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Joined October 2018
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Ground Effect Lewis Hamilton is apparently a major litmus test because how have even pundits fallen for the gimmick that it was the regs he couldn't adjust to?
Before the divorced Mercedes there were three drivers that were clearly ahead of the rest in GE: Max, Lewis, Fernando.
Canada 2010
Lewis Hamilton snatches pole from the dominant Red Bull and then aurafarms as his Mclaren runs out of fuel on the in-lap
Nobody does it quite like the GOAT 🐐
Max when he actually has the fourth fastest car vs Max once his car becomes an intergalactic spaceship
"Thats how we know its the car NOT the driver" 🤷♂️
My F1 Ballon D'Or since 2000:
2000 - Michael Schumacher
2001 - Michael Schumacher (x2)
2002 - Michael Schumacher (x3)
2003 - Kimi Raikkonen
2004 - Michael Schumacher (x4)
2005 - Fernando Alonso
2006 - Fernando Alonso (x2)
2007 - Lewis Hamilton
2008 - Fernando Alonso (x3)
2009 - Lewis Hamilton (x2)
2010 - Fernando Alonso (x4)
2011 - Sebastian Vettel
2012 - Lewis Hamilton (x3)
2013 - Sebastian Vettel (x2)
2014 - Lewis Hamilton (x4)
2015 - Lewis Hamilton (x5)
2016 - Lewis Hamilton (x6)
2017 - Lewis Hamilton (x7)
2018 - Lewis Hamilton (x8)
2019 - Lewis Hamilton (x9)
2020 - Lewis Hamilton (x10)
2021 - Lewis Hamilton (x11)
2022 - Max Verstappen
2023 - Max Verstappen (x2)
2024 - Max Verstappen (x3)
2025 - Max Verstappen (x4)
2026 - Kimi Antonelli
Guy on the left barely clinched a single world title against a driver that nearly died, missed two races and pulled out of the season finale for his own safety while the guy on the right is the greatest racing driver in history. I think you're doing alright.
Lewis is the only driver here who hasn't cost himself a single competitive session by crashing on his own, he lost a P2 with his only mechanical failure and has had horrid luck in many of the races themselves. Mechanical failures aren't the only thing to be considered bad luck.
Off the top of my head:
Deployment in Japan
Bad strategy in Austria
Late stop in Silverstone
Wrongful penalty in Belgium
No comms in Hungary quali, late stop in the race
Team incompetence in Zandvoort
Teammate putting him in the gravel in Monza
Wrong starting tire in Malaysia
VSC in Austin
Now that we know Lewis had all those setup struggles I'll retract saying it was his worst weekend actually. Japan and Miami were definitely worse as he just really lacked the pace there.
Of course he is also at fault for such problems but even despite an absolutely horrible setup he qualified less than half a tenth off Leclerc and finished fairly close behind on what would've been a podium without the VSC and thats with Leclerc having an easy 10/10 race. As far as difficult weekends go, thats really solid.
Obviously he and his side of the garage really have to get on top of these things as he's been bleeding points because of it all season but bad setups are less worrying than just a genuine lack of pace.
We really need to find the form of Malaysia back in Mexico though.
Possibly Lewis worst weekend this year so a P4 is really fine. The fight for championship positions stays alive. Without the VSC its a podium even.
Champions drive from Kimi, really stellar. Reminds me of Lando in Mexico last season.
Also Charles was absolutely incredible, really hats off to that performance.
Both Ferrari driver still bailing out this car because it was not a P2-P4 car at all. Red Bull also don't look as inevitable as they did two weeks ago.
Time to bounce back in Mexico and who knows, maybe the fight for P2 really is still on.
With Kimi now having a very similar scenario to Lewis back in Mexico 2017 where he basically just has to show up to win the title, the most interesting question of next weekend is if Kimi can manage an even less impressive way to wrap up a title than with a lapped P9
For context: Lewis made contact with Max and his title rival Sebastian Vettel into Turn 1 in what the stewards deemed a racing incident. He then crawled back to the pits for repairs and kind of just cruised to the title in second gear afterwards since Seb could only recover to P4, falling short of the necessary win which would keep him in title contention
With Max and Lando being knocked out of contention yesterday that means Lewis, for now, reclaims the stat of being the driver with the longest active streak of races in title contention (shared with the Merc drivers). Its the first time since Monza 2022 that he holds that stat.
This is really silly because not only is this a common occurrence with dominant cars but Max and Charles were fighting for position and lost that time themselves. Once ahead Max barely lost any time to Kimi for the entire rest of the stint.
