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Hamilton or Rosberg

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Who do you think will win the world championship? - Hamilton, Rosberg or for some crazy reason both get excluded from the championship and neither win?

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@PatrickTucker - Personally, I dont mind who wins the title. In my opinion, the true stars of 2016 were Verstappen and Ricciardo and hopefully next season we see a four way battle for the title :) As for mechanical failures, Hamilton has been more unlucky, but I am sure that through his F1 career, it will even itself out.

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I am hoping for a Hamilton win but the numbers look like they are against him, If Hamilton wins then Nico will have to finish 4th, Unless he (Nico) is involved in a wreck it's not looking good for Lewis...

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It's wishful thinking I know, but I don't like Rosberg. The real winners were the fans this year. Lots of great racing after P1 & P2, and the title battle is going to the last race even though it appears to be an inevitability.  

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I'm hoping for Rosberg because I always enjoy seeing a new F1 champion. Plus his father was the first finnish champion so that holds a special place in my heart as well.

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I'm hoping for Rosberg, because I don't like Hamilton for wearing diamond studded earrings. But I expect something crazy to happen to Rosberg and Hamilton winning.

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Reality says Rosberg. The chances of him finishing fourth or worse at a circuit where weather is never a factor are very slim. It's not a like or dislike situation for me. In poker terms Hamilton has a one outer with only the river card to be flipped. 

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peyt0n89 said:
I'm hoping for Rosberg because I always enjoy seeing a new F1 champion. Plus his father was the first finnish champion so that holds a special place in my heart as well.
Funny how his dad Keke is Finnish but Nico himself is German.  Anyways, it would be nice to see a new Formula One champion for a change.  Personally, there should be a different champ every year.  It would definitely be more interesting to see a few more drivers battling it out for the title rather than just two, makes for more suspenseful racing :)

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I dont like either of them cause im Ferrari fan, but mostly cause of their personality and egoism...But i hate Hamilton more so i want Rosberg to win the championship.

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Who do you think will win the world championship? - Hamilton, Rosberg or for some crazy reason both get excluded from the championship and neither win?
Ocon.

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Two scenarios have came to me:
1. - (Possible) Hamilton at pole is on the outside line at the start, while Nico in on the inside line at 2nd.
Nico wins by not braking into the first corner of the 1st lap, crashes Hamilton out

2. (one that I am rooting for) Hamilton is ahead of the pack by about 20s when he crosses the line, Rosberg is in 3rd at the start of the DRS zone, with a Ferrari/Red Bull right on his tail, do they go for the pass?

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1. - (Possible) Hamilton at pole is on the outside line at the start, while Nico in on the inside line at 2nd.
Nico wins by not braking into the first corner of the 1st lap, crashes Hamilton out
Naw, Rosberg isn't a hot-head. He doesn't need to take risks now. With his car, he can easily get 3rd without breaking sweat and end up winning the championship. He already showed in Texas that he'll rather avoid a collision in the first corner than try to hold 1st/2nd.

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Well, I wanted Hamilton to win it, but since Nico won, I really don't mind. I still think that  Hamilton's "mechanical" issues were engineered to produce the result that for the first time in the history of the sport a German national would win the title for the German team - this was the ultimate goal and the team achieved it today for sure.

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CmdrCody said:
1. - (Possible) Hamilton at pole is on the outside line at the start, while Nico in on the inside line at 2nd.
Nico wins by not braking into the first corner of the 1st lap, crashes Hamilton out
Naw, Rosberg isn't a hot-head. He doesn't need to take risks now. With his car, he can easily get 3rd without breaking sweat and end up winning the championship. He already showed in Texas that he'll rather avoid a collision in the first corner than try to hold 1st/2nd.
I thought that Hamilton was a much better driver in the final races than Rosberg, but maybe it was because Rosberg was doing what he needed to do, not go as fast as he could.

I think Hamilton is very very slightly the better driver, but not by as much as the final few races would suggest because I reckon Rosberg was deliberately holding back to do what he needed to do. When I look back over the past few seasons, I think Rosberg deserved a championship. 2 to 1 in favour of Lewis doesn't seem too unfair.

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@FOneFanatic - I dont understand why everyone goes on about Mercedes 'making Hamilton break down' - why would they do this? Firstly, Hamilton is far more famous than Rosberg, so Hamilton having success is great for marketing Mercedes. Secondly, there are hundreds of people working really hard and to say that they would intentionally make things break for Hamilton is unfair to the people who are putting so much effort in to make one of the best formula one cars of all time.

