Hamilton retains title lead – points in full

37 comments on “Hamilton retains title lead – points in full”

1. 

   Calum
   25th July 2010, 15:06

   I was really annoyed at the irony of Alonso complaining at the “manipulated race” in Valencia, then this happens. Let them fight for it on track, however for the benefit of the team the driver’s championship shows the corret decision from Ferrari’s point if view was made.

   Lewis Hamilto exteneded his lead but it tightened uo behind him.
   1. 

      miguelF!
      25th July 2010, 15:18

      vevery team has team orders ferrari seems not beeing good at diguising.another year another points scoring system the same result hamilton and button are still 1st and 2nd when are fia going to make a trully fair scoring system finishing is too rewarding if it werent drivers would try everything to win even more than now
      1. 

         David-A (@david-a)
         25th July 2010, 16:00

         I’m a Ferrari fan, but I agree with Calum. Alonso whinges about a manipulated race in Valencia then 2 races later, and 2 seasons earlier for that matter, wins manipulated races. And you can’t deny that this wasn’t manipulated.
      2. 

         Alex
         25th July 2010, 16:01

         Every team has team orders yes, but no team tells a driver to let the other driver past. That is disgusting and it should be punished. The difference is that this made no difference to ferrari, only to alonso. Team orders that actually do good for the team (“save fuel” in order not to crash into each other) are not as bad.
         1. 

            BasCB (@bascb)
            25th July 2010, 20:23

            I think it’s no difference weather the team uses a “faster teammate” or a need to “save fuel” or whatever to have these guys pass eachoter.
            Actually i tink it’s for the better if it is done openly (sure Massa “decided” for himself) instead of hiding it with fuel or a brakes problem or tyres not working or watever.
            Ferrari’s back to the days of old, just as is was starting to thaw to them again.
            At least now we know exactly what we get.

            Nothing more stupid then see Horner critisizing Ferrari for it, when in Turkey his team had wanted exactly the same to happen only Mark wasn’t giving Vettel the place without any effort. Vettel admitted as much in the BBC F1forum today
            1. 

               Mike
               26th July 2010, 6:31

               Well, Turkey (and other incidents) was very different, maybe Horner wanted Vettel to get past, but he didn’t actually tell mark to let him past did he?
2. 

   Alexi
   25th July 2010, 15:12

   So, who will Red Bull favor now? :-D
   1. 

      nelly
      25th July 2010, 15:13

      It’ll be a heads or tales situation :)
   2. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      25th July 2010, 20:25

      That’l be Vettel again, just like in Turkey. They only expect their guys to make a bit better show off it on track, as Mark and Seb are not as good actors as Massa and Smedley showed today.
      1. 

         US_Peter
         25th July 2010, 21:34

         Well technically Webber’s still ahead, having won more races. So if they honor their statements, they would favor Webber.
         1. 

            BasCB (@bascb)
            26th July 2010, 12:47

            They were in exactly the same position before the Turkey race. Joint on points, but Webber leading race wins.
   3. 

      Tom L.
      25th July 2010, 21:38

      Well, Webber is technically ahead through more race wins.
3. 

   John H
   25th July 2010, 15:14

   This is turning out to be a great championship. How I wish it was finishing at Interlagos and not Abu Dhabi.
   1. 

      GeeMac
      25th July 2010, 15:21

      Seeing as I’m planning on going to Abu Dhabi… I respectfully disagree! ;-)
4. 

   Ady
   25th July 2010, 17:39

   With all the talk about Ferrari, did anyone spot the fight between Lewis and Jenson in the final few laps of the race?

   Jenson closed the gap to < 0.5 seconds putting Lewis under presure, but ultimatly it was Jenson that made the error and went wide at the last corner of the penultimate lap.
   1. 

      bosyber
      25th July 2010, 17:52

      They were showing that just as I was checking to see how those two were doing!
   2. 

      Ivan Vinitskyy
      25th July 2010, 18:07

      I know the gap was 1.4sec before, then they showed Jenson going wide and he still ended up 1sec behind so they must have been very close.
5. 

   Randy
   25th July 2010, 18:35

   I’m not a big Hamilton fan but his position at the top is justified. A true racer.

   Alonso’s performance today was not worthy of his reputation or salary. Drive by him or shut up Fernando, the whining is a disgrace.

   Button had an opportunity with the fresher tires to take points off Hamilton today. Responded by surrendering. Self demotion to the #2 spot for the rest of the season.

   Very important race today. Massa(poor Massa), Button, Kubica, and Rosberg all eliminated from WDC contention.
   1. 

      Christian
      25th July 2010, 20:09

      How on earth is Button out of the championship? He is second! It just takes one positive finish and he will be top…
   2. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      25th July 2010, 20:26

      There’s only 14 points between them! Button is still a lot closer thant Vettel, Webber and Alonso.
      And he beat Hamilton in qualifying yesterday for the first time in 7 races.
      How does that make him a clear nr. 2?
      1. 

         Randy
         25th July 2010, 21:30

         Button made himself #2 by not attacking when he had a clear advantage. His car is inferior to the Red Bulls and Ferrari’s and he refused to attack his teamate when he had the opportunity.

