Second title “a long time coming” – Hamilton

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton says his second championship crown took a long time to follow the first one after collecting the trophy at the FIA’s end-of-season award ceremony.

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FIA Prize-Giving Gala 2014 highlights (F1)

“It’s been such a long time coming. So many legendary drivers here and now to see my name right here it’s just absolutely incredible.”

Williams teams up with Haymarket to create new engineering award (Williams)

“Following a written essay question and a series of assessments at the Williams factory in Oxfordshire, the eventual winner will be offered an initial two year placement upon graduation in an accelerated development programme that will see them mentored by senior engineers and rotate through various areas of the team before they find their specialism.”

Money deals oil Formula One wheels (The Telegraph)

“Before the first race of the season even begins, Ferrari has pocketed around $92m in prize money – about same sum as Caterham’s entire annual budget.”

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Comment of the day

What would you call this year’s season review video?

What’s with “It was fair”? Sounds so unexciting. Previously a lot of the titles have been pretty poor in my opinion.

2008 – Luck does not come into it
2009 – Not in a hurry
2010 – Sebastien’s coming of age
2011 – He’s done it again!
2012 – Victorious Vettel
2013 – Who can stop him?
2014 – It was fair

They seem to be getting worse and worse. I would just leave it as “The official review of the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship” and be done with it. None of these cringeworthy titles or ‘it was fair’ – you know it was fair stuff.

I would have called it “The clash of the Mercedes” or something dramatic like that.
@RoboCAT

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On this day in F1

A controversy was brewing four years ago today when Renault revealed they would race in a retro black-and-gold livery having received backing from car manufacturer Lotus. However a new team formed by Tony Fernandes had already completed its first season using the Lotus name.

At the time most F1 Fanatic readers sided with Fernandes, and the matter was eventually settled in his favour in court. However he later rebranded his team as Caterham and reached a deal to transfer the Lotus name to the team which still uses it.

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54 comments on “Second title “a long time coming” – Hamilton”

  1. Those review titles are horrible.
    “A long time coming” would be a more fitting one.
    Or “the second coming”
    or a cheesy brilliant benz would even be better.

    1. Oh, you beat me to it @solidg

    2. Or ‘Still I Rise’ would have been most fitting

    3. Or maybe…

      2013 – Who can stop him?
      2014 – Hamilton could !

    4. “The Hunger Games”.

      Get it?

      1. ahahahahaasdahasahah

      2. Perfect!
        +1

      3. Brilliant! COTY

      4. ohhh perfect! +10000000

    5. @solidg
      “A long time coming” sounds like the title of a 70’s porn film…

    6. The titles used are getting worse. My suggestions:
      1. ‘Hammertime!’
      2. ‘Double Or Nothing’
      3. ‘The First Driver You Have To Beat…’
      4. ‘Duel In The Desert.’
      5. ‘The Gloves are off!’
      6. ‘The Silver Arrows’s Vintage Year’

      1. Maybe ‘I’m just so blessed’ or ‘Only God can judge Lewis Hamilton, we just do the review’.
        I got the 2011 review, but I feel this should pretty much be full races or extensive highlights rather then three minute snippets considering you can’t get them anywhere else. (Apart from a cheeky torrent, which is what I’ll be doing instead.)

      2. ‘Rush 2’

    7. Jarred Walmsley
      8th December 2014, 1:59

      I would have gone for “The Beating of the Bulls”

    8. I think it’s mind-boggling that one of the most expensive and global sports has such an anti-creativity stance towards… everything.

    9. I think ‘U Can’t Touch This’ would have been the most appropriate title.

    10. I thought the best title would be “Brawn Part 2”

    11. Its just a title who cares and its not really FOM or FIA’s (whoever it is) biggest mistake anyway

    12. Peppermint-Lemon (@)
      8th December 2014, 7:46

      Either: “Duel” (after the film of Stephen King fame).

      Or:

      “Climbing for Dollars” (from the film ‘Running Man’)

      1. @peppermint-lemon …also of Stephen King fame!

    13. How about “Formula 1: 2014 Season Review”?

  2. Regarding COTD, the headline of this roundup “A Long Time Coming” would’ve probably been a better title for the season review. Mind you, it is difficult to find much worse…

  3. is there going to be a photo article from the FIA gala awards?

  4. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    8th December 2014, 1:14

    The review titles are terrible and so are the FOM Race Edits. They used to be epic, now they’re just awful.

  5. What is Ferrari doing with all that money? they have the most by far and built a midfield car and the worst engine in the end.

    1. This is why it would have been rewarding to see the Lotus team have enough capital to build on their success from 2013. With less they accomplished more than most other teams on the grid including some who spent much more.

      Things are cyclical though. Ferrari will be back eventually, with the right key staff members.

