Better chance of keeping title in 2015 – Hamilton

2015 F1 season

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Lewis Hamilton believes he has a better chance of retaining his world championship crown in 2015 than when he won the title for the first time.

Hamilton endured a difficult season as champion in 2009. Although he won twice, McLaren did not respond well to a change in regulations and he ended the year fifth in the standings.

However Hamilton believes the stability in the regulations for next year gives Mercedes a strong chance of staying at the front.

“Going into next season, you’re hoping that you’ll be competitive again, you hope you’ll have a chance to fight for the championship again,” said Hamilton at the FIA’s prize-giving ceremony in Qatar.

“The good thing about this period of time in Formula One is that when I won the championship in 2008, the following year we had a year like this with some new rules and regulations and as a team we didn’t do a good job to adapt to that, so I didn’t have a chance to fight to keep my championship.

“Next year will be an evolution of this year’s car so I’m hoping that we’ll be at least able to fight.”

However Hamilton expects a stronger fight from Nico Rosberg after beating him to the world championship this year.

“Nico’s going to come back stronger and I’ll have to make sure I come back even stronger to stay ahead of him,” he said.

“You know Daniel Ricciardo has been doing an amazing job. It will be interesting to see what Fernando [Alonso] does in his car. It’s very difficult to know but I don’t particularly care who’s behind. You don’t care do you? You just want to look ahead.”

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Keith Collantine
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46 comments on “Better chance of keeping title in 2015 – Hamilton”

  1. I don’t see Rosberg winning the WDC next year unless Mercedes are equally dominant and Hamilton’s luck is much worse in comparison.

    All things being equal Rosberg would have to drive far better than this season and actually beat Hamilton regularly in a straight fight, which never achieved once this season.

    I think Hamilton is a shoe-in for the 2015 Champion.

    1. He will have to up his game on sundays. He destroyed Hamilton in qualifications, quite a feat. He beat Lewis though, but only once with that perfect weekend in brazil. That was utterly dominant but way too late. I expect him to come back really stronger, and why not be the 2015 champion?

      1. Brazil was dominant? Hamilton made up 7 seconds in a few laps after his spin because he stayed out a lap to long. Had Hamilton got by Rosberg there can be no doubt Rosberg would as happend on many other races been left behind.

        I agree with Sean. I don’t see Rosberg as WDC material let alone beat Hamilton in the same car over a season. I also don’t think any of the other teams will be any closer next season. Maybe Williams can sneak up and do more regularly what Ricciardo did this season which is take advantage of Mercedes flaws. In all other races I predict nothing else than another boring season of Merc 1-2s.

        1. Even though there were many Mercedes 1-2s, I’d hardly describe the season or races as boring. I’m hoping that Rosberg can up his game on Sundays so we see closer racing between the pair.

          @xtwl I do agree with you in that I cannot see any other teams really challenging Mercedes for race wins. Mercedes will have been a tad embarrassed with their unreliability this year, so I’m expecting them to have sorted that out for 2015 which will leave less opportunities for other teams to snatch a win. One thing that is a certainty is that Red Bulls chassis will be brilliant, but with the Renault PU holding them back I feel it will be unlikely they will mount a serious challenge.

          We will have to wait and see though…..

          1. Jeffrey Morris
            6th December 2014, 13:53

            Over the next two seasons significant developments by McLaren, Red Bull and Williams including the arrival of a US team in 2016 will test Mercedes AMG. There is no easy path for the current world champions.

        2. Considering Hamilton is perceived as one of the very, very best, one must acknowledge that also Rosberg is WDC-material. I think both still have room to improve on themselves, but both are top-shelf drivers.

          Rosberg really needs to up his aggression a bit i feel. Somehow, when Lewis closes in, he turn almost submissive.. and is just ‘barked’ out of the way. Lewis has the edge of course, also being already double WDC and having contended for it at least 4 times seriously.
          We will learn next season, … logic dictates Hamilton will have the upperhand, but that is no guarantee by any means of course. Im not ruling Rosberg out just yet. ;)

        3. Of course in brazil he was dominant. With ifs everything is possible, but in the end he won, and it would be unfair to put that on the solely fact they left lewis out for too long. He made a mistake, and that was where rosberg did a better job. Forcing lewis to push too hard to fix previous errors. That said, lewis was way better this season. But rosberg is not far behind and I expect the contest to be much closer next year.

