Another close Driver of the Weekend win for Hamilton

2014 United States Grand Prix

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After winning his fifth consecutive race Lewis Hamilton was voted Driver of the Weekend for the fourth grand prix in a row.

It was his narrowest win of the four, however, with Daniel Ricciardo a close second following his drive to finish on the podium.

Pastor Maldonado came third in the voting after finally getting some points on the board.

1. Lewis Hamilton

Started: 2nd
Finished: 1st

Hamilton may have been beaten to pole position by Nico Rosberg for the ninth time this year, but his dogged pursuit of his team mate in the race ultimately won him the day.

Utterly dominant in free practice, and his disappointing qualifying effort can be marked down to the problems with his front left brake (although he may not have been on pole in any event, he certainly would have been closer to Rosberg without that issue).

As for the race itself, a sublime effort. He struggled with the car in the first stint, but kept at it and made a brave and opportunistic move on Rosberg in the second stint to take the lead and ultimately the win.

I’m now prepared to call it. If Hamilton doesn’t suffer from reliability issues in the next two races, he will be world champion.
Tyler (@Tdog)

I think Hamilton deserved it clearly.

I would say Vergne but he didn’t do anything important, except try to secure his next year seat – which is a late turnaround. Ricciardo? No, like Vergne he didn’t do anything to get podium, except a faultless race. Maldonado?

First place from the beginning of the weekend till the end, except qualifying and he didn’t make any mistake to lose pole. It was just a perfect time for Rosberg at that time – which happened only once this weekend. In the race he showed his class again, overtook his rival clearly on track and always had the answer on his pace.
BoRa (@Bnwllc3)

Ricciardo may have fluffed the start, but he was very impressive clawing back the places in a car handicapped by its lack of engine power. Once again he demonstrated superb race craft.

Hamilton looked like he’d have to settle for second after Saturday. Rosberg had a huge advantage in lap time, having dialled in the set-up perfectly. But everything changed on Sunday, Hamilton stalked Rosberg until the pit stops, had his aero tweaked, then proceeded to catch his team mate, pass him cleanly, and open up a large enough gap to take DRS out of the equation. It was a clinical and methodical demonstration of superiority.

Both are deserving, but I voted for Hamilton.
Tgu (@Thegrapeunwashed)

2. Daniel Ricciardo

Started: 5th
Finished: 3rd

Ricciardo knew he needed a good start to attack the Williams drivers – but he didn’t get one.

Nonetheless he best both to the flag, passing Fernando Alonso on the way and jumping one Williams at each of his two pit stops.

Ricciardo for me, he may have messed up the start but other than that he had a good weekend and drove well all race. Many drivers can’t handle the pressure of racing wheel to wheel with Alonso but Daniel kept his cool and came out on top. I would have preferred to see him overtake the Williams drivers on the track but you can’t fault the teams strategy of getting him past during the pit stops and getting another podium in what looked like the third best car is a great result.

@Beneboy

Hamilton drove a textbook race, but was beaten in qualifying.

Vettel did well to overcome the penalty, but I can’t help think he should have passed Alonso.

Daniel Ricciardo fluffed his start but what a comeback and no cars he had a chance of beating finished ahead of him. Maximum result so the winner for me.
Philip (@Philipgb)

3. Pastor Maldonado

Started: 10th
Finished: 9th

Despite picking up two penalties during the course of the race Maldonado scored his first points of the season. He pipped Sebastian Vettel to third place in the poll by a single vote.

Man, this is a tough one. I think for me it’s between six drivers. Maldonado, Ricciardo, Alonso, Vettel, Vergne and Hamilton. I think Vergne drops out first. Not a great qualifying at all, but made it up to ninth.

Next to drop out is Hamilton, again because of qualifying, but less so. I know it wasn’t fully down to him, but at the same time it was still a bit of a shame. But I think he’s definitely one of the top 3 drivers of the race for me.

After that, next to drop out is Vettel. I think he had a very good last couple of stints, but his first long stint was pretty awful. Hard to go higher due to lack of participation in qualifying (for the most part).

Next to drop out is Ricciardo. He had a decent race, and a decent qualifying. I think he maximised his race result, but his qualifying could have been a little better. That leaves Alonso and, that’s right, Maldonado.

Alonso for me has to drop out next. Once again I think he’s maximized the car and you can’t really ask for more than that. Good scraps in the race and ended where he started, in his maximum possible position of sixth given the circumstances.

