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Hamilton or Rosberg

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Rosberg already won. End of discussion.

Body is 1 characters too short. Oh, okay. 1 characters?!? Oh, this forum does not know how to grammar.

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pijin said:
@dirt3joe I guess a lot of our argument is down to opinion, but in general, there is no argument that Hamilton is one of the, if not the best driver on the grid at the moment. He is brutally fast when he's in a good place, and in qualifying, I think only Vettel or Rosberg could come near him. He's done some pretty wizard like feats of tire management in like Austria and Canada, where he comfortably took ultrasofts to like 20 laps while some drivers struggled to do more than 10. Only Alonso and Verstappen really can match Hamilton's racecraft in terms of defense and attack (ex. Bahrain 2014). He just has that killer instinct that only him, Alonso, Verstappen, and to a lesser extent, Vettel have. That's what gives him the extra strength to beat these guys. And remember, Hamilton drives on talent alone. He does very little of the whole cerebral data-crunching that Rosberg is generally accused of doing (which I honestly don't care about, everyone is fast in their own way). That natural talent is why Hamilton can party all week, yet turn up and beat Rosberg. He is less sensitive to mechanical setups in the way of grip, except when it comes to braking, which was his downfall in Baku and Singapore, the only races I think Rosberg genuinely had the upper hand in.

And I'm going to go on a mild rant here. It really irritates the heck out of me that people keep saying "Hamilton's harder on the car". Yeah he's more aggressive, but you realize that there are pages and pages of telemetry right? It would be immediately obvious if there was something Hamilton was doing in particular that was overstraining the engine. Especially with the MGU-K failures. Explain to me how a driver "manages the MGU-K" in qualifying? That's like saying, oh I manage my steering wheel when I drive. It's just there and it spins with the turbo, there is nothing Hamilton's driving style that can influence it, especially as they all run the same modes in quali. And Hamilton drives with brilliant restraint to manage tires and fuel during races as I mentioned earlier. He doesn't even ride the curbs as hard as some do. I mean look at Canada this year. He was just cruising in the front while drivers like Rosberg and Vettel were railing on the curb by the Wall of Champions. "He's harder on the car" is a falsified argument and people should quit invoking it.

I can't find anything in particular that I strongly disagree with, except the part where you have mentioned about his tyre management ability. If I remember correctly, he was driving in front with clean air in Canada and Austria (correct me if I am wrong) for most of the race, which from my understanding of the sport through the commentators (never lucky enough myself to drive these things), that dirty air in traffic plays a significant enough role in tyre wear. Not saying he ability in pulling almost double amount of laps the other can is not impressive, but it should be noted that he was is a better position to do so, and thus cannot really say hardly any of the others can do the same.

Personally, I think there are at least a few other drivers, such as Button and Perez, can achieve something similar if put in the same position. Button has had a long reputation on being easy on the tyres (and perhaps not hard enough at necessary times, such as quali), at least he did a better job in that aspect in general compared to Hamilton when they were teamates. Perez did a pretty good job when he came 2nd in Malaysia a few years ago as well. It gives me an impression that some of the mid tier team drivers might be better than some of the front runner in that aspect, as it is not rare that they can benefit with 1 less pitstop.

This extra tyre wear in dirty air is also something that, in my opinion, codies can look to implement better in the game. Still isn't particularly evident in F1 2016 it seems.

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pijin said:
@dirt3joe I guess a lot of our argument is down to opinion, but in general, there is no argument that Hamilton is one of the, if not the best driver on the grid at the moment. He is brutally fast when he's in a good place, and in qualifying, I think only Vettel or Rosberg could come near him. He's done some pretty wizard like feats of tire management in like Austria and Canada, where he comfortably took ultrasofts to like 20 laps while some drivers struggled to do more than 10. Only Alonso and Verstappen really can match Hamilton's racecraft in terms of defense and attack (ex. Bahrain 2014). He just has that killer instinct that only him, Alonso, Verstappen, and to a lesser extent, Vettel have. That's what gives him the extra strength to beat these guys. And remember, Hamilton drives on talent alone. He does very little of the whole cerebral data-crunching that Rosberg is generally accused of doing (which I honestly don't care about, everyone is fast in their own way). That natural talent is why Hamilton can party all week, yet turn up and beat Rosberg. He is less sensitive to mechanical setups in the way of grip, except when it comes to braking, which was his downfall in Baku and Singapore, the only races I think Rosberg genuinely had the upper hand in.

And I'm going to go on a mild rant here. It really irritates the heck out of me that people keep saying "Hamilton's harder on the car". Yeah he's more aggressive, but you realize that there are pages and pages of telemetry right? It would be immediately obvious if there was something Hamilton was doing in particular that was overstraining the engine. Especially with the MGU-K failures. Explain to me how a driver "manages the MGU-K" in qualifying? That's like saying, oh I manage my steering wheel when I drive. It's just there and it spins with the turbo, there is nothing Hamilton's driving style that can influence it, especially as they all run the same modes in quali. And Hamilton drives with brilliant restraint to manage tires and fuel during races as I mentioned earlier. He doesn't even ride the curbs as hard as some do. I mean look at Canada this year. He was just cruising in the front while drivers like Rosberg and Vettel were railing on the curb by the Wall of Champions. "He's harder on the car" is a falsified argument and people should quit invoking it.

