The Hungarian Grand Prix was brilliant fun. There was drama, excitement, surprises, controversy, crashes and a spectacular showdown. Anyone who tells you Grand Prix racing isn’t a great show is dafter as a brush. For a while it looked like Fernando Alonso might give Ferrari a wildly improbable victory, then it looked as though Lewis Hamilton might pull off an amazing pit lane to chequered flag win, as Nico Rosberg complained that Lewis was ignoring an ill-advised instruction. What were they thinking? Why on earth did they think Hamilton should move over? And then through it all came Daniel Ricciardo to record a popular and brilliant victory. The World Championship is tighter than ever. Wonderful.
– We say what we think about the idea of Flavio Briatore coming back to improve F1… and it ain’t pretty!
– JS remembers John Melvin
– We talk to Daniil Kvyat
– We look at ways that F1 can do a better job
– We remember Laszlo Hartmann, or was it Hartmann Laszlo?
– DT responds to criticism of the media by F1 team bosses
– The Hack remembers Felipe Massa when he was young
– Peter Nygaard and his team braved the elements to bring you their great photography
GP+ is the fastest F1 magazine in the world. It’s so fast, it’s almost real-time… But it is a magazine that tells you the full story, like racing magazines used to do. Yet it is published in electronic form in PDF format, so you can read it on a laptop or a tablet.
Our reporters are some of the most respected in the business and we take you behind the scenes in the F1 paddock and explain what is really going on. We have forthright opinions and we don’t care if we knock noses out of joint. There are plenty of fascinating stories from Grand Prix history as well, plus great photography and old style reporting, giving you a blow-by-blow account of what happened, both in qualifying and in the race, so you have a proper record which can stay in your computer for years to come.
You get 22 issues for £29.99, covering the entire 2014 Formula 1 season.
It’s the bargain available in Formula 1
For more information, go to http://www.grandprixplus.com.
joeblogsf1 
A great race, enhanced by the pre GP wet weather and subsequent safety car periods, the first of the latter helping some drivers and ruling out others like Nico. Interesting how Lewis chose to ignore team orders (questionable or otherwise) and a shame he apparently chose to leave the circuit during qualifying yesterday, leaving his and Nico’s mechanics to repair his car by midnight. Hardly a team player. How long might he remain at Mercedes?
I understand he left the circuit with the blessing of the Mercedes management. Him standing around saying is it ready yet isn’t going to help is it, him going away and getting himself sorted out mentally so he could come back on Sunday and salvage something from a situation that wasn’t his fault did help.
Same weekend, McLaren ran a piece by Emmo Fitipaldi, on value and respect for your engineers… coincidence, I’m sure, but…
Still, there are some moods best not displayed around your team, and I think if you’re going to hit the dumps big time, maybe better to come back more focused. I’m reserving further thought for a couple more races. A combination of a driving style that may stress a car, latent tension with engineers, and running out of spare engine parts, is food for thought. I’m even starting to wonder if Alonso can’t split the MB’s, with help of Ricciardo, and Bottas.
I don’t know about team player, but allowing I was not in a irretrievable grump, I’d have wanted to sit in on the post mortem of that blowup.
Hamilton was having dinner with lauda, Rosberg and around 15 other Mercedes staff in the centre of Budapest on Saturday evening, guess they’re not team players either
I bet the other 15 or so didn’t leave the circuit during qualifying:)
There’s something about Daniel Ricciardo that it’s impossible not to like, even when he beats your own favourite, he positively shines on the podium and makes you feel glad for him.
Some guys forgot whose turn it was to hit Massa this week!
Ricciardo is a truly great driver and sportsman, with no ego. He also respects his team and appreciates full the unique opportunity he’s been given to fulfill his boyhood dream.Some drivers were brought up to think it was their God given right to be World champions.That’s the difference.
I think he certainly knows how to read a race as it progresses. There’s always an element of luck in that, but it also needs a focussed mental attitude to make the most of all the different parameters going on. In that respect, I’d say that Ricciardo mostly resembles Alonso, and the other standout thing about him, is that he never gives up, another Alonso attribute. He’s also a breath of fresh air amongst a multitude of egos….long may that last!
Superb Race However If I am correct anyone in the UK without a Murdock subscription or access to iPlayer had only the one chance to watch it.
which past by at 1710hrs this evening
BBC Coverage
Hungarian Grand Prix
Sunday 27 July
Highlights, 17:10-18:30, BBC One
Monday 28 July
Review, 04:35-05:00, BBC Radio 5 live
Not going to impress the fans or enhance the Sport IMO
Next time you see B E please tell him Joe if you agree.
‘Bernie says: Buy a murdoch subscription, or else !’
😉
The audio commentary was late starting and cars had left the grid before it switched from the Commonwealth Games to F1 in Hungary. Then they switched back to the Games a few times during the race.
Not impressed at all with the BBC, shows how much they think of F1 at present.
Shouldn’t it be:
Bernie says: “Think before you bribe”
I’ve not yet managed to turn to Radio 5 Live (I hope I got the channel right, at least!) during a race, to hear how they are, and actually got any F1 commentary. Did it get worse to make paying Mr. Murdoch feel less bad, or was it always that way?