Also, maybe it was Hamilton's driving style - he is more aggressive, which makes him quicker, but maybe he takes a little more kerb each corner, putting more energy through the transmission and engine, maybe he changes gear at different times to Rosberg, who knows. Also, I believe that the reason why Rosberg was so slow in the final races compared to Hamilton was because he probably turned his engine down and was driving to avoid a break down. Then, if it was none of these, then maybe Hamilton was just plain unlucky, unless you know Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe very well, then I doubt that you will ever know the truth. 

Finally, has anyone considered 2008 - Massa's Ferrari was far more unreliable than Hamilton's McLaren and that came down to 1 point between them. Unfortunately, in racing things break, but over the course of an F1 career, things generally even themselves out.

The other thing, is that Hamilton is an unbelievably successful driver, and he has been lucky enough to have a car to fight for the championship for 7 seasons (and no doubt he will be in a title fight in 2017), and 3 championships and 2 times runner-up is a great achievement, unfortunately for him, he didn't win in 2016, but without a doubt he will get at least another title or 2.

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@FOneFanatic - I dont understand why everyone goes on about Mercedes 'making Hamilton break down' - why would they do this? Firstly, Hamilton is far more famous than Rosberg, so Hamilton having success is great for marketing Mercedes. Secondly, there are hundreds of people working really hard and to say that they would intentionally make things break for Hamilton is unfair to the people who are putting so much effort in to make one of the best formula one cars of all time.

Also, maybe it was Hamilton's driving style - he is more aggressive, which makes him quicker, but maybe he takes a little more kerb each corner, putting more energy through the transmission and engine, maybe he changes gear at different times to Rosberg, who knows. Also, I believe that the reason why Rosberg was so slow in the final races compared to Hamilton was because he probably turned his engine down and was driving to avoid a break down. Then, if it was none of these, then maybe Hamilton was just plain unlucky, unless you know Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe very well, then I doubt that you will ever know the truth. 

Finally, has anyone considered 2008 - Massa's Ferrari was far more unreliable than Hamilton's McLaren and that came down to 1 point between them. Unfortunately, in racing things break, but over the course of an F1 career, things generally even themselves out.

The other thing, is that Hamilton is an unbelievably successful driver, and he has been lucky enough to have a car to fight for the championship for 7 seasons (and no doubt he will be in a title fight in 2017), and 3 championships and 2 times runner-up is a great achievement, unfortunately for him, he didn't win in 2016, but without a doubt he will get at least another title or 2.


All things true, but the team have the resources to engender an engine failure to boost the other driver's chance of winning the championship. Hamilton himself is aware that the team can vitiate against him in this manner, especially when a German wining for a German team will make history and put Mercedes in rarefied air is my point.

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@FOneFanatic, I see where you are coming from, but Hamilton is an awful lot more famous than Rosberg, so I would still say that him winning the championship would be better for Mercedes, especially as it would make him a 4 time champion.

Also, if Mercedes wanted Rosberg to win, it would make more sense to give Hamilton a failiure at Brazil or Abu Dhabi? - because, until the last lap, there was still a chance Hamilton could have been champion yesterday.

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Well, I wanted Hamilton to win it, but since Nico won, I really don't mind. I still think that  Hamilton's "mechanical" issues were engineered to produce the result that for the first time in the history of the sport a German national would win the title for the German team - this was the ultimate goal and the team achieved it today for sure.
I'm a Hamilton fan but that's not going to happen. Hamiltion was unlucky and Nico capitalized on his failures

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@Foreverchamps I am a Lewis fan, but I reluctantly have accepted that Rosberg is the champion this year.

HOWEVER
Whether or not Mercedes actively engaged in mechanically sabotaging Lewis is up in the air (I highly doubt they did), but you cannot deny that the approach of Mercedes management in general has favored Rosberg winning this title. So many things were just so...sketchy this year. Every time Lewis had a issue in race (Russia, Baku, and even Monaco quali) they instantly said, "Oh well Rosberg had it too." Some of that is BS. Rosberg set the fastest lap of the race in Russia while nursing a car with no water pressure to the finish?? That's a red flag. And in Spain. Rosberg's mistake with engine modes is what caused the accident. Never mind whose fault the actual collision was, if he got his stuff right, it wouldn't have happened. But the executives squarely blamed Lewis. In Austria, they put Lewis on a worse strategy and didn't them give him his place back. So he attacked. They chided him for questioning Rosberg's purple sector in Hungary under double yellows. And then the setup changes. In Baku, Lewis dominated Friday. Then suddenly, they make a setup change, and he's suddenly super mistake-prone and falls well behind Rosberg? That's sketchy. Then Wolff calling Jos to tell Max to sod off then doing the same to Lewis in Abu Dhabi was a step tooo far. Any of these in isolation would be fine, but together it shows a clear managerial bias towards Rosberg. So whether or not they sabotaged him, you can see they wanted Rosberg to win. They want a world champion team with two world champion drivers.