There's more things than just the engine though. Brake temperatures. Suspension/kerb riding. Tyres. 

I think on most of these things he would get feedback from the team as to whether he was doing something that was likely to cause a failure, but failures don't tend to be something that is binary, so one driver may just hit kerbs more times within the accepted limits, but that puts then further into the probability distribution of failure.

I don't know whether there is enough information in the public domain to judge individual drivers on these issues and obviously it varies massively from track to track. What I do know is that drivers must be harder/easier on cars, otherwise they would follow exactly the same line every lap and produce exactly the same times.  At that point once you accept that drivers do stress cars differently, then there is a debate about who stresses the car the most, so it doesn't strike me as something to get riled about, as people will have the same varying opinions as who stresses the car the most as they have over who is the best driver. Some of the arguments will be evidence based, some not. That's the internet for you.

As you say, Rosberg and Hamilton have different strengths. That's often been the case in F1, when a more technically adept and consistent driver with a scientific approach has faced off against someone with flair. James Hunt and Nikki Lauda spring to mind. I guess that's why people are so polarised about Hamilton/Rosberg. You buy into the character of one or the other based on your personal preferences. Next season its going to be interesting to see how Rosberg performs based on his win and how that will change his attitude to racing.



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@dirt3joe  - I totally agree with what you say - on a simple note, in qualifying, you see hamilton and rosberg use different gears on some corners, therefore putting different stresses through the transmission and engine. Obviously this is an extremely simple example, but other differences in driving style may be less easy for us to see. 

I am not a Mercedes fan, but personally, I am kind of happy that Rosberg won - not because I prefer him over hamilton, not because I think he deserved it more, but because i think it will make the racing much more exciting. Over the last 3 years, Rosberg has been more worried about what Hamilton is doing in a race than focusing on his own race, but now he has done what he wanted to achieve (become champion and beat Hamilton), then hopefully he will be driving to the best of his ability and not focusing so much on what Hamilton is up to, and we might see them both really racing hard - whether he wins another title or not, Rosberg will still retire from F1 as a world champion, so now he has nothing to worry about other than racing as hard as possible to try and win more championships.

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dirt3joe said:
pijin said:
@dirt3joe I guess a lot of our argument is down to opinion, but in general, there is no argument that Hamilton is one of the, if not the best driver on the grid at the moment. He is brutally fast when he's in a good place, and in qualifying, I think only Vettel or Rosberg could come near him. He's done some pretty wizard like feats of tire management in like Austria and Canada, where he comfortably took ultrasofts to like 20 laps while some drivers struggled to do more than 10. Only Alonso and Verstappen really can match Hamilton's racecraft in terms of defense and attack (ex. Bahrain 2014). He just has that killer instinct that only him, Alonso, Verstappen, and to a lesser extent, Vettel have. That's what gives him the extra strength to beat these guys. And remember, Hamilton drives on talent alone. He does very little of the whole cerebral data-crunching that Rosberg is generally accused of doing (which I honestly don't care about, everyone is fast in their own way). That natural talent is why Hamilton can party all week, yet turn up and beat Rosberg. He is less sensitive to mechanical setups in the way of grip, except when it comes to braking, which was his downfall in Baku and Singapore, the only races I think Rosberg genuinely had the upper hand in.

And I'm going to go on a mild rant here. It really irritates the heck out of me that people keep saying "Hamilton's harder on the car". Yeah he's more aggressive, but you realize that there are pages and pages of telemetry right? It would be immediately obvious if there was something Hamilton was doing in particular that was overstraining the engine. Especially with the MGU-K failures. Explain to me how a driver "manages the MGU-K" in qualifying? That's like saying, oh I manage my steering wheel when I drive. It's just there and it spins with the turbo, there is nothing Hamilton's driving style that can influence it, especially as they all run the same modes in quali. And Hamilton drives with brilliant restraint to manage tires and fuel during races as I mentioned earlier. He doesn't even ride the curbs as hard as some do. I mean look at Canada this year. He was just cruising in the front while drivers like Rosberg and Vettel were railing on the curb by the Wall of Champions. "He's harder on the car" is a falsified argument and people should quit invoking it.

There's more things than just the engine though. Brake temperatures. Suspension/kerb riding. Tyres. 

I think on most of these things he would get feedback from the team as to whether he was doing something that was likely to cause a failure, but failures don't tend to be something that is binary, so one driver may just hit kerbs more times within the accepted limits, but that puts then further into the probability distribution of failure.

I don't know whether there is enough information in the public domain to judge individual drivers on these issues and obviously it varies massively from track to track. What I do know is that drivers must be harder/easier on cars, otherwise they would follow exactly the same line every lap and produce exactly the same times.  At that point once you accept that drivers do stress cars differently, then there is a debate about who stresses the car the most, so it doesn't strike me as something to get riled about, as people will have the same varying opinions as who stresses the car the most as they have over who is the best driver. Some of the arguments will be evidence based, some not. That's the internet for you.

