Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Silverstone, 2008

Hamilton: Hockenheim win was better than Silverstone 2008

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In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton says his victory in the German Grand Prix was even better than his triumph at Silverstone 10 years ago, when he finished over a minute ahead of his closest rival.

What they say

Hamilton was asked where his Sunday win ranked among his previous successes:

I feel like I drove the best I can remember driving. I didn’t make any mistakes.

I’ve obviously had a lot of races so there have been other great ones. Silverstone 2008 was pretty great but I went off. It was 99.8. This one I didn’t make any mistakes at all so I was really proud, for sure.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Michelin tyres, Renault, Interlagos, 2006
Michelin considering Formula 1 return in 2020
Would anything really chance if a different tyre manufacturer replaced Pirelli?

I don’t see why everyone is getting so excited about Pirelli getting replaced. It’s not like Pirelli purposefully made cheese tyres – the FIA mandated for them to degrade and have limited life to force pit stops and strategies.

If anyone thinks Michelin or whoever picks up after Pirelli won’t have the same requests they are kidding themselves.

I would hope that if we move away from designed to degrade tyres that Pirelli get the opportunity to showcase their tyres and change a public perception that their tyres are rubbish, it would have to be a very compelling response from Michelin for the FIA to hange manufacturer.
@Captainpie

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On this day in F1

  • 30 years ago today Ayrton Senna won at a very wet Hockenheimring while team mate Alain Prost recovered to take second

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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38 comments on “Hamilton: Hockenheim win was better than Silverstone 2008”

  1. The field had a performance difference that was probably the smallest ever in 2008, though, from the McLaren and Ferrari to the Force India. From his own point of view, he made fewer mistakes last sunday, but he certainly had much more opposition at Silverstone and he completely humiliated them! I rate Silverstone higher because of that.

    1. I think he might’ve been joking, because he laughed at the end off making that statement

      1. it does seem like nonsense if he wasn’t joking. sunday’s race was absolutely handed to him – granted he made no mistakes, but neither did bottas and a host of other drivers. the performance differential is making the racing look awful, the worst i can remember for a while until it rained. i wonder if his comments are a subtle dig at vettel – as in “i’m driving great, making no mistakes. look what happened to you” – or perhaps it’s just poorly quoted.

        1. Why can’t his words be just what it is, him expressing how he felt? Why do we have to assume he’s always having a dig at someone?

        2. sunday’s race was absolutely handed to him

          Ahahahaha no. His first stint was a monster and earned him the win. Handed a win would be Rosberg at Silverstone 2012 where everyone in-front of him had mechanical issues. In Germany on Sunday Hamilton was just the better driver.

          1. Obviously that should be 2013 *makes a sacrifice to the gods of adding an edit button*

    2. I was at both, and I rate GB 2008 higher. Sunday was a brilliant drive though. Not gifted as some described, his first stint was excellent, gave him the platform.

  2. Is Hamilton joking? Not only he has by far one of the quickest cars on the grid plus he was served this victory on a silver platter.

    1. last rave confirmed F1 has a A1 tier – ham vet – a A2 – bot rai, and the B tier, from where RB occasionallly escapes.

    2. And so sad that anyone outside Fer/Mer won’t even bother putting up a fight because it’ll ruin their own race. F1 has never been so stale and uninspired!

      1. It quite disappointing to see how willingly Alonso moved over when Hamilton showed up behind him.
        The real fights last Sunday were in the F1B field.

  3. Re: cotd I disagree completely as per my response within the original topic of Michelin considering a return to F1, near the bottom along with an excellent remark from gt-racer.

    1. @robbie Unfortunately this blog is probably also subject to repeat the perverted version of history that the FIA mandates everybody related to F1 to parrot. It’s just not allowed to write or talk about what actually happened and how Pirelli presented us with this high degradation misery

      Indeed with a good side-note from Gt-racer explaining how “high-deg” could be done without the misery Pirelli adds to the mix.

      1. State your source. That is all.

        Pirelli clearly provide what they’ve been asked to provide or they would be deemed to be in breach of their contract with the FIA/FOM.

        Just because you don’t agree with it, doesn’t make it not true.

  4. Really Tour de France? Using F1 as a by-word for race fixing? Really? Wow! How many of your previous winners were banned from competing due to doping? Please, do not try and drag another sport through the same mud that you constantly wallow in.

    1. Sush meerkat
      24th July 2018, 7:41

      While I do like the Tour de France I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments re the doping. I think it was 2004 that the person in 27th place was the only one not doping.

      Also of note F1 cars cost more to replace in case of a crash.

    2. The comment referred to F1’s team orders and had nothing to do with doping.

      1. The comment referred to F1’s team orders and had nothing to do with doping.

        True, but a comment of “F1 is a byword for bad behaviour” (in terms of team orders) coming from a sport which is the byword for bad beaviour (in terms of doping) is a little hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?

        Even so, I know that in cycling a team will have 1 or more “lead” runners and 1 or more “suppporting” runners. They will work as a team to ensure the “lead” runners get the best chance to win. Maybe they don’t outright say “hold station”, but in any team sport the team will work together to ensure the best possible result.

        In fact, I don’t know of many team sports where the team will allow their members to compete with each other, risking the result. Imagine if one of the strikers in football tackled another near the goal so he could score a goal in place of his teammate… The fact that teammates are allowed to battle each other at all is fairly unique to F1!