As for your 2008 analogy. That was between two teams running two different engines. Of course reliability varies! This time is so much more questionable since Hamilton is the only one to have so many penalizing failures of all the Mercedes-engined cars. Again, I don't think they actively had a kill switch on his engine, but maybe like Webber said was done to him, Hamilton got the slightly lower performing engines from the plant. And then there's the claim that it's his driving. Mercedes are probably the most data-driven team in the sport. They could see from the telemetry if Hamilton was overdriving the engine and would let him know to fix his style. 

Basically, I don't think that Toto Wolff had a secret kill switch, but it's pretty obvious that he and the rest of the team management wanted Rosberg to win this year, and so it happened.

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dirt3joe said:
CmdrCody said:
1. - (Possible) Hamilton at pole is on the outside line at the start, while Nico in on the inside line at 2nd.
Nico wins by not braking into the first corner of the 1st lap, crashes Hamilton out
Naw, Rosberg isn't a hot-head. He doesn't need to take risks now. With his car, he can easily get 3rd without breaking sweat and end up winning the championship. He already showed in Texas that he'll rather avoid a collision in the first corner than try to hold 1st/2nd.
I thought that Hamilton was a much better driver in the final races than Rosberg, but maybe it was because Rosberg was doing what he needed to do, not go as fast as he could.

I think Hamilton is very very slightly the better driver, but not by as much as the final few races would suggest because I reckon Rosberg was deliberately holding back to do what he needed to do. When I look back over the past few seasons, I think Rosberg deserved a championship. 2 to 1 in favour of Lewis doesn't seem too unfair.
Again, maybe subconsciously he took the foot off the gas like Lewis at the end of 2015. Still, Hamilton's record against other world champions, including the one heralded as the current greatest, Fernando Alonso, shows that he is not "very very slightly" better, but significantly better. Rosberg has no reason to hold back in qualifying yet he was slower. And don't even pretend his struggles in Mexico were because he was slowing on purpose. Lewis biggest strength and biggest weakness is the fact that his emotional state determines his driving pace and racing. When he's in shambles, like in 2011 or Japan this year, he gets beat by Jenson Button, who, while I believe is underrated, still isn't that good. When he's in a mentally good place, like early McLaren, 2014 pt 2 or 2015, he can wipe the floor with whoever you pit against him. When he's angry, he pulls out extra pace and pulls off daring overtaking moves like Spain and Austria, and you know when it paid off and when it didn't. When he's calm and serene (Abu Dhabi 2014), he silently pulls away and cruises to the finish. This inherently emotional driving is the only reason Rosberg can ever match driving, but it is also why Hamilton is so much more of a personable and exciting driver. Rosberg can do, say 90%, of Hamilton's best (100%) every single weekend, and that's his like 98 or 99% effort. He can pull something out of the bag and dominate occasionally like in Singapore. Hamilton usually is at like 92-95% when he's in a decent mood. But when he's down, like Japan, he dips to like 80-90% meaning he can be beat.

Basically, when Lewis is at his best, especially in a race, no one other than maybe Alonso will have anything on him. When he's not at his best, he can sometimes win, sometimes lose. But being beat once or twice inspires Hamilton to fight back with such tremendous force (post-Spa 2014, 2008 in general). This is why Rosberg needed to be consistent, and needed Hamilton to be unlucky, both of which he got, so he won. Not because he's faster, but because he was more lucky. He deserved it, because he has more points, but no one can argue that if he had won it, Hamilton was more deserving because of all the issues that plagued his season.

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pijin said:

dirt3joe said:
CmdrCody said:
1. - (Possible) Hamilton at pole is on the outside line at the start, while Nico in on the inside line at 2nd.
Nico wins by not braking into the first corner of the 1st lap, crashes Hamilton out
Naw, Rosberg isn't a hot-head. He doesn't need to take risks now. With his car, he can easily get 3rd without breaking sweat and end up winning the championship. He already showed in Texas that he'll rather avoid a collision in the first corner than try to hold 1st/2nd.
I thought that Hamilton was a much better driver in the final races than Rosberg, but maybe it was because Rosberg was doing what he needed to do, not go as fast as he could.