          1. Hamilton already had sufficiente advantage to leapfrog Rosberg after the first lap. Staying for the 2nd one was a mistake and Hamilton spun while trying to KEEP the gap he already had, not to build more.

            Then he made that mistake with the tyres on the limit, lost 7 seconds and laps later was again pressuring on Rosberg.

            If Rosberg ever had any kind of control of the situation, he wouldn’t allow Hamilton to destroy that advantage and spend the last 20 laps of the race depending on a slight mistake from Rosberg from taking the win again.

            It was like Monaco again. He wasn’t faster. He only had track position, which in this particular cases, is almost enough to win.

      2. Saying he destroyed him in qualifying is a bit of an exaggeration.

        1. Maybe destroyed is a bit too much, but he won in an area where lewis is supposed to be one of the best, if not the best, and I find it pretty exciting for next year.

          1. Friday – Lewis faster in most of the sessions.
            Saturday – Nico finishes ahead in 12/19 sessions. 11 poles + Austria.
            Sunday – Lewis finshes ahead in 12/19 sessions. 11 wins + Hungary.

            Observation: Lewis has the tendency to lock up on Q3 laps; Nico has the tendency to lock up on high fuel.

            Conclusion: One driver sets the car up for quali and the other more for the race. Nico needs to be ahead to have a chance because Lewis is virtually uncatchable as a frontrunner (7 poles yielding 6 victories). Nico had 11 poles yielding 3 victories. Daniel won as many races from Nico’s poles as did Nico and Lewis won 5 of Nico’s pole races.

      3. There were two races (Hungary and Germany) were Hamilton wasn’t even able to compete in qualifying and two races (Monaco and Silverstone) where Hamilton was faster but wasn’t (able) to finish his flying lap.

        Those 4 races are exactly the lead that Rosberg had over Hamilton in qualifying. That’s hardly “destroying”.

      4. He didn’t destroy Lewis in quali. Bad reliability and some uncharacteristic mistakes led to him getting beat but it was still close. A relaxed Lewis will beat Rosberg in qualifying in 2015 in my opinion

      5. He didn’t destroy him. He beat him but it wasn’t as one-sided as ‘destroyed’. Bear in mind Hamilton didn’t get his second run in Monaco and was denied by mechanicals in two rounds also.

        1. Rosberg was helped by the Mercedes team in qualifying. There is no way he would beat Hamilton without that help. Mercedes played with Hamilton’s tyre and brake temperatures. I don’t care much for this Rosberg hype cause it’s only people who live in a fantasy world who appreciate his cheating ways. But for real hard worker, will appreciate Hamilton 1000000 times. Rosberg was with the Mercedes team for three seasons and the team was never successful, Hamilton comes in the first season and the team starts the success story. How people forget so quickly!!!

          1. @Beatrice Lol Mercedes conspired to help NR, yet LH won the WDC…and YOU accuse people of living in a fantasy world? And in your world I suppose LH had something to do with his first Mercedes car even though he was still with Mac while it was being designed and built.

    2. True, but Rosberg beat Hamilton in Brazil in a straight fight.

  2. the Third title should be no-brainer, shouldn’t it? Well, I thought the same earlier this year but it turned out Nico is stubbornly resistant. Hamilton had upper hand in terms of pace and racecraft but they were closer than everybody expected. so I hope Nico would find a extra couple of tenth if Mercedes is dominant again.

    1. What was more dogged was Hamilton clawing back a 25+ gap three times over the course of one season. Hamilton will be even stronger next year. Rosberg will be tested anew.

      1. Yeah, but those weren’t latest trend right?

  3. Rosberg threw away a lot of chances this year ( Bahrain, Spain, Hungary, Italy, USA, Russia) but Hamilton sometimes force Rosberg into mistakes and defend well. I predict Hamilton will win again next year

    1. Spa too. Despite the incident with Hamilton, he lost just around 5s changing the front wing. Almost nothing for a track the W05 was almost a sec a lap faster than the other cars. But then he lock up and destroyed the tyres, made an irregular pass on Button and had to switch it back to him, and lost the race. And lost it for Hamilton on the same day. Very poor weekend for him.

      1. Yeah, i think in Spa he should won it, his stuck behind Vettel in 2nd stints

    2. It’s because he’s not at championship level. He’s only good when he’s favoured. The media talk about Rosberg being able to speak 6 different languages as if he did do so during the first three seasons with Mercedes. All this talk is a way to undermine Hamilton’s game.