        1. I hear what you’re saying. My point was it’s not hypocritical because the by-word comment came from Byron Young, and not anyone actually employed within the Tour circus.

  5. Not worth it to publish a tweet from a person complaining about wet feet when it’s pouring down.

    1. @coldfly I kinda understand her. I mean, they are trying to encourage people to go to the races, broadening the audience, etc. But there is some kind of detachment between Liberty and who hosts: look what happened in France and again here.

      I heard stories of my dad climbing over the fences and up to the trees to see the race at Monza in the rain, but this was 40-50 years ago and he didn’t pay a euro. If I go to a race with my family, spending hundreds of euros for tickets, gas, eating, merch etc. I have the right to complain as you – circuit, country, etc – have the duty to provide a safe and satisfying experience, not only during the race but from the moment I head to the circuit to the moment I leave.

      1. I kinda understand your point as well, @m-bagattini. But it is a first world problem.
        I used to visit the Brazilian GP regularly and got soaking wet on most occasions, and even in Melbourne my beer got diluted a few years ago. To me rain is mostly a nice spice-upper when attending or watching a race.

        Why do people (use social media to) complain so much?
        We – lucky ones – had it much tougher in the past but were not complaining as much, and then there are the unlucky ones (e.g. Japan a few weeks ago) where rain causes a lot more havoc than in Germany.

        1. @coldfly well, first of all people love complaining, so give them the smallest reason and they’ll do :D

          Anyway, I understand your point of view and of course, it could be a great experience if faced with the right spirit.

          Yes, it’s a first world problem but again I wouldn’t complain if it was a free or cheap experience: I don’t know in Hockenheim, but Monza for 2 adults and 1 kid is around 600 euros (and not on the best grandstands). Add traveling, eating, merchandising and you can top 1000 euros. It is indeed a first world problem, to a first world experience at first world prices.

  6. Disagree, really, hamilton was sublime in silverstone 2008, true he made a mistake, but basically it rained all the race, and heavy rain at that, barrichello on a honda which was very slow back then was even gaining 3 sec per lap on hamilton since he was on full wet (nothing to lose) and hamilton on intermediates, there was very little rain in hockenheim, don’t see how “not making mistakes” counts so much on mostly dry track. Think this was a good race but nothing special from hamilton, with the characteristic gaining several sec per lap on the rain with slick tyres compared to most other drivers.

    1. @esploratore It’s amazing how good Hamilton is in the wet that people even say that going 2 seconds a lap faster is “nothing special” because we are so used to him doing something like that.

      Like in Monza last year where he had more than 2 seconds on Bottas, Raikkonen and Vettel (2.5s even) in Q3. It’s indeed become the norm for him to outperform the others like that when it’s wet.

  7. Team orders were a none issue. Vettel was on a different strategy so it absolutely made sense. And Hamilton won the fight with Bottas, he was pulling away when the order came. Thankfully we still got a tense battle with them.

    1. (Hamilton) was pulling away when the order came.

      Bottas was given the order to stay behind when he was next to Hamilton (check the official video here).
      The audio/video you saw on Sunday had a serious delay, @philipgb.

      Video is also a good opportunity to review Vettel’s ups and downs ;-)

  8. Well, at least Silverstone 2008 was more of a win. Hockenheim 2018 was gifted him thrice in one afternoon.

    1. And yet the count in his win column has ticked up to 66. It must really burn lol

    2. Gifted by being the fastest man in the mixed conditions while his closest rival couldn’t even keep it on the track despite driving slower?

  9. “A very fast car and an over-effective DRS zone making it rather too easy for everybody to overtake on the parabolic run down to the turn six hairpin made the difference.”
    – I didn’t really find that to be the case, though, so I disagree with Brundle. The cover of the GQ magazine, though.

  10. Is this Byron Young guy (no idea who he is) being sarcastic? If there is any sport where there are team orders then it would be Cycling. They have a whole team of cyclists who are all working to help one guy.

    1. No, he’s sore that he isn’t his paper’s f1 guy anymore, I think @patrickl but same effect.

  11. Hamilton , do not lie!
    I pitty this one while he was pushing car during qialifications in germany and this man is proud of it.
    If we trust you, nobody of us would not have anything to eat.
    You are lookimg us straight to the eyes and lie.
    Lew, do you know what is shame?
    I read these articles because i like race.
    Hey guy, listen to Max. He is future Ferrari ma… you better close mouth!
    FIA adopted you and do not talk any more.
    We want race. And not somebody who can speak only english.
    Max must be your idol otherwise, you will stay single whole life…

    1. Stop drinking 1 hour before posting. Coherency goes up.

      1. BlackJackFan
        25th July 2018, 7:56

        Hi Ram… lmao
        And also engage brain before……. Oh, never mind. lol

  12. I think Pirellis have done what F1 requested aside from the delamination issues of 15/16(?). When I went to Canada 2010 (the race that I assume sparked the whole “made to degrade” deal with Pirelli), the top 6 cars cars suffered massive degradation with the Bridgestone option (Soft) tires, which truly added to the spectacle and drama. The best part was that everyone experienced the deg. at different stages of the race, the option tire being faster than the prime, but at what cost? They obviously degraded faster than expected. I think Pirelli have nailed that for the most part. Teams are completely in the dark and constantly hunting how to get the tires in their window.

    I really don’t think anything needs to change. We’ll see how the 18″ wheels change things up.

    1. Wow my typing is terrible… Moving on.

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