What has BBC scheduling or you not having BBC iPlayer got to do with Bernie? (In this question, I’m ignoring the past and looking at now)
Great quality work as ever.
I have to say I particularly liked DT’s comments to Jean Todt about the abject failure of the FIA to promote their own formula, and the way the so-called chiefs of the sport have spent so much time denigrating their own product this year. Talk about turkeys not voting for Thanksgiving/Christmas; this year, it’s seemed more like the turkeys are promoting research into new ways to have themselves served for dinner!
Pedantic, I know, but the race report doesn’t quite tally with what I heard and later saw on the BBC coverage. I’m sure Grosjean crashed during the 1st safety car, then there was quite a gap before Perez brought out the second one.
Other than that little mix up, thoroughly enjoyed reading the rest of the report, and the other insights never fail to impress.
Does Mercedes-Benz race to satisfy the egos of Lewis and Nico or to win ? If not for the fabulous car they built neither would have a chance to win. In this case Lewis cost Mercedes a victory. He also denied the fans what could have been an even better race between Nico and Daniel on the last few laps.
Prove it cost a victory.
Lewis’ behaviour may or may not have cost the team a victory, but it has certainly caused much post race debate. Interesting that Toto Wolff said on Sky that Hamilton’s car woes on Saturday had influenced the team in not pursuing their original team orders instruction when ignored by Lewis.
Quite right too
Interesting quotes from Niki Lauda on Autosport, seemingly saying that the teams panicked into giving Lewis that order.
Is that a sign of upper management blaming the front line guys (possibly the race engineers) when things don’t go perfectly?
Agree 100%
I wish Merc had said “Nico is faster than you” to have heard Hamilton’s reply. Was the best race of the season IMO, on the world’s worst track. Bahrain was a kart race
Only Mercedes knows the answer to that Joe. However, reading between the lines, it looks as though MB’s computer predictions had them in with a better % chance of a win with Nico’s car than with Lewis’s car, which would, one would suppose, be why they asked Lewis not to hold Nico up. It has since been said that Nico wasn’t close enough, however on the screen at the time it showed a gap of 0.8sec between them?
It is quite possible that Lewis cost them a win, and if MB think so, then some there may take a dim view of that fact, as for MB, as with any large corporation, it’s the Company that counts, not the employee. On the other hand, it may have made no difference to the outcome, and if Lewis feels that to be the case, he will be feeling undermined by the Team, which could prove problematic for both parties!
Looking at the situation pragmatically, it is easy to see why race teams that operate two No1 drivers, can get into difficulties, when they also have the best car in a particular year. If a team wants an easy life, the No1/No2 route is safest, so hats off to MB for buying into this situation, good luck to them in running it and holding it together so far, but what happens as it gets more fraught over the next 7-8 races? This is likely to happen unless one of the drivers gets a 50+ point lead in the next 4-5 races. That is unlikely, so the scene is set for some head scratching at MB!
The last time a partnership like this went pear shaped, as I recall, one of the drivers went to Ferrari as No1….if Alonso leaves Ferrari for Mac as also seems likely, one might wonder if one of the drivers at MB might cross over to the Scuderia? Most likely the more emotional and dramatic of the MB drivers…..
Yeah I would question this too. The only certainty is that it would have swapped who was on the podium from that team, and there’s no assurances it would have swapped their order too.
I’ve personally become increasingly frustrated with the egos of both Mercedes drivers – they are different kind of whiny brat, but whiny brats nonetheless. Rosberg had to resort to dobbing another driver (JEV) over the radio because he’s struggled to pass a Toro Rosso. And he needed Lewis to let him past; Lewis would have, in the reverse, made an attempt to overtake himself.
(In fact I would express doubt over whether Rosberg could pull off a similar feat to Hamilton and start so far down the grid but finish on the podium. I just don’t see it in him).
So yes, I have to agree with Joe on this – it’s not possible to claim that Lewis denied the team a victory. More likely, he just elected not to hand Rosberg a podium step at his own expense.
There’s a lot of comment about, arguing Lewis cost MB a victory. Setting themselves up for something to write about during the break?
I am really not convinced. He seemed to be able to pull a >DRS gap handily enough, often enough. Surely, given the headroom the MB’s seem to have, they should have thought of that. I mean, if you know the car is well within limits, and the only question might be fuel, plus any conservation of the engine, the latter distinctly important now, it’s obviously hard to convince any audience of a reasonable position swap. I presume that is why it came as such a blunt order, there was no point trying to convince anyone.
For all I know, it was a genuine miscalculation, between the strategies, and resulting track position // clean air speed. Factors could have influenced such a mistake, albeit in a blinkered way, such as what result they thought Lewis might be expecting, need to conserve the PU wear, even just splitting strategies out of concern for rain.
Nico could not evencatch up to HAM. How could he have challenged the leaders??