  4. For sure LH is going to be hard to beat, but I’m sure NR is well aware of that, and was already aware of that when LH was signed to Merc. This is NR’s challenge, and I’m sure he is revelling in it and his side of the garage knows where he needs to improve, or at least will aim to understand the car/tire/braking relationship better so that LH isn’t consistently faster particularly after the first pit stops.

    There’s no question NR has pace. Racecraft? I think he has more of that than he’s being credited with, but simply couldn’t do what LH could in gaining enough pace enough times to DRS him. I think it is more about NR and his side understanding the car better, than it is about his ability to take the fight to LH. Braking is so different now with it’s tie-in to energy recovery. Tires are still by some accounts hated by the drivers universally and they have to live with them and do their best. What I’m getting at is that I think it is within NR as a driver, and being a little more at one with the car like LH was, could/should definitely be a force to be reckoned with next year. And of course LH will be too.

    So I hesitate to project too much that because such and such happened in 2014, it will by default happen again in 2015. But that’s why they run all the races. Every race, every driver has a chance to surprise, to learn something, to get better, to have that stint of being particularly well hooked up etc etc. Nobody knows better than Nico and his side of the garage what they have to do next year. No question NR is up for the challenge.

    1. @Robbie; you can spin it all you want but at the end, LH will beat, simples!

      1. @Don Lol, so they should just hand him the 2015 trophy now then? I hardly think NR will make it ‘simples’ for LH.

        1. @Robbie: my point is, it doesn’t matter what NR does or doesn’t do; in the end, LH will beat him!

          1. @Don My point is that is your opinion and we will just have to wait and see what NR does or doesn’t do. After all, this was only his first season having the capable equipment so he should be given the chance to answer for 2014.

  5. nico destroyed hamilton in qualifying? nico never had a problem in any qualfying the whole season. people seem to be forgetting that hamilton didnt have the chance to fight for pole in monaco, silverstone, germany and hungary. I am not counting austria because it was lewis’ own fault.

    thats 4 poles nico took without having to fight for it. in monaco, he was 0.2 tenths faster in sc1 and was going for an easy pole, in silverstone, team ordered hamilton to move aside which was not fair, and had he completed the lap pole was definitely his. hungary, we all know how good he is there. so assuming he would get pole by ease had his car not burned at Q1 is not wrong.

    so lets do some math: had he won those qualies: 11-3 = 8 poles for rosberg
    hamilton 7+3 = 10 poles for hamilton

    so hamilton still has the pace as the fastest 1 lapper of the grid. nico didnt destroy anything, just perfectly used hamilton’s bad luck.

    1. Im a Ham fan an no he did not get destroyed but how about Aus, Ham made a mistake stopped Nico going for pole. They were close but you can not have it all you’re way.

  6. I remember LH vs NR 2014 as a season of three parts.

    Part 1: Lewis toasts Nico until Nico cheats in desperation at Monaco.

    Part 2: Lewis overdrives qualy but comes out ahead in the races, until Nico cheats again in Spa.

    Part 3: Nico is amazingly quick in qualy and has 4 poles in the last 7 races, but only finishes ahead in Texas and Brazil.

    Nico looked different after Spa, being booed and Toto saying ‘they know they have too much at stake’ so I don’t think he’ll cheat again, because he’s learned a bit about life and he might get thrown out of the team. I reckon he’ll win 3 races on merit, plus any Lewis breakdowns.

    There should be fewer reliability issues and another car might get between the Mercs from time to time, so it ought to be straightforward. BUT this is Lewis Hamilton of course, so some drama is inevitable surely :)

    1. If anything Hamilton was hampered by technical difficulties and his teammate during the middle of the season. Other than that they were quite even on qualifying the whole season.

      Nico struggled with qualifying in the wet (Australia and Malaysia) and spun off a few times (China, Austria, Monaco). Hamilton had some issues too (spun off in Austria and not finishing the lap in Silverstone ) and then some technical difficulties (Germany, Hungary).

      1. In the first 5 races qualy was 4-1 to Lewis. Then Nico got on a roll until Monza, aided by problems for Lewis as you say.

        1. Yet these “momentum swings” are easily explained by outside influences. As I did already.

          Like I said: “Nico struggled with qualifying in the wet”
          That’s what caused the first few qualifications to be more skewed towards Hamilton.