  6. ‘It was fail.’

    Recent review titles are uninspired or inexplicable; it’s not like it’s exceptionally difficult to come up with a meaningful name or clever turn of phrase related to an entire year of F1 intrigue.

    Some suggestions off the top of my head for 2014:
    ‘Swift as an arrow’
    ‘Fast friends’
    ‘Hammer it home’
    ‘Quicksilver’
    ‘Twice as nice’
    ‘On the double’ ;)

  7. No cheap plastic Santander trophies at the awards gala? Shocking!
    I wonder if those all got left behind at Red Bull the other day.

  8. It think Ferrari is entitled to that money. Ferrari is not the only team to bolster a bonus for their longevity, there’s one extra thing for Williams and possibly McLaren and there’s also the cvc thing that all teams pledged or that can guarantee their participation until 2020 get an extra incentive. I can’t see anything wrong with this. I caught one problem, Ferrari is italian, and they are evil according to the generalized press. Shame that the 1st Briton F1 champion was driving in fascist colours.

    1. They should revamp the prize money distribution on a sloped model like English Premiership football prize money. No historic money or political shenanigans. Simply:

      (EQUAL TV MONEY SHARE) + (INCREMENTAL MERIT MONEY BASED ON WCC STANDINGS)

      But then which of the big teams are going to agree to disrupt the gravy train? The cartel can’t even come to unanimous compromise on letting small teams join the panel.

    2. I agree with @calum.

      You have to start on an equal footing, after that, performance based. The better you perform, the higher your profile, hence a bigger chance of landing more sponsorship dollars. But hey, this is F1, nothing is ever clear cut.

      Dieter Rencken had a good article autosport recently, explaining how during the boom years in the early 00’s, the sponsor income of F1 alone was in excess of a billion dollars a year, hence the big boys became massive coporations on the strength of that revenue. Now, the collective sponsorship income is on 350 million, which is a massive difference, while the big boys have still remained the same size. SO therein lies the problem…the price money pie is still as big, but they are needing to find increasingly creative methods to secure more of it because they arent making as much from the sponsors.

      F1 need to be more creative. If they want to continue in the current vain, maybe it will need to consider different classes like WEC? We’ve debated this before, but a two tier format might be the only way forward..because there is no way the big boys will want to take a pay cut.

      1. @jaymenon10 @calum True, and the sad thing is, F1 could employ a lot more people, maybe 1,000-2,000 at least. Caterham/Marussia folding has put people out of work; hopefully some can move to Haas/other teams. The decline of sponsor revenue is somewhat symptomatic of the problems afflicting F1 since the financial crisis.

    3. Ferrari 1950- (FIAT takeover from 1973)
      McLaren 1966- (Ron Dennis came in 1979)
      Williams 1969- (Reformed in 1978, a back-marker previously)
      Mercedes 1969- (from Tyrrell/Matra 1969/70-)

      I’d say Mercedes would have a claim @peartree ;) They also dominated in the 50’s, when Ferrari was the ‘newer name’ and originally ran Alfa Romeos from the 30s-50s, not to mention the Lancia D50.

      Arguably, you could say FIAT deserve it more than Ferrari, as they were pioneers of GP racing from the start, like Peugeot. Does 100 years+ of GP history trump 64 for Ferrari? Renault also won the first Grand Prix, ahead of FIAT and Mercedes. Interesting that all 3 are still in F1, as the main engine manufacturers, 108 years later.

      The first British legendary calibre F1 driver was also by no doubt Stirling Moss. That would be like calling Button better than Hamilton because of 2011! Granted that Button is almost unparalleled in the wet; in many respects, he’s better than Hawthorn comparatively. Hawthorn’s win is more like Irvine’s 1999. Button is like Tony Brooks, good, but oft forgotten. Brooks quit early and could have won in 1962.

      1. Also, Moss always rated Brooks, and recently, Hamilton did just that for Button.

    4. Ferrari certainly feel entitled @peartree :) But there is everything wrong with it, not only this but being allowed tobacco sponsorship and having the veto and being on the F1 Commission and the whole slanted playing field. Spygate started, let’s not forget, because the governing body simply refused to act on reports of their illegal floor. Then they kept the points and won their last trophy with them. Mass damper ban. Tyre width. FRIC ban…

      With all these advantages what does it mean when Ferrari win? Does it mean they’ve done a better job than the other teams? Have their engineers engineered better? Have their drivers driven better? Has the team been better organised? Have they in any sense performed better at motor racing? No. Or only possibly.

      A Ferrari victory means nothing. That is the problem.

      To a lesser extent it’s the same for Red Bull and Mercedes of course, but we can at least see that other teams with similar corporate funding have failed.

