Cracking drive by Lewis Hamilton this weekend in Hungary.
Having come in for an extra tyre stop, he emerged from the pits 20 seconds behind Max Verstappen, but caught him, and passed him on the outside of a turn a few laps before the end of the race. The victory gives Lewis a 62 point lead over his teammate going in to the summer break.
Can’t wait for the second half of the season - should be a cracker.
Well done Lewis.
The last 4 races have been crackers, for different reasons, but F1 has certainly come to life again! Get in there Lewis!
And watch out for Max!
Really enjoyed today’s race. Well done Lewis
Lots of doubt about Bottas keeping his place at Mercedes. Think there will be even more pressure on Gasly at Red Bull. While Max is third in the driver’s table Ferrari are second in the constructor’s table. Gasly just isn’t providing the back up to No1 driver Max in the same way that Vettel is scoring points to back up the unlucky No1 LeClerc.
Not being a Sky subscriber I watched the Channel 4 highlights. Knew it was going to get interesting towards the end when they chopped big chunks out of the first 20 laps!
Always good to hear Lewis thanking everyone involved in the team.
Maybe not the most exciting race but the most fascinating so far this season.
I have thought for years that Ayrton Senna was the best. Lewis is making me doubt my thoughts.
No doubt , stick Charles or Max in Bottas’s car…and Hamilton would have really serious Championship issues.
Bottas is such a good determined gentleman driver, it’s the gentleman bit I think that holds him back from balls out derring-do passes sometimes.
Hamilton is a results driven track “sociopath” in a manner of speaking. Seemingly devoid of any emotion other than each event is his, just like Senna, Red 5, and Mr “Dirty Tricks” Schumy.
I’m sure he’s no more as quick these days as the above mentioned, he just has “that car”.
Petronas have this scary efficiency & general reliability about them no other team can match.
That’s what deep oil-company pockets do…pretty much limitless development funding.
A lot of it is in the car & team / pit garage itself as much as the pilot.
Ferrari have been utterly dire this season, and Red Bull just a bit off song, but Mad Max does get the best out of he is given…asides his red mist issues but he is young and full of gung-ho yet…but he is emerging as a serious contender.
For me, the late great Jim Clark was probably the best F1 driver ever. It mattered not whether he was in a Lotus F1, or a Lotus Cortina…or anything else. Others must have known they were about to get owned.
Hamilton and Verstappen are probably the ‘best’ of the current crop. Both have the skill, as does most of the grid, but crucially they have - for now - the mental strength, attitude, indefinable sense of entitlement perhaps that drives them to go a little bit further than the others at critical points. Maybe it not so much something they have, as an absence of self-doubt at those crucial moments.
It’s just too soon to judge Leclerc. His driving skill is not in doubt, but we have seen shooting stars fizzle before. Hulkenberg is an interesting case study - he is much admired, he won the F2 championship in his first year and his relative lack of success in F1 is usually attributed to never having had a competitive car. But does he lack that undefinable something?
Senna was ruthless. Schumacher took it too far. There are shades of that in Vettel too (whose loss of form suggests he has ‘lost’ something mentally).
As for Bottas - he has 2 wins this season to Hamilton’s 8 - but if Hamilton wins, Bottas can’t. His ‘misfortune’ is to be in the same team as Hamilton. And yes, he does sometimes look too compliant.
Wolff acknowledges this and perhaps at least part of the cause:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/145250/mercedes-racecraft-rules-compromised-bottas–wolff
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bottas is retained. For one thing, Ocon is actually unproven. I don’t remember him particularly outshining Perez consistently at Force India. Wolff probably feels he owes Ocon, after the Renault drive fell through due to Ricciardo leaving Red Bull, and wants to help him. But he will recognize that he might not actually be as good as Bottas, and that if he is and if the Mercedes points are shared more equally with Hamilton then the chances of Mercedes winning the driver championship could actually be reduced.
I agree about Jim Clark. On a totally different level.
We don’t know the back story with Bottas and whether there are other reasons for the rumoured replacement, he may be suggesting he wants to move on himself. He seemed reticent to pass Ricciardo which held him back massively at the weekend but you have to wonder how much effort you would make if you knew there was no benefit for you at the end of the season. I don’t think he gets paid any less :-).
I wonder if at heart Bottas is a WRC driver where you drive on the limit against the clock, but there’s no other cars to have “shoulder to shoulder” battles with?
I did an interview with Paul Stewart for another club magazine recently - he confessed to allowing himself a wry smile at the Red Bull/Mercedes wars . Because, as we anoraks know , his dad’s team, Tyrrell, became BAR , then Honda, then Brawn and then Lewis’ Mercedes team and Max’s Red Bull was Jaguar, and before that was Stewart Grand Prix . A nice symmetry I think .