Sky suggested that Nico could of got second place had Lewis, pulled over, not first. DC on the BBC said It was ‘only’ his race engineer asking, if Mercedes had felt strongly then they could put someone from form the top (they have enough of them) to ask him to pull over. They didn’t and so Lewis rightly in my view ignored their pretty please can you slow down a bit…
I’m sure that was uppermost in his mind.. ‘I really should let Nico past, so the fans have a more interesting race towards the end’.
Actually, Jon, I think this is one of the reasons we love F1. The exceptional drivers are like peacocks — all plumage and egos. They bristle at being “corporate,” and view each race as a stage on which to display their obvious greatness. It creates a wonderful unpredictability and frustrates the businessmen. What more could you want?
Mercedes cost Mercedes the victory. Rosberg was handicapped by forward brake bias, after the first safety car, hence his inability to pass Vergne. So, their best chance to win was with Hamilton from that point onwards – and they took a defensive strategy with the long medium stint once he was in front of Rosberg.
I thought it was a good call at the time – but hindsight tells us that, with the track rubbering in again once dry, that an aggressive soft-soft strategy was the faster option. Lewis also had plenty of new soft tyres to use.. so he could have battled Ricciardo for the win; but, in the end, managed to defend his position, despite a bad strategy call.
This also befell Williams and McLaren though, and should be the bigger worry for Mercedes – once Red Bull catch up on engines, they could swing the balance back to them via strategy efficiency in 2015. They did very well in 2011 and 2013 to convert a small car advantage into dominance, better than Mercedes have in 2014, despite having an inherently bigger engine one.
To be honest, I prefer when team orders don’t come into play and they just let the drivers race, and as much as I respect MB for hiring two top drivers and (for the most part) letting them go at it with equal status, this order was a bit of a screw up all round, and did cost Nico more than had he not been told Lewis was going to let him through.
I can see why Lewis ignored the order, but I can see why Nico can feel a little aggrieved also (especially assuming the reports that he didn’t actually ask for it are true). If he hadn’t been told by the team repeatedly that Lewis was going to let him by he may have made more of an effort to pass under his own steam, rather than holding station and not taking any chances and wasting precious laps and his soft tyres sitting behind Lewis. Could he have won? It’s not a certainty, but had he managed to pass Lewis he could have been on the back of the Fernando, Lewis and Daniel battle with quite a few more laps to spare. He may not have found a way past Daniel, who had new tyres too, but it’s not inconceivable he would have found a way past Fernando and Lewis and finished 2nd. Also, if he’d been more ‘racey’ with Lewis, rather than being told he was going to be let through, even if he didn’t manage to pass, and still had to pit when he did, Lewis’s tyres may have been in even worse shape by the end of the race.
The orders (or at least the handling of them) may not have been well advised, but the team’s lack of follow-through with enforcing them will have consequences. Will either driver ever obey or trust team orders again?
I just hope MB never feel they need to give either driver team orders again, at least while both are in contention for the Championship.
It just shows those who criticised Vettel for ignoring Multi 21, and those who slammed Horner as weak, that if a driver wants to ignore his team, there’s not much the team can do. It’s all debateable, but if Paddy Lowe really issued the instruction, he looks a bit of a prat now, and that doesn’t reflect on MB too well. Discipline is central to winning.
About Nico being more “racy”, I only wish he’d come on the radio and objected, “Let me do my job.” But that wouldn’t have been very Nico.
We don’t know what Nico wanted to happen, though the JEV whine was possibly indicative. But surely he will see that this sort of thing doesn’t do him any favors, in the eyes of his fans. + a arbitrarily handsome number of brownie points for Lewis’s brilliant drive, demark a bucketload of cred points for Nico, sadly, whether he was in on the request or not, is how this fan of both, feels. Please cut the whining, in general. It takes away just that little bit of joy, from otherwise superlative racing.
So glad Flav will be back in F1, in some small capacity anyway. He’s sure to help right the floundering F1 ship. :thumbsup:
😛
I only wish it was madcap negotiation. ,”Okay, okay, Bernie, we’ll do anything you say, just leave __him where you found him…”
Good-to-average try to wind-up Joe – but you’ll have to do better than that jim!
He tries all the time.
Who tries to wind you up all the time..Bernie??!
And apparently, succeeds more than most. 😛
Seriously though. I do enjoy F1 and reading much of what you post. I just don’t always agree with you 100%, and feel the need to share my differing view. 😉
Thanks and have fun,
jim
I see the flav is so close to his passion, he’s been personally testing his ballast handicap system, of late …
On that note though, I have not read GP+ yet, just browsed through it, but I have not seen the article about Briatore, only a reference on page 3. Has that been left out of my copy or is it the “The Promotion of Formula 1” article?
Did you read page 3
Interesting what Bernie says about social media. Like many others I no longer have TV. The only means for F1 to engage with this middle-class middle-aged relatively affluent man with two youngsters, one of which watches the races with me with intense curiosity, is through the internet. I’ll pay for my internet connection and my GP+ subscription, but if F1 wants more out of me they’ll have to start giving me a reason.
Bernie is fast becoming a clueless embarassment. He’s twenty years past his sell by date.