      With Ferrari it’s extreme. Extremely pointless. Their scale of potential achievement from participating in F1 runs from meaningless to humiliating.

      1. @lockup Ferrari is not allowed tobacco sponsorship, that’s an EU guideline. Phillip Morris manages Ferrari’s ad-space. Ferrari has a veto in F1, do you know how they have used that power lately? No, but think who was blocked the 4-inline engines? No one in F1 wanted them but CVC and VW wanted that rule. Ferrari is entitled to their position in F1 as themselves as a company were built around it but also because F1 is Ferrari to a certain extent, and thankfully Ferrari hasn’t done anything outright to hurt F1, because as I explained that would be suicide, like the 4 cylinder engines. Spy-gate started because Fernando Alonso wanted something from Ron Dennis, but you can’t bend that man can you. Ron Dennis is both the greatest leader in F1 (behind Bernie that is) but also like Bernie it’s most destructive force. Ron Dennis poached sponsors, engines, engineers from Williams. McLaren flagged RBR’s flexing wings in Abu Dhabi, every team tries to use leverage and a clever understanding of the rules to win, McLaren do it constantly as in Abu Dhabi or in 2012 with the holes on RBR’s floor, Mercedes and RBR teamed up to force Pirelli to change it’s construction in 2013, bashing Pirelli publicly. In 2005 Why do you think F1 banned tyre changes? Michelin and its teams knew they would finally beat Ferrari. Now the tyre width thing was Brawns brilliance, Ferrari was starting to have some competition so Brawn brought the rulebook and said that the Michelin were illegal even though they had been for a couple years, but 2003 was going to the wire, as was as I mentioned 2013 but RBR managed to get the Kevlar construction back. Why do you think that before this season Pirelli would go harder on compound as the season went along? In the title fight RBR and McLaren likened the harder tyres better, Ferrari couldn’t heat them up and so couldn’t Lotus. Top teams have a stranglehold of F1, they have the right to change the sport, and that’s wrong, how can you expect them to behave.

        1. @peartree PMI don’t sell the engine cover do they? What’s on it, that most valuable space in the whole of motorsport? Aha, it’s the Ferrari logo, aka the corner of a Marlboro packet, slightly bent and successor to the infamous barcode. Governments are supposed to enforce the EU ban on sponsorship but the Italian government doesn’t. It’s a massive unfair advantage.

          Spygate started with the communication between Stepney and Coughlan, and that arose because Stepney was totally ignored by the FIA and realised the only way to expose the buckling stay was to get McLaren to enquire. Then that cooperation blossomed into The Dossier and sundry texts and emails.

          Anyway my point is that biasing the sport to favour one team is self-defeating. If I were a Ferrari supporter I would hate the bias, because it belittles everything they achieve.

          I love Italy btw and Italians. But I can’t wait for Bernie to be replaced with someone with at least a bit of integrity, and Charlie Whiting with him. Montezemolo is gone at least, that’s a step in the right direction.

          Then take away the extra money and let Ferrari be rebuilt as a proper sporting team that we can respect on its merits, because of its excellence, instead of a brand that venture capitalists prop up to make money.

          1. A critical assumption there – Bernie will be replaced by someone with more integrity. Like he is the worst there is in the paddock. Unlikely my friend. F1 is a beast and an will attract the like minded. Too much power and money involved.

          2. @lockup Ufo talk hahah. I’m sorry I don’t smoke if you say so, I’ll believe that the logo is Marlboro that said it’s EU’s job, leave Italy alone. Spygate didn’t started that way, what you described is what supposedly happened to convict McLaren but that’s basically only the info that Ron Dennis submitted to the FIA, the spygate’s origin is Alonso’s. As Mog said I can’t see anyone better than Bernie Ecclestone to run F1. Obviously some changes regarding the power, teams have within F1 must be considered, but in a way that’s the teams reward for representing F1. There’s no bias to Ferrari, there’s a balance of power between the heavy hitters in F1. These days Mercedes and RBR are on top of the political battle, with the team behind pressing harder for political changes within. Montezemolo leaving means Ferrari will press harder for something out of F1, participating fair and square and trying to protect F1 is not on Ferrari’s agenda anymore. Watching the others rule is not an option for the new marketing oriented Ferrari, that’s exactly why the new TP is the former Marlboro man. Alonso leaving meant that Ferrari F1 needed to revamp it’s working structure because for one, the Santander money is gone, 100m euros. Hiring the 4 times champion and a hero for the younger fans of F1 is a smart move, especially if you consider the Schumacher inspiration. Having Kimi on the other seat is another good idea from a marketing stand point, possibly globally the most popular driver after JB.