          Then came a time of technical difficulties for Hamilton, which gave Rosberg some extra poles

          Nothing to do with “mental state” or “being on a roll”.

    2. @lockup No you’re wrong. Rosberg only finished ahead in Brazil because in Texas Hamilton won.

      1. Oh yes, I was thinking Qualifying

  7. The only race where I felt that Rosberg had the race pace to simply leave Hamilton behind was Bahrain. Rosberg was behind Lewis in the turbulent air in the first stint, yet somehow took care of his tyres much better. When Lewis’s tyres went off, Nico attacked him, but lost in a wheel to wheel battle.

    You can’t help but feel that, if Nico didn’t lose position to Lewis at the start in Bahrain, he would have simply drove off into the distance.

    Other than that, they have either been very equal (Spain, Monaco, Austria, Germany, Brazil, Abu Dhabi) or Lewis has been blatantly faster (Malaysia, China, Japan).

    1. Not a HAM or ROS fan but don’t see how ROS can’t suddenly start to beat him seeing how he has lost to him since they were kids.
      If not for HAM’s bad luck and screw-ups in qualifying, it wouldn’t have been close. ROS did get much better qualifying though – just don’t think he is as skilled a driver.

      1. Simple, the gap between Rosberg and Hamilton on raw pace is smaller than the gap between Senna/Prost in 1989 or Mansell/Piquet in 1987, yet on both occasions the slower driver won. All Rosberg needs is slightly more luck than Lewis, nothing more.

        If hypothetically speaking in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton had Rosberg’s problem instead, Nico would be WDC despite the “bad luck disparity” between the two not being as big as ’87 or ’89.

    2. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      7th December 2014, 11:51

      In Bahrain Nico was using a higher engine mode that he was supposedly not allowed to use to attack Hamilton, was also on the better tyre strategy and still Lewis beat him.

      No, I don’t think that Nico would’ve left Hamilton behind.

  8. Rosbergs “dominance” of qualifying only really started after Germany (they were neck and neck until then) after which Hamilton had to use a brake compound that he does not like, Lewis relies on his brakes so much for performance so it was not a surprise that the balance shifted after this – You’d expect them to improve on this for next season and give Lewis brakes that feel the way he wants them.

    Additionally if you actually look at the circumstances around the pole positions Rosberg gained, 3 of them Lewis did not have the opportunity to contest fairly (Monaco, Germany, Hungary) so you cannot say Rosberg dominated on those 3 occasions as there is not direct comparison to be made between them – Take those out and suddenly what the numbers show as qualifying domination turns into a slight advantage.

    At the end of the day qualifying counts for absolutely nothing so saying things like “Rosberg is the better qualifier” whether true or not, is meaningless. Qualifying doesn’t win world championships in a car this dominant, they could have started at the back of every race and had the pace to win 90% of them with ease.

    No other team will close the gap sufficiently to be challenging for the win every single race next season. To do this you would be expecting a team to find at a bare minimum 1.5s/lap between now and the start of next season which just does not happen – Mercedes will not stand still either so it could be significantly more than that to be found.

    I fully expect them to come out next season and still be comfortably ahead of everyone and with a far more reliable car – I’d go so far as to say that they will be more dominant next season if they sort out the reliability.

    I will be very surprised if i’m sat here in 12 months time and we’re not talking about Lewis as a 3 time champion, Rosberg does not have what it takes in my opinion.

  9. They are sounding way to comfortable right now at Brakley, sure they are riding the cloud right now but I wouldn’t feel so confident if I were them.

    The opposition is only going to get closer in 2015 and onwards, especially when the rules stay the same for a couple of years… (not counting in an engine unfreeze of course!)

  10. Mercedes should be careful with the competition’s engines. If Ferrari catch up, an Allison-car driven by Vettel might be a challenge. If Renault catch up, heck, Ricciardo won three races this season, made quite a few beautiful moves. If Honda are good (and Mclaren pull something out of their pocket) we all know Alonso has been dragging cars where they dont belong.

  11. If merc carry forward the same speed next year and Hamilton has less misfortunes Ham will destroy all records may be 17 or 18 wins out of 21 race calendar.

  12. Even though I’m a Lewis fan, I’d like to see the dynamic change in 2015, to see how the Mercedes drivers react not just to fighting with each other but with Red Bulls and the rest.

    See Hungary 2014 for what I’m thinking of.

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