Social media is not always a great leveler. Before chucking out piles of ad agency type magazines I get sent, I thought to try to read some. Big issue made out of handling “crises”, such as a advert that incorrectly depicted a pet dog outdoors in (fake snow) cold weather, the type of which dog was ill bred to cope with cold, which was the source of “uproar” among “animal lovers”. National giant retailer, whose twitter feed was “inundated”: 48,000 followers. Forty _ eight _ thousand. Total. Which is the same kind of subscription sniffed at as insignificant, even in highly targeted markets, by ad buyers at many of the same agencies or agency partners.
Even his detractors “admit”, that Bernie is no “idiot”, whilst leveling all manner of accusation that amount to claiming idiocy, at him.
Well, get this: social media conflates with rather too much, in casual consumer perspective. Into the vacuum of marketing on Formula One, has entered fan vocalism. To the extent we feel a bit entitled. And we’ve just had our freebies taken away. So we’re especially grumpy.
If we talk about internet distribution of the race broadcasts, that is a over the top service. Netflix, YouTube, and so on are all over the top, whether paid for or not. But developed programming, such as HBO has done, is fairly infant, and HBO is not a pure over the top service. Bluntly put, over the top services have not got deep budgets for content, even if they have well funded owners such as YouTube has.
There is no accepted model, yet, for over the top content. All you can eat, like Netflix, is generating far less profit than F1 does, with far more content, far more expensively produced, on offer. Incumbents with big infrastructure costs, satellites or cable networks, need to defray capital spending (Comcast is in its own battle with Netflix in a broad debate as to proportionality of carrying signals) and are typically not startup, and have cash flows that allow them to bid on things like F1. Amazon Kindle unlimited, at ten dollars a month, is a rather extreme offer, as a bargain, if you read a lot.
Lots of companies exist and compete in markets that are marginal to their core, but which reuse their infrastructure. Amazon Web Services is the most disruptive example, under heavy attack, prices dropped by nearly 50% this year alone. This means pricing aggression, and potential market distortion.
Selling F1 direct, does not reuse any existing infrastructure. Cannot be subsidized in any way. Potentially the stream could be disrupted by a Comcast, demanding transit fees for the connections to its subscribers.
A more stable pricing scenario needs to prevail, before our races are going to be over the top broadcast streams.
If it were only the cost that Bernie got his deal for: three and a bit million a year!
I think that because of cross subsidy, because of the fact that every network is priced, fairly or not, on the assumption not every customer will make full use of the service, and because the prize of being arbiter of our leisure attention is a fiercely fought monopoly goal, it is impossible to argue that the correct economic strategy is other than to maximize profit by seeking bids form those deep war chests.
What is all wrong, is that this never need have happened. F1 and the FIA could be rich, truly rich, had this vast array of intermediaries and administration not been able to engorge themselves on the margins. A salesman or promoter gets a commission, not a fixed supply contract. How did so many smart people get so confused?
And, with no disrespect to Biggus, above, if I were working to produce and sell F1 and fans in the main said they’ll pay for anything but directly what I am providing, i’d be a little upset.
Or, maybe, look at just how many people are supposed to constitute a deluge of public opinion on a “social media” channel.
What is it with these fool commenters on here who seem to want races to be decided by team orders?
Do they not like racing?
Team Orders are just part of racing, always have been, and the reason is that teams enter 2 cars to maximise their chances of wins and places. If a team thinks that Driver A has less chance of a good place or win for the team, than Driver B has in a given race, then it is merely sensible for the Team to instruct the drivers on what the Team wants them to do. I’m not saying MB issued the correct order, I don’t know myself. However, if you were told by your Manager at work, to do something, and then you ignored that instruction and did the opposite, what do you think would happen? And racing is no different from ordinary work, the drivers in a team are Employees, as Sir Frank said, you simply unplug one and plug in a different one!
In what company does an employee make 20 times what his boss makes? There is a difference.
Doesn’t make a bit of difference, the drivers are still employees of the team, just as much as the Designers and Engineers and all the other hundreds of staff that are employed. Just because the Driver makes way more money than some other team personnel, although I have seen it written that Newey is on £10million a year, it doesn’t mean that the Drivers can over rule the team. Organisation & Discipline are needed for Championship wins. To be fair, Hammy is the first to criticise MB if he thinks they are issuing the wrong instructions on tyres or other things like reducing power etc, one can’t have one’s cake and eat it! I can understand him refusing an order in the circumstances, but I think it is bad for the team.It shows disrespect and disregard for the Team and in this case, for Paddy Lowe. If a future Lowe decision backfires on Hammy, he won’t have a leg to stand on if he then complains about that order! Don’t forget that in the Pits the Teams are studying the race in detail and have far more knowledge on what is going on and what needs to be done, to win a race, than the driver does when he is in the middle of track battles. If team discipline breaks down, then mistakes happen , morale drops and a win can be lost. Ricciardo is a long way back in the points, but could conceivably catch up, especially with 50pts at the end of the year. Williams could not control Piquet & Mansell in 1986, and the quiet, effective Prost, in the slower McLaren-TagPorsche, won the WCD….infighting at MB could see a similar outcome, as RBR know how to win titles…this could be interesting now.
