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“1 Hamilton – Still he rises. But really, what is he rising from? When was the last time he was down, and hadn’t the machinery no to be in the top? 1995? Still, impressive season, best of anyone imo”
2008 & 2018. He didn’t have the OUTRIGHT best machinery in these 2 yrs, so his title rivals had equal chance to win.
I think Keith pulled a lot of stats,and around the time Hamilton had actually built up a strong points lead over Vettel, the Ferrari had been the quicker car more often. Going into Singapore, Keith stated Vettel had the quicker car 9 times, Hamilton only 5 and yet Hamilton had already built up a 30 point lead. And let’s not forget Vettel had bullet-proof reliability too at this stage while Hamilton had quite a few technical issues.
F1 is too complex a sport to be simplistically quoting raw stats and quoting rigid dictionary definitions that cannot encompass the nuances of F1. If you cannot understand this, perhaps you need to be following a different sport. The fastest car doesn’t always get the wins & poles. Vettel won in Australia 2018, but Merc was the faster car in Australia. Hamilton won in Baku, but Ferrari was the faster car in Baku. RebBull won in China, yet ferrari was the faster car over the China weekend…..get the picture?
So, where in those 2017 stats you quote, does it reflect that Ferrari had the fastest car in Singapore, Mexico, Spain, Malaysia but failed to convert? Where in those stats does it reflect that at tracks such as Spa, there was literally nothing to separate the pace of the Merc & Ferrari? That race could have gone either way? Where does your stats account for Hamilton’s great defensive driving as the reason for his Spa victory,as opposed to the inherent speed of the car???? In fact, we have AMus, Mark Hughes & Vettel himself all concluding Ferrari had the faster car in Spa, yet Merc got the victory(Vettel just couldn’t find a way to get past Hamilton on track). Where in those pole stats does it reflect where Vettel messed up? Like in Spain qualifying where Vettel had the quicker car but made a slight error, that allowed Hamilton to snatch pole? Or in Austria where Vettel was beaten by less than a tenth but made an error on the last corner? etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
With a better performance from Vettel/Ferrari, their win tally could have been 10. That’s half the 20 races. It’s ludicrous and disingenous to try and paint the W08 as a dominant car. As soon as you quoted bare stats w/o context, for me, you lost further credability.The 2017 Merc wasn’t dominant. You want it to be, to justify Vettel’s loss and diminish Hamilton’s victory.And to further back up my assessment, let’s give a couple of inside opinions on the strength of the 2017 cars:
Daniel Ricciardo -“Lewis’s season – I respect that. He had a great car, but I think Seb’s car was also as good and Lewis just maintained a cooler head, a better level of consistency and composure.You have to respect that”
Mark Hughes- “-“The Merc is prone to not finding that balancing point or falling off it whereas the Ferrari’s performance is much more robust. All round, Ferrari is a better car”
Vettel- “”I believe we have the best car in terms of overall package.”
Christian Horner “-“Ferrari is the fastest/benchmark car”
Will Buxton -“ferrari argubaly was the best car, a car for all seasons, car suited to every race and track, where as Merc had that diva with problems, wasn’t the best car, not the best with its tyres”
James Allen -” Ferrari have built a wonderful car this year, whereas the Mercedes is a bit tricky and temperamental. And yet Ferrari finds itself now out of control of the championship, not least due to valuable points dropped in Baku and Singapore”
Alonso – ” Last year, arguably, Ferrari was better in many of the races, [had] more performance on their car, so it was a very close fight in a way until Singapore when the two Ferraris crashed [into] each other. They were leading the championship, they were in front.”
Helmut Marko -“Ferrari was clearly the stronger car in the first half of the season and only due to various circumstances could they not materialize all their chances”.
Ross Brawn -” Ferrari has a competitive package at its disposal. Ferrari are so strong that they can still win the championship on their own power.”
hHelmut Marko- ““Ferrari certainly had the best car over the whole season, but they made too many mistakes, both tactically and technically. Previously, when Sebastian Vettel drove for Red Bull, his greatest strength was his form after the summer break. He used to return with an uncanny mental strength and what inevitably followed was a winning streak. But this year, already with the start collision in Singapore I thought: That will not happen this year,”
Andrew Benson- “While the Ferrari is quick everywhere, and has a much more level overall performance from race to race, the Mercedes is unpredictable and difficult to manage and, as a race car, it is probably on balance inferior to the Ferrari”
Sergio Marchionne-“Ferrari is on a par if not superior to Mercedes “
I suppose you are going to argue these opinions are worth nowt? That these guys don’t know what they are talking about?
Quit the nonsense that Merc had a dominant car in 2017. Heck, there is even some doubt about wheter it was even the best car!!! Plenty in F1 say Ferrari was just as good, if not better!!!!!
Hamilton was super consistent in 2017—no OUTRIGHT errors until Brazil qual (by which time he had already won the title). He had a couple of sub-par/off-pace races, but to be frank, so did everyone else.
Vettel made too many errors of judgement. At the start, he defended too aggressively in Singapore. With Hamilton qualifying down the order, there was simply no need for this, to swerve so severely across track. In Mexico, he was in the fastest car on that track and messed up the start, failed to convert. Spain, the Ferrari was fastest on that track, yet he somehow loses it to Hamilton. Baku, Merc faster but Vettel sees the red mist, earns himself a penalty, preventing him from fully capitalising on Hamilton’s headrest issue. GPS data show Ferrari had the quickest car in Malaysia, perhaps Vettel’s crash in Singapore contributed to his car problems in Malaysia, preventing him from fully capitalising. Then after the race, he gets involved in a silly crash on the cool down lap, perhaps further contributing to his problems in Japan etc etc etc
Vettel made too many silly mistakes in 2017,failing to capitalise on a car that many say was the best/equal best.
This is what Marchionne said of their 2017 loss:
“It was a combination of, especially in the second half of the season, technical issues and driver error, or driver misjudgement. I think the second half revealed some structural weaknesses in the manner which we are managing this business, which are going to get rectified and hopefully 2018 will be a much better season. It’s a 2018 objective now. We regret not having done better, but the car is there. It is in my view probably the best car on the track today.”
Not sure what have been watching, but Merc haven’t been dominant since 2016. And, unlike when Schumacher was winning most of his titles at Ferrari, atleast Rosberg and Hamilton were allowed to fight equally. Contrast Schumacher, usually in the best car but protected by contractual number 1 status with perks like having tyres (Bridgestones) specifically made for him, plus unlimited testing, plus banning his teammates from viewing his telemetry.
Vettel had a competitive car in 2017, in fact,a good proportion of those in F1 think Ferrari had a car to match Mercs in 2017- some even say the Ferari was the best car on the grid in 2017 but Vettel made too many mistakes. Had he not have messed up in races like Singapore, Mexico, Spain etc, he could have won. He was a head for 75% of the year so to call Merc dominant is simply ludicrous.Either way, it was tight so no way was Merc dominant in 2017.
2018, ferrari the faster car overall so far (faster in China, Bahrain & Baku). This is the unanimous view of most pundits.
Perhaps you simply don’t like Merc/Ham and are looking for artificai ways to discredit them? Either way you look at it, Merc haven’t been dominant since 2016.