I think Hamilton is very very slightly the better driver, but not by as much as the final few races would suggest because I reckon Rosberg was deliberately holding back to do what he needed to do. When I look back over the past few seasons, I think Rosberg deserved a championship. 2 to 1 in favour of Lewis doesn't seem too unfair.
Again, maybe subconsciously he took the foot off the gas like Lewis at the end of 2015. Still, Hamilton's record against other world champions, including the one heralded as the current greatest, Fernando Alonso, shows that he is not "very very slightly" better, but significantly better. Rosberg has no reason to hold back in qualifying yet he was slower. And don't even pretend his struggles in Mexico were because he was slowing on purpose. Lewis biggest strength and biggest weakness is the fact that his emotional state determines his driving pace and racing. When he's in shambles, like in 2011 or Japan this year, he gets beat by Jenson Button, who, while I believe is underrated, still isn't that good. When he's in a mentally good place, like early McLaren, 2014 pt 2 or 2015, he can wipe the floor with whoever you pit against him. When he's angry, he pulls out extra pace and pulls off daring overtaking moves like Spain and Austria, and you know when it paid off and when it didn't. When he's calm and serene (Abu Dhabi 2014), he silently pulls away and cruises to the finish. This inherently emotional driving is the only reason Rosberg can ever match driving, but it is also why Hamilton is so much more of a personable and exciting driver. Rosberg can do, say 90%, of Hamilton's best (100%) every single weekend, and that's his like 98 or 99% effort. He can pull something out of the bag and dominate occasionally like in Singapore. Hamilton usually is at like 92-95% when he's in a decent mood. But when he's down, like Japan, he dips to like 80-90% meaning he can be beat.

Basically, when Lewis is at his best, especially in a race, no one other than maybe Alonso will have anything on him. When he's not at his best, he can sometimes win, sometimes lose. But being beat once or twice inspires Hamilton to fight back with such tremendous force (post-Spa 2014, 2008 in general). This is why Rosberg needed to be consistent, and needed Hamilton to be unlucky, both of which he got, so he won. Not because he's faster, but because he was more lucky. He deserved it, because he has more points, but no one can argue that if he had won it, Hamilton was more deserving because of all the issues that plagued his season.
Well I guess we will have to disagree, because there is lots of stuff in there that doesn't make sense to me.

I don't see any clear evidence Hamilton is a better driver than Button who along with Rosberg is probably the easiest driver to compare him to as they did lots of seasons in the same car.

I don't rate Hamilton as particularly unlucky this season, and you never know what the retirements are down to, maybe he is just harder on the car than Rosberg and makes his own "luck". Certainly the 2012 season against Button looks stand out for him. I haven't dug into why he retired so much, but it seems like his 5 retirements to Buttons 2 must be saying something.

I don't see why Rosberg would push himself to the max on qualifying when he could trash the car and risk not finishing second.

If I had to say something about Hamilton that is exceptional I would say that he came into the sport at a very high level driving a good car and delivered. That is very unusual, but maybe the reason it is unusual is because so few drivers are given a great car so early in their F1 career. Maybe if more were Hamilton would not be so stand out. To be fair to Hamilton, the reason he was given that good car was probably because he must have demonstrated the potential.

Edit : One final thing I would say is that Hamilton is clearly one of the best F1 drivers around today. Whether or not he is the best is arguable. He certainly doesn't dominate the sport in a way that I believe anyone can claim he is definitely the best without question. If you look at someone like Usain Bolt for example, his position was completely unarguable. He dominated the sport, was clearly the best and that was that. This is not so with Hamilton.

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@pijin - Do you not think that they may have actually told the truth about Rosberg having the same issues? - I believe that Rosberg had similar issues to Hamilton, but was far better at managing them, and therefore didn't break down. Just look at Canada 2014 - both had brake issues, but Rosberg manages the problem and finishes.

At the end of the day, it is a sport, and Rosberg is champion, whether you like that or not is up to you, but he got more points and is therefore champion. Also, it is very easy to blame everything on the team, but at the end of the day, no other team comes close, so you should really be thanking Mercedes for giving Hamilton a car to win the 2014 and 2015 world championships, not blaming them for costing him the 2016 title. Had Hamilton been driving for another team, he wouldn't have won them championships, and Mercedes would have won the titles with probably any driver pairing on the grid.

I agree that Mercedes have made mistakes and sometimes favoured Rosberg, but then they have done the same with Hamilton in previous seasons, and at the end of the day, it is a 2 way street, Hamilton makes mistakes sometimes and so do the team.

All that I can say is thank you very much to Hamilton for slowing down at Abu Dhabi, as it made it a very exciting finish to the season. Also, he didn't win this season, but that isn't the end of the world, he will have many more chances to fight for the title, and it is all of the people at Mercedes who will be putting in money, time and energy this winter to allow him to fight in 2017 for the title, so do you really think they would have spent all of this money etc. and then make his car break down? I dont think so personally.

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@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.

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