A fair few salesmen, usually men, in sales of things like high end computing and storage, take home commissions that would not look shabby if listed as a board director’s fat cat package. Software, such as enterprise databases, have insane margins, and a lot of that is captured by guys and gals many reports below your Larry Ellison’s. The way I see it, if the compensation bill for sales outfit was not one of the top three expenditures, after R&D and marketing or manufacture, I’d hazard you’re doing it wrong. In tech, but also in many businesses, publishing also*, IMO, if you’re high up, you should be in it for equity, and handing out wallet stretching commissions to who builds the order book: founders and senior management want to retire on equity, not dilute it, top sales people tend to move to maximize their talents. The mistake that seems all too common, is to give layers of upper management both kinds of incentive, so they become fleet of foot, also.
*If you saw the data on revenue between well sold magazines and undersold magazines, it’s like a cliff, and you’re not climbing it, in that direction.
They must all be middle managers.
Ha, safety in numbers, a little like the number of directors at MB, ready for the merry go round once the Ross B magic wears off?
The safety car issue. I am a Danial fan and am very happy he won, a brillaint drive. My issue with the safety car. I am raising this as a fan of F1 not just one driver, To be fare the safety car can and is normally a curse to a running order. How is it allowable to open up a 5 or 10 second lead and you lose not only the lead but come down in the pack because of an incident that had nothing to do with you. If the safety car is deployed, the pit entrance should be closed, for one full lap or at least till the leader has the choice to be first to enter the pits, the pit open light should work on the leader only, this would allow the leader the opportunity to continue leading even if his lead has shrunk to nothing. The current system is a lottery that I believe gives a very unfair advantage to someone who was not entitled to it.
I don’t like the safety car procedures, not one bit, either. We became long used to the safety car shaking things up, and I think were glad of it, during the processional races of e.g. Michael’s years and just after.. then they made it altogether worse, and somehow it doesn’t get much attention. Another very broken thing, that is maybe conscientiously overlooked…
So who still thinks Lewis is a bit thick ?
“My tyres wont last till the end”.
– I’m not letting Nico past as I need another stop as well
– I’m going to stop the one and only strategy guy focusing 100% in Nico, as he now also has to think about me.
Oh yes, and another thing. That’s another time where Nico has not been able to overtake Lewis even though he had a much faster car. Lewis is heading into the break on the up, Nico has suffered a psychological blow. How quickly things change around ….
I think you misjudge Nico. It maybe the case that he was intent on saving his PU and gearbox. These components are going to be running out of life over the last 8, or maybe it will only be 7 races! Hammy has already said that he expects to suffer from penalties on the PU/gearbox front, and the penalties are movement down the grid. Down the grid is where most of the bad stuff happens, at the starts, so if one now looks after the kit and keeps something in hand for the back end of the championship, that might be the smart thing to do, rather than rag your car to the limit in each race. Many a title has been won by the application of brainpower and caution over outright speed!
I agree with your thinking Damian. Surely there have to be a lot of the teams/drivers that need to be racing a maximum points per part strategy after the break. It would be interesting to know where everyone sits now. Certainly in the past, the more power you produce from a part the shorter it’s lifespan.
So Nico took it easy on his PU and Gearbox, losing points in this race to save components for later in the season?
That was obviously his thinking when stuck behind JEV then.!
I suspect that if one knew the inside story at MB, one would find that Nico has been kinder on the equipment over the year so far, than Lewis has. Lewis often compares himself to Senna, but I always think Lewis is more like Mansell. Nigel used to grab the car by the scruff and force it to do things that looked impossible, whereas Senna always looked like a part of the car, man and machine in harmony. The Mansell approach is exciting to watch, but hard on the equipment.
+1
Going to be a very interesting second half.
his tyres did last to the end, Nico didn’t attempt to force an overtake as he’d been told he’d be let through, he would have pitted 4/5 laps later giving place back to Lewis and Mercedes could have potentially won race instead of third and fourth. its just the difference between team needs and driver needs its not that complicated. I agree that Nico needed to be closer but in similar cars at that circuit its not always possible. Hamilton/team could have then made a decision later whether to let Nico past or not. its no different from them moving Vettel out of the way for Daniel because they were on separate strategies. Ultimately it was the timing of the safety car that cost Mercedes bigger. I really like Lewis as a driver but his continual persecution complex and a lot of his fans conspiracy theories drive me nuts.
Yes, he didn’t attempt an overtake except that one time he did try and was so hopelessly unable to make it stick. Let’s face it – when Seb Vettel was leading from the front in 2011 and criticised as being unable to overtake, he was able to show on occasion he was capable of some good wheel-to-wheel fights. Nico has lead from the front, benefited from/capitalised on his equally whiny team-mate’s bad luck, but hasn’t shown much in the way of results when it comes to overtakes.
Rosberg is very good out front at driving quick laps, but could you honestly tell me if he had to start from the pitlane he could fight to the podium? I’ve seen nothing in his years of racing to suggest this.