          3. @peartree European Directives require member countries to enact and enforce legislation, that’s how they work. Or in Italy’s case, don’t ;)

            So Ferrari get to have tobacco sponsorship while other teams don’t. It’s a huge unfair advantage.

            I don’t mind teams playing a certain amount of politics, ultimately it’s up to the governance not to let it pay off, but in F1 there is a long and undistinguished history of FIA bias, that’s where the Ferrari International Assistance jokes come from.

            Spygate is an example of that. Stepney and Coughlan only started collaborating because FIA resolutely refused to act on what Stepney was telling them about the secret stay on the Ferrari floor. Then even when it was exposed Ferrari were allowed to keep the points they won with it.

            I hoped things had improved with Max’s departure but we still had McLaren’s legal floor banned and then FRIC, so Charlie is carrying on regardless under Todt (ex Ferrari TP) twisting things to suit Bernie’s money-making.

            Meanwhile we have Bernie using this ridiculous ‘they deserve it’ pretext to pay Ferrari more. It’s just to break up FOTA, keep control, keep the Ferrari brand up there, to milk money out of the sport with empty grandstands, high ticket prices, double points, all for the vulture capitalists outside the sport.

            So Ferrari get their 2.5% and other benefits before they’ve turned a wheel. They get to throw money at drivers and staff. It’s corrupting. Not sport. They ought to win everything.

            As it is Newey and Andy Cowell have refused to get involved even for silly money. Alonso has dumped them.

            Driver popularity is a red herring. We all know who the most popular driver is atm and he’s said he’s said he’s not interested either, he can just paint his Merc red :))

    5. Quote: “Shame that the 1st Briton F1 champion was driving in fascist colours.” Unquote.
      Mike Hawthorn was the first Briton to win the WDC in 1958 in a Ferrari. What has that got to do with “fascist colours”?

      1. @calum If Man utd leaves the premiership, the league survives, even if Liverpool, Man utd and Arsenal were to leave there would be enough fans to sustain the league. If Ferrari leaves F1, F1 collapses. I do however agree with a better scaling system.

        @fastiesty Ferrari has always participated in F1, McLaren is kiwi and later became part American part Kiwi and part British it eventually settled down in the UK but it’s ownership was for the most part American but that’s not what it matters here, McLaren and Williams are heritage names, Williams was never a backmarker, Williams entered F1 with a costumer car only afterwards it became a constructor, and immediately a successful one. To answer to @timothykatz , red is the fascists colour of choice. historically teams would have to represent their countries racing with the national colours, red for Italy, blue for France, “british racing green”, silver for Germany white for Japan and so forth. For obvious reasons fascism does not hold hands with the allied forces, nevertheless Ferrari and British drivers have had a successful history and one that should be seen as barrier breaker, 50 years gone and people forget how important F1 racing was to the political environment of the 1950’s and 60’s.

        1. I think that’s rubbish. Red is a colour that’s equally associated with revolutionary socialism (see Soviet Union, China etc). Also as you agree, red is associated with Italy on a national basis and F1 started in the 50’s when Italy was on the brink of becoming a communist country.
          F1 racing was never important to the political environment during the 50’s or 60’s. Media coverage was almost negligible and the general public had virtually no idea of its existence. I remember my elder brother being almost apoplectic with frustration that the BBC didn’t even mention who had won the British Grand Prix sometime in the early Sixties.

          1. @timothykatz you couldn’t be more wrong.

  9. Colajanni’s tweet is terrible – not something you expect from someone that has worked in PR for so long…

    1. It is a joke, like many of us made on this blog. Just relax and take it easy.

  10. I’ve a lot of respect for Hamilton. He seemed on a downward trajectory after his first season but in ’12 he really pulled it together personally.

    I think history owed him a season of dominance, let’s just hope next year is like 2010 with several contenders.

    I want to see races like China ’11, Canada ’12 and Hungary ’13 because even though Rosberg ran him close in points on the track it was almost clinical.

  11. ‘Silence of the Lambs’?

  12. Maybe they adopted a time-saving approach to titling and got it all ready before Abu Dhabi.

    Had Hamilton won, “It Was Fair.”
    Has Rosberg won, “It was Not Really Fair.”

  13. It’s bland, but I think “it was fair” it’s fitting for the season..
    Mercedes domination was fair.
    The title not being decided with double points was fair.
    Hamilton winning the title was fair.
    Ricciardo trouncing Vettel was fair.
    Williams being competitive again was fair.

    So in a few years if enayone ask me how the 2014 season was, I ‘ll say that “it was fair”

  14. Oh dear, that is a dreadful title. I have the 1991 one and it’s called ‘Nearly Nigel’ which is daft and a bit Anglo-centric. It should have been ‘Sensational Senna’ or something.

  15. If ever there was a photo desperately searching for a caption…

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