As you say, Rosberg and Hamilton have different strengths. That's often been the case in F1, when a more technically adept and consistent driver with a scientific approach has faced off against someone with flair. James Hunt and Nikki Lauda spring to mind. I guess that's why people are so polarised about Hamilton/Rosberg. You buy into the character of one or the other based on your personal preferences. Next season its going to be interesting to see how Rosberg performs based on his win and how that will change his attitude to racing.



True, in 2014 he had many brake failures. But his strength is late hard braking so Merc had to adapt to him for 2015. 

Also, I agree that different drivers stress the car differently. But only Lewis' engines failed this year, I dont think he had a brake or suspension failure at all.. The problem is everyone blames Hamilton for stressing the engine more, which doesn't make much sense since that could be identified in telemetry. He didn't have engine problems, he didn't have suspension problems, he didn't have bits falling of his car. He just had his MGU-K grenade twice, and then his engine blow up in Malaysia. Even in Malaysia, the team were egging him on to push harder to build  a pitstop gap to Verstappen.

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pijin said:
@dirt3joe I guess a lot of our argument is down to opinion, but in general, there is no argument that Hamilton is one of the, if not the best driver on the grid at the moment. He is brutally fast when he's in a good place, and in qualifying, I think only Vettel or Rosberg could come near him. He's done some pretty wizard like feats of tire management in like Austria and Canada, where he comfortably took ultrasofts to like 20 laps while some drivers struggled to do more than 10. Only Alonso and Verstappen really can match Hamilton's racecraft in terms of defense and attack (ex. Bahrain 2014). He just has that killer instinct that only him, Alonso, Verstappen, and to a lesser extent, Vettel have. That's what gives him the extra strength to beat these guys. And remember, Hamilton drives on talent alone. He does very little of the whole cerebral data-crunching that Rosberg is generally accused of doing (which I honestly don't care about, everyone is fast in their own way). That natural talent is why Hamilton can party all week, yet turn up and beat Rosberg. He is less sensitive to mechanical setups in the way of grip, except when it comes to braking, which was his downfall in Baku and Singapore, the only races I think Rosberg genuinely had the upper hand in.

And I'm going to go on a mild rant here. It really irritates the heck out of me that people keep saying "Hamilton's harder on the car". Yeah he's more aggressive, but you realize that there are pages and pages of telemetry right? It would be immediately obvious if there was something Hamilton was doing in particular that was overstraining the engine. Especially with the MGU-K failures. Explain to me how a driver "manages the MGU-K" in qualifying? That's like saying, oh I manage my steering wheel when I drive. It's just there and it spins with the turbo, there is nothing Hamilton's driving style that can influence it, especially as they all run the same modes in quali. And Hamilton drives with brilliant restraint to manage tires and fuel during races as I mentioned earlier. He doesn't even ride the curbs as hard as some do. I mean look at Canada this year. He was just cruising in the front while drivers like Rosberg and Vettel were railing on the curb by the Wall of Champions. "He's harder on the car" is a falsified argument and people should quit invoking it.

I can't find anything in particular that I strongly disagree with, except the part where you have mentioned about his tyre management ability. If I remember correctly, he was driving in front with clean air in Canada and Austria (correct me if I am wrong) for most of the race, which from my understanding of the sport through the commentators (never lucky enough myself to drive these things), that dirty air in traffic plays a significant enough role in tyre wear. Not saying he ability in pulling almost double amount of laps the other can is not impressive, but it should be noted that he was is a better position to do so, and thus cannot really say hardly any of the others can do the same.

Personally, I think there are at least a few other drivers, such as Button and Perez, can achieve something similar if put in the same position. Button has had a long reputation on being easy on the tyres (and perhaps not hard enough at necessary times, such as quali), at least he did a better job in that aspect in general compared to Hamilton when they were teamates. Perez did a pretty good job when he came 2nd in Malaysia a few years ago as well. It gives me an impression that some of the mid tier team drivers might be better than some of the front runner in that aspect, as it is not rare that they can benefit with 1 less pitstop.

This extra tyre wear in dirty air is also something that, in my opinion, codies can look to implement better in the game. Still isn't particularly evident in F1 2016 it seems.
Yeah, you definitely make a good point with that. But I'm generally comparing it to the Friday runs where everyone got clean air. There everyone, including Lewis, had issues keeping his tires alive past like 5 laps. But on race day, he studied what he needed to do and then did like 20 laps on them. Then again my point is that he isn't like this macho aggressive driver who chews through tires. He's pretty darn good at it, and better than most, even.

Perez might be the current best at tire management, especially rears. Button is good, but struggles to keep temperature in the fronts because of how he drives. I actually don't think Button's rear management is particularly brilliant since he depends on balancing the car with the throttle, which can hurt tires more if the rear isn't as planted as he likes it (Brazil this year).

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dirt3joe said:
Well I guess that's one question answered !
Call BS on me, but I actually saw that one coming haha

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