         If he can’t or won’t attack Hamilton when he has a clear advantage how can he expect to attack when their on even terms. How can he expect to fight against teams with superior equipment.

         The math may say that Button is still in the fight but his performance today was simply not agressive enough and its only going to get tougher from here on in. Hamilton’s prospects took a huge blow today as well.

         If Mclaren can’t significantly improve the car in the next race or two, this WDC is between Alonso and the Red Bulls.
         1. 

            Palle
            25th July 2010, 23:41

            I tend to agree with this. But if Lewis are unlucky to get a few DNF’s and thus fall out of the WDC then Button has a chance.
            My guestimate from season start was that Button, Massa and Webber would be the no 2 drivers in their teams.
         2. 

            DaveW
            26th July 2010, 2:21

            Button is always going for the “long-con.” He thought he would save his tires and leapfrog Hamilton. Or he thought he would pass Hamilton eventually with fresher tires. Even if he got ahead on overlap, I’m certain Hamilton would have got him again. It’s like he’s afrad of Hamilton and aims for the indirect route by him. I knew that when Hamilton slapped his hand in Turkey it would have a lasting effect.
         3. 

            Robert McKay
            26th July 2010, 15:06

            “he refused to attack his teamate when he had the opportunity.”

            Really? By “refused to attack” do you mean “got stuck in the dirty air and couldn’t use his Mclaren’s top speed advantage because his teammate had exactly the same advantage”?
6. 

   DaveW
   25th July 2010, 19:45

   Absolutely amazing for Hamilton to increase the gap over the two closest rivals while driving a car massively off the race pace. This was huge for him. Once again, a great start, maximizing the car, and once again RBR reliability issues. RBR are really going to have to buckle down to catch him while swatting back Ferrari now for the home stretch, because their drivers continue to make terrible gaffes and the reliability is still suspect. But McLaren have got to be feeling sick at being blown away in the race after showing such speed in Silverstone.
   1. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      25th July 2010, 20:28

      That’s exactly why i expect McLaren to win the WCC in the end, although one of the RBR guys or Alonso might still clinch the driver title.
7. 

   US_Peter
   25th July 2010, 21:36

   I’m a little surprised the points aren’t even tighter. If there’s a similar result next weekend though the top five drivers could all be within a few points of each other going into the summer break. That would be very interesting!
8. 

   Tom L.
   25th July 2010, 21:42

   Are HRT really 10th? Aren’t Lotus ahead of them?
   1. 

      Ady
      25th July 2010, 23:05

      They are all on 0 points. Therefore results are posted in alphabetical order.
      1. 

         sato113
         26th July 2010, 20:12

         shouldn’t be. as each team is based on finishing positions and retirements.
   2. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      26th July 2010, 10:07

      No, Lotus are ahead, that was a mistake. Fixed it.
9. 

   Steph90 (@steph90)
   26th July 2010, 9:46

   Well Massa is out of it now. It was a long shot but he may as well go home when it comes to the WDC now. The first driver in the top cars to fail this year.
   1. 

      Chua
      26th July 2010, 11:08

      Yes, and the betting odds reflect that too. He’s a 120 shot now on betfair. The other odds are:
      Hamilton – 3.4
      Vettel – 3.5
      Alonso – 4.4
      Webber – 9.2
      Button – 13

      I don’t bet, but I do like to take a look at the odds from time to time, since they’re generally the most rational, bias-free, and accurate look at the probability of things happening.

      While we’re on this, I was browsing through some older articles on this site, and stumbled upon a 2007 preview one where Keith listed the odds of the various contenders (and gave out betting advice, heh). I’ve realised that I haven’t seen anything like that since visiting the site frequently from late 2008..
      1. 

         Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
         26th July 2010, 11:36

         Yeah, simple explanation for that one: I didn’t think it was very good!
10. 

    Icthyes (@icthyes)
    26th July 2010, 14:51

    So Massa is 72 points behind Hamilton now. If he had won, that still would have been 65. But there are 200 points up for grabs. And the gap to his team-mate would only have been 24 points.

    What I would dearly like to see is Massa win the next race at Hungary and Alonso retire. Then Massa would be in a position where he “should” have been in front of Alonso, had they not switched places in Germany. That would be more justice than anything the WMSC does.

    Interestingly, if you use the pre-2003 system it would look like this:

    Hamilton: 49
    Webber: 43
    Button: 43
    Vettel: 41
    Alonso: 37
    Massa: 20
    Kubica: 19
    Rosberg: 19
    Schumacher: 7
    Barrichello: 5
    Sutil: 3
    Kobayashi: 1

    17 and 29 behind Alonso and Hamilton respectively with 80 up for grabs turns into 9 and 25 respectively if no positions had been switched. I think we have our first proof that the new points system is a bad thing for F1; proportionally there’s actually only a minute difference in what Massa would have to do to win the championship had he won in Germany, but it’s certainly easier to hide what Ferrari did with a 65 points gap rather than a 25 points gap because of the psychology of dealing in bigger numbers.
11. 

    sato113
    26th July 2010, 20:11

    ‘Constructions’ championship’

    keith it’s ‘Contructor’s’
    1. 

       Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
       26th July 2010, 20:16

       Fixed, ta.

Comments are closed.