I Agree. Rosberg is a good driver, but nothing special and there are at least half a dozen non-WC drivers in the current field who would be doing just as well or better in that car. I see Rosberg in the same mold and competence level as his fellow countryman, Nick Heidfeld.
AJ, good point. But if you know you are going to mostly lead from the front, in clean air, and only rarely be stuck behind, and then likely pull it back through the stops, would you not lay off stressing the car? These PUs and reliability issues loom, and I think it is possible to see the effect between the two drivers and their machinery quite clearly.
Yes JoJ, I agree. Thing is David, comparing Nico with Nick H is not a bad thing, as Nick H was/is still, a very,very good driver. What he lacked maybe was a little determination and an ability to project ego, something which Hammy has no troubles with, but which Nico seems less comfortable with. And yes again, David, there are many such as the Hulk for instance, who could use the Merc as effectively as both Merc drivers currently do. It could reasonably argued that Alonso would have won all the races so far, on his own, in the Merc! However, if you look deeper, the similarity between 2014 & 1978 starts to prove compelling. Then a driver ( Andretti ) had spent 2 yrs working on a team, Lotus, who had been sliding downhill. They finally came up with a half decent car in 1977, which allowed wins, and in 1978 the next generation of that car, the Lotus 79 was crushingly dominant in downforce, and romped to the titles!
Nico has been with an uncompetitive MB since 2010/11, and I expect he has worked hard to get to this point. Now he has a blindingly fast car, and as in 1978,with Andretti, he is pitched against one of the outright fastest guys in F1…..might seem a little unfair if that was you eh?? Andretti was a big enough star to call the shots and tell Chapman that he could have Peterson, but that Ronnie would have to be No2, as the championship was going to be Mario’s…Nico hasn’t got that luxury. The Merc is going to be pretty unbeatable for 2015 as well, so one could argue that maybe MB could let Nico win this year and Hammy next year?
BANG! Nail, hammer, head.
The one think that hasn’t been mentioned in all this is that if Mercedes were convinced that the only winning strategy was to let Nico past surely they would have had Lewis stop again as well- he had the tyres after qualifying after all.
It seems to me that all the ‘he should have let him past’ discussion from the rest of us is down to the fact that Alonso slowed Lewis down enough for Nico to catch him (as he was entitled to do), whereas up until 5 or 10 laps to go it looked that Lewis would be in the best position to win.
If Mercedes thought Nico had a chance to win with his strategy, why was Lewis not on the same strategy given than he was ahead on the track (and faster?) prior to Nico’s penultimate stop?
I forget, but was there chance of rain, still, at that stage of the race?
I’m rather struggling to find justification for the split strategy.
When Flav took the FIA to court and won. Did not the FIA introduce the rule that all in involved in F1 had to have a super-licence, and by that means control who was allowed in and thus prevent Flav’s future involvement ?
The being the case, or at least intent, are we seeing yet another classic repeat of a Bernie tactic, merely inventing a new body if the current one is proving difficult. We shall soon find that the new group is running F1, and the FIA is still asleep.
(From reading elsewhere I gather that JT is apparently not actually asleep but busy manipulating to prevent any vestige of disagreement, real or imaginary, with his ideas)
Re: JT. So he wants to be Sovereign in his infallibility, whilst embers flicker into life in the bowels of financial furnaces?
Great issue Gents.
David, business is petting and punching. Nice shot to the jaw on Todd.
It seems to me that the common thread in many of the problems with F1 are Ecclestone, di Montezemolo Red Bull/Horner and Todd. Those that get money for nothing.
F1, whether it wants to be or not, is a political tool. Putin’s only interest in F1 is to bolster the image of Russia as a world power and build his legacy as a great leader of Mother Russia. The aggressive military push in the arctic, Crimea, the Ukraine, the Olympics, World Cup, F1. This is the start of a nasty stretch of empire building by Putin we are all going to come to regret. Bahrain was/is an internal conflict. Russia is a situation of outward aggression. It’s is a much more serious global issue and one where there is no question of what the right thing to do is. Contracts can be easily cancelled if going to Russia is going to damage the reputation of F1. Money or morality?…Hmmm.
Hi Brent,
But can you blame F1, when the overall political response to Putin, is, err, what, exactly?
Is it me or have pics gone down in resolution in this issue? They do not stand the normal amount of zoom before resolving into lego and sugar cubes.
Some of the pictures don’t download at all and just appear as a black box!
Is it my computer?
Funny you should mention that! I was just going to comment on the same thing. The resolution has never been great (which is a shame) but there is a noticeable quality drop in this issue…
Joe, would it be possible to up the quality of the photos (resolution-wise) as they really detract from the overall enjoyment of an otherwise great e-magazine?
We are trying to figure out what has happened but at the moment we seem to have done the same as last week and got a completely different result. We don’t know why.
The resolutions on pages 7 and 74 were just fine, thank you very much!
I really couldn’t care less which of them wins the championship, personally I’d rather see Alonso, Vettel, Riciardo and Bottas fighting for the title. The real victim of Sundays race was Formula 1.the sport should be renames as Tyre Racing, instead of Car Racing. Why can’t they simplify everything by issuing one set of tyres per driver for the race, and let them get on with it, with no pit-stops.It would make the races fairer and more about driving ability and save a small fortune in the process. You can tell by the post race interviews that most of the drivers have had a bellyful of the new regulations which have turned race results into a lottery. It’s quiet absurd when a driver gains such an advantage over two week-ends by starting in the pit-lane. What’s the point of Qualifying?
They tried on-set-of-tyre races in 2005. Didn’t go that well, as I recall.
I particularly disliked Kimi’s race in Germany that year when he tried to make a failing tyre go to the end and the vibration and debris from this this caused the front suspension to collapse.
How you use your tyres is part of F1. It always has been, and I think it’s a proper part of F1.
Not a Hamilton fan at all, but I can see his point regarding allowing Nico a free pass. That team request will no doubt raise his paranoia levels really off the charts.
I have no doubt that Lewis also pushed extra wide on Nico’s only pass attempt late in the race. Good for him!
I was equally as stunned by Nico’s seemingly bent nose because Lewis didn’t comply. Lost a lot of respect for Rosberg because of this.
Joe, enjoy your well earned holiday, drop us a posting now and then if it can work into your plans.
I might be in a minority, but I think F1 would be better off without Lewis Hamilton and his sycophantic fans (often members of the British media, oddly enough..). His arrival in F1 marked the start of a severe decline in the quality of English-language F1 coverage.
Oh well, I suppose the sport will still exist once he tires of it and I look forward to enjoying it once that glorious day arrives.
Lewis is one of the greatest racing drivers in the world. Your comment is ridiculous.
He’s a great F1 driver, but he has yet to prove he is a great racing driver.
If only there were the opportunities and variety of first class racing, for F1 drivers to take advantage of, during their careers. But short of a sea change in auto racing in general, I fear we will not be able to ever measure the current crop, against the racing drivers of old.
At least, I think that’s what you meant, echoes of Stirling jumping out of a F1 car and straight into the next fast thing on wheels he could enter a competition with.
I would suggest that if you go around insulting Hamilton fans as sycophantic
then its you who have a problem.
I’d like to think you’re in a minority; Lewis’ attitude off track grates with me at times, but that quickly gets forgotten when you see him going all-out on track. A fair few races have been great to watch because of his performances in them.
I tend to agree with Med. I so often admire how blindingly quick Lewis is on-track, whilst finding his off-track behaviour so often over the years so blindingly annoying and yes grating, with no sign of things improving as he gets older.
I have to agree. I can’t abide either Mercedes driver – I think personality wise, they are the most un-likable drivers out there. Hamilton’s pretensions and Rosberg’s entitlement mentality, as well as their capacity to whinge (Nico Rosberg *actuallly dobbed another driver in when he couldn’t pass him…!) just makes them both bratty gits.
But, I mean, any driver that starts at the back and ends up on the podium deserves respect. Webber in China, 2011; Vettel in Abu Dhabi in 2012; Button’s win in Canada 2011 – these are all great drives (obviously there are more) and Hamilton’s now done the fight back for two races in a row.
He’s a prat, but my god can he drive. If he hadn’t had two retirements do you think Rosberg would still be in first?
Sorry, I have to disagree. Hamilton is equal parts utter cad and brilliant racing driver. These are not mutually exclusive positions.
Agreed, AJ:)
I remain a fan of both, but you have a point, AJ: this season is not showing either in the best light. And I believe they both have very quickly attained a fresh sense of entitlement which is newly unattractive. Both need to look behind them, instead of fighting in their playpen. They can be caught up.
You can’t blame Lewis for the drivel that the UK Media has surrounded him with. They do this with anyone they pick on, and with Lewis they just pick and probe same as with celebs of all sorts. When he arrived he was lauded to the rafters, and when things went down, they kick him all over the place. Unfair, but it is what they do. Friends of mine actively disliked Lewis just because of the Media! This rather than spend a bit of time researching him and his rise to F1.
Fact is he is one of the top 4-5 drivers in F1, one could say that he is currently one of the top 3 in fact. He is exciting to watch, and although a bit annoying, his seeming paranoia is part of his psyche as a driver, and like Mansell, rather defines him….and at least he doesn’t stick his finger up everytime he gets a Pole or a Win!!
I’ve met more than a few, who rate Hamilton, despite neither watching F1, or knowing diddly about Lewis’ career. Just because he gets a bad boy rap, in the press. One is a friend of mine, and so I’m going to find out, after the break, if this apparently ephemeral phenomenon can translate to my pal enjoying a race.
If someone was smart, they would do one of those dumb obvious competitions, but hand a Sky Go pass for the race to those who got everything wrong. If you could capture the interest in Hamilton as a person, by non race fans, and get them watching, I think you’d be surprised at a spike in viewing. It’s not Lewis’ fault his popularity is not capitalized upon positively.
And, yes, I can’t think I could be a fan of anyone who doesn’t possess outstanding racecraft. The nonsense evaporates, come Sunday.
What are you smoking? Lewis may have his personality quirks but he is not only the outright fastest driver but he generates news the sports desperately needs (as opposed to court cases and double points for the last race). I’m rooting for Nico to win the championship but I’m thoroughly enjoying the fight Lewis is putting.
This race certainly proved one thing to me – how terrible the BBC coverage has become.
I watched it live on Sky and it was superb. Later that day I watched the BBC highlights on iPlayer. Somehow they made an excellent race as dull as door knobs.
Mind you, with Eddie Jordan and that irritating anchor woman…I don’t know why they’re still bothering.
Does anybody know how many spectators attended the Hungarian Grand Prix, as TV coverage obviously was best in 2014 so far.?
There were many spaces in the stands, maybe not on the scale of Hockenheim, but it was clearly not a full house!
Karen?
Some viewer stats, maybe, on what was the best race of the year? Pretty please?
No one seems to have mentioned that Nico’s strategy, if he was to finish on the podium required him to overtake lewis twice. The fist time Lewis was asked but declined. The second time he came up behind Lewis there was no request. I would have loved to hear lewis’ reaction if there had been!
But this is interesting. Why the discrepancy? After all if Nico was on a different strategy then you either require lewis to yield on both occasions or not at all. They were inconsistent. This for me shows what a dogs breakfast they made of their strategy. It was poorly thought through, if at all. Still Torger is a bright spark so no doubt they’ll get it right in future.
You gotta love the Team principals and the FIA’s attempts at blame shifting . Accusing the media for the lack of fan interest when in fact the Media .. including this site is constantly trying to promote a ‘ sport ‘ that no longer is and in fact is rapidly consuming itself in the process . Yeah … its all the ‘ media’s ‘ fault . Couldn’t possibly be that the rules have become so complex as to completely rule out any aspect of competition , innovation etc . Nahhh … do like our [ US ] politicians do . Blame it all on someone else . That’ll work . In some alternative reality .
As to Lewis Hamilton and your response to another here Joe . First off … full discloser … from his earliest McLaren supported GoKart days I was one of Mr Hamilton’s biggest supporters this side of the Atlantic . Back then he had it all . Talent in spades . Dedication . Focus . Discipline . Humility as well as values and a reasonable moral compass . Then he won his F1 world championship . And from that moment on it all went out the window … the fame got to his head .. Lewis focusing more on his celebrity and what ‘ bird ‘ he has on his arm than the driving .. becoming an arrogant little prig in the process and the ‘ One Hit Wonder ‘ that he currently is and always will be unless Mr Hamilton can get his head screwed back on straight . Unfortunately … being in my business and having seen it all …. I sadly and regrettably doubt he ever will . So for the moment Joe I’d amend your response to say … ” was one of the best [ certainly not one of the greatest * .. not even close at present ] drivers in the world ” ‘ Was ‘ ….. As in past tense . Until proven otherwise 😉
* ‘ One Hit Wonders ‘ never qualify as ‘ greatest ‘ .. in any field . They are just that . ‘ One Hit Wonders ‘ .. till again that is they are able to prove themselves otherwise . Which Lewis .. despite being in the most dominant car on the grid by a freaking long shot has yet to do !
So, by your rationale Alonso is a 2 hit wonder, which barely gives him credibility as a great driver? And what about all the past one time champs or greats who never won a WDC??
As I stated else where I’m not a Lewis fan, but when it all comes together the lad can shred track.
Hey GuitarSlinger, over here in the UK, politicians do just the same as in your country….when the people make their point clear, all the politicos say is ” the voters don’t understand the issues….the voters are wrong on this…one can only know the facts if one is involved in government…” etc etc. And in the EU, if people vote against some EU policy, they are required to vote again and again and again, until they give up and vote for what the EU Leaders want! It’s supposedly called Democracy, I guess it is easy for Bernie to understand it!
Guitar Slinger. No offence fella but I’m struggling to share your critical opinion of Lewis. You call him a “one hit wonder” when he’s only 29. Schuey won no less than 5 after this age!
I don’t see a man obsessed with what ‘bird’ he has on his arm. As far as I can see he has had just one high profile lady since 98. A lady he clearly adores since he was gutted when they temporarily split. I have never seen a tabloid pic of him stumbling out of a nightclub with a bottle of Cristal in one hand, a page three model in another and a rolled up €500 note in his nostril. So why portray him as a playboy? Sorry if your industry destroys talent in this way and you clearly have issues with successful popular young men but he clearly keeps himself extremely fit and is a very focused competitor. Always has been, even in a sub par Mclaren. Do you call Alosno a failure because he hasn’t added to his titles these last few seasons?
So he has a few tattoos? So do half the NZ rugby team. Are they wasters? He is a superb athlete, an amazing driver who gives 100% every time and (IMHO) a fabulous role model. If my son turned out anything like him I’d be delighted. I’m really not sure where this criticism comes from…
Sorry to rant but I’m getting annoyed by this lazy portrayal of Lewis as spikey and spoiled when actually passionate and motivated would be more fair, positive and accurate descriptions of this incredible driver.