Maldonado therefore gets my vote. His qualifying was good, maybe the maximum available and destroyed Grosjean. And then in the race, he was very good, and essentially made the car look better than it was. Obviously you can’t drive a car beyond its limits, but he made it look it. Great performance.
@PhilEReid

2014 Driver of the Weekend results

RaceFirstSecondThird
AustralianKevin Magnussen (48.4%)Valtteri Bottas (24.5%)Daniel Ricciardo (14.1%)
MalaysianLewis Hamilton (54.3%)Nico Hulkenberg (24.0%)Sebastian Vettel (6.5%)
BahrainLewis Hamilton (49.2%)Sergio Perez (25.7%)Daniel Ricciardo (16.6%)
ChinaFernando Alonso (47.7%)Lewis Hamilton (30.7%)Daniel Ricciardo (7.8%)
SpainSebastian Vettel (51.9%)Lewis Hamilton (20.5%)Romain Grosjean (11.0%)
MonacoJules Bianchi (60.2%)Nico Rosberg (11.5%)Daniel Ricciardo (8.8%)
CanadaDaniel Ricciardo (44.9%)Nico Rosberg (22.4%)Sergio Perez (9.5%)
AustriaValtteri Bottas (41.7%)Lewis Hamilton (15.1%)Sergio Perez (14.3%)
BritainValtteri Bottas (52.5%)Fernando Alonso (18.5%)Jenson Button (11.8%)
GermanyValtteri Bottas (37.1%)Lewis Hamilton (33.8%)Daniel Ricciardo (10.4%)
HungaryFernando Alonso (40.2%)Lewis Hamilton (29.3%)Daniel Ricciardo (25.1%)
BelgiumDaniel Ricciardo (44.4%)Kimi Raikkonen (17.0%)Valtteri Bottas (12.2%)
ItalyLewis Hamilton (38.9%)Daniel Ricciardo (18.1%)Sergio Perez (12.0%)
SingaporeLewis Hamilton (38.4%)Jean-Eric Vergne (26.6%)Sebastian Vettel (11.9%)
RussiaLewis Hamilton (34.5%)Jenson Button (20.6%)Valtteri Bottas (15.7%)
RussiaLewis Hamilton (36.4%)Daniel Ricciardo (30.6%)Pastor Maldonado (9.7%)

2014 United States Grand Prix

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Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

20 comments on “Another close Driver of the Weekend win for Hamilton”

  1. typo right at the end: Russia should be USA

  2. That’s four wins in a row for Hamilton. Rosberg hasn’t even made the top three since Canada…

    1. Even worse, Rosberg hasn’t won once.

      1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        7th November 2014, 12:41

        And even worse than that is that he’s not won an actual race since Germany…

    2. 5 wins in a row.

      1. my bad, you’re talking about driver of the weekend.

    3. There is no doubt Hamilton has stronger season, but there are other factors.

      1)British site, so little bit of fan bias
      2)Both team mates very rarely appear in top 3

  3. I was interested in what Rosberg was saying about dialling the car in from the steering wheel during the race. I daresay some of it was rationalising being outpaced, but still I expect there was some truth in it. Makes me wonder if that’s what happened to Bottas?

    I can see next year being Hamilton vs Ricciardo. The more I see of Daniel in traffic the more I’m impressed.

    1. You should see him in Formula 1, he is even more impressive! :P :P

      1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        7th November 2014, 12:41

        hahaha

      2. Man,Thats funny.

  4. petebaldwin (@)
    7th November 2014, 12:54

    Thing is, I can’t think of the last race where Rosberg was start-to-finish faster than Hamilton.

    Something seems to have clicked for Hamilton in the last few races. Don’t know if it’s his mentality, an update on the car that suited him more than Rosberg or something else. Whatever it is, he’s be unstoppable recently.

    1. Hamilton was just as unstoppable before he had his string of technical difficulties (and teammate shenanigans) started. Maybe even more so since he got 4 poles and 4 wins in the first 5 races.

  5. I hope neither Hamilton nor Rosberg is affected by reliability in quali and the race, this weekend.

    Should be very interesting!

  6. This was a difficult one to vote for, as none of the most impressive drivers over the weekend were without fault, however small. Hamilton was out qualified, Ricciardo fudged the start, Massa was out qualified, Maldanado looked less impressive in the race than Grosjean and picked up a few penalties for speeding, etc., but those faults didn’t really impact their final results. They all got the best results possible for them, really. I ended up voting for Hamilton, because he fought back and won, but also because he analysed how and where he had fallen short in qualifying (comparing his turn-ins under braking to that of 2012 to find the solution to his locking brakes) to ensure it did not hinder his efforts in the race. He doesn’t get credit for being an analytical or thinking driver, so it’s something that was nice to see from him.

  7. Nice to see the British bias going strong here! Last year, everyone was saying “bla bla bla Vettel doesn’t deserve to win…”, but suddenly, with Hamilton, all is good.

    1. Well, Hamilton has a tougher team-mate than Vettel in the past seasons, so he deserves some credit.

      (and I’m a Vettel fan :P)

      1. Maybe, but Vettel didnt lose qualifying.

        1. Isn’t that a by product of having a tougher teammate?

    2. You must admit that in a lesser car, with a stronger teammate and no longer receiving a preferential treatment, Vettel indeed doesn’t look so stellar anymore. So, yeah the international “bias” here seems just about right.

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