who selectively choose certain statistics to support their view, like choosing certain races to show Schumacher has been faster than Rosberg and is therefore better, while the simple fact is, Rosberg is ahead of Schumacher in the WDC.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom