That's brilliant.
That's brilliant.
You would think that with women being generally lighter/slighter they'd be ideally suited to the smaller formulae. There have been a few in Moto3 (Carrasco among them, jesus christ how is she only 21!) but it would be cool to see someone get a full time ride at a decent team.
Nah, I think a 15 year old girl is probably bigger than a 15 year old boy. I always figure the age the girls get involved in it plays a key role. Plus they probably face stiffer obstacles with family maybe not wanting them to get into motorsport. Still, I remember Jutta Kleinschmidt winning the Dakar Rally in 2001 so anything's possible. There's that British lass in Formula Somethings who won her first race a couple of months back, too.
Science disagrees, men have higher bone density and generally greater muscle mass which by the time you get to your late teens will be making a difference. I agree on the rest though, pre-conceptions are a bigger barrier than anything physical, especially in cars where there's more emphasis on endurance rather than strength these days.
At least we're seeing younger girls filter through. There's a teenage German lass in Formula 3 and, if all else fails, there's plenty of female team principals and engineers springing up. I might suggest that's where the 'no girl of mine is getting behind a wheel' types might divert. Oh and Danika Patrick. She won a thing and managed to piss off just about everyone in the NASCAR paddock by crashing into them.
Hamilton pole, Vettel 9th.
At least we know they don't spend that £100m on a weatherman.
Nevertheless, I think Hamilton's driving in the second half of this season is the highest level I've seen achieved in the time I've been watching motor racing. He is just sensational.
Vettel and Ferrari are all over the place like bird shit.
Hamilton has gone up another level now while Vettel and Ferrari have gone down.
There needs to be an unmerciful clear out at Ferrari.
To be fair to Ferrari, they themselves haven't done too much wrong.
The problem this season has been the twit in the car still expecting people to just move out of his way like they did when his car was blue.
67 points now with 4 races to go. You wonder if Hamilton will hand over a win to Bottas in the remaining races.
Vettel doesn't give me the impression he can drive his way out of trouble like Hamilton could.
The move on Verstappen was doubly thick, not only completely the wrong decision but he managed to fuck it up as well.
Really enjoyed watching that qualifying session, partly for a superb onboard lap with Bottas in Q2, but also because it's fantastic to watch Hamilton chuck a demonstrably slower car through certain corners in a way that gets him out in front of a clearly faster Ferrari.
He really is an absolute maestro.
I think this title, barring any severe fuck ups from here of course, is his finest work.
His other 3 at Mercedes have seen his team-mate be his only competition. And you can argue he didn't deserve the one he won at McLaren, but this one he has faced a better car than his and is comfortably out-driving his own to boot.
He's also facing a fellow 4-time champion in said faster car. The real question now is can he add to his 5 titles?
Trust F1 to bork the championship decider with a stupid penalty, in America too which I think is customary now.
There are a lot of things he could go for if he can be bothered for long enough. 100 poles is very doable, and would be ridiculous. Schumacher's race win tally (which I thought unbeatable) is only another 20 odd away as well.
There's going to come a point where we ask if he's better than Senna.
He'll be 34 by the start of next season, so if we say 40 is probably the latest he stays in F1 and his car stays competitive we could well see both of those go. I think the 100 pole mark is almost definite and he'll be knocking right on the door of the wins record in 2 or so years time.
Assuming the Mercedes is as competitive as it is now over the coming years of course.
He's not better than Senna. I've never seen Hamilton dive into Mirabeau like his kid's drowning on the exit.
Senna also did his thing in an era with Alain Prost. Hamilton doesn't have a nemesis like this, nor anyone of the same kind of ilk on the grid.
Take either of Prost or Senna out of their era and the other is a 7 time champion at least. You can't really say the same of Hamilton.
Take Prost being a stupid French twat out of Prost's era and he would have won about 9 and Senna only '91. He still wouldn't have been better though. Senna and Jim Clark are the best ever.
Hamilton is better than them all. I will always stand for the era I am in. You old men can support your era if you have seen them all.
That's one of the reasons I wish Alonso stuck to him like glue. None of this, "I can't work with this man." bullshit. He needed whatever car Hamilton was in to give us a decade of championship shenanigans. I'd dare say Rosberg might've done something if he hadn't retired at the top.
Fangio maybe, but he got the benefit of inheriting other people's cars mid-race and just jumping teams mid season to get in a quicker car. Surtees I don't care about bikes, so no.
But his achievement is so cool and unique and absolutely impossible to replicate now.
I don't know a lot about the Prost/Senna rivalry. How did being a stupid French twat stop him cleaning up? Did he BOTTLE IT throwing wobblers over engines and that sort of thing?
He spent about three years sulking/wasting his time at Ferrari because he thought Ron Dennis was turning his engine down.
Prost was a ridiculous winning machine whose fatal flaw was believing everything was a conspiracy against him when if anything, he was doing most of the conspiring (there are more than a few parallels to Mourinho). He should have won somewhere between 7 and 10. Niki Lauda absolutely mugged him off in 1984 and the Piquet/Bernie duo mugged him off in '83 in the Renault. '90 was probably his peak as a driver but he'd whinged himself into the wrong car, and by '91 it was just a Fiat Punto with wings.
The only year in the whole span of '82-'93 when he didn't have a legitimate title shot was 1987 when the Williams was just better. I bet he could have got into Patrese's Williams for '92 if he'd wanted as well, but I think he and Nigel had talked themselves out of working together in 1990.
I'm trying to remember the year he ran to the FIA for Senna taking an exit road to circumvent an accident.
The fucking idiot's only binned it on the first lap again.
1. The speed traps
2. Kimi kept nailing purples at various points in the lap and then blowing it in other sectors. Valtteri (who is as fast as the current iteration of Kimi, for my money) wasn't getting near it.
I think the Merc holds it together well in certain types of corner, but the Ferrari recycles power better and they've clearly had some clever trick since mid-season which has been allowing them to do so.
Thanks, I haven't watched any of the sessions this weekend and only saw end results, seemed quite even from that.
I thought overall this year the cars seemed quite evenly matched with different strengths coming out at different circuits. It probably proves how good Hamilton is that he's winning the championship so clearly. He seems to be cruising to victory today as well.
Well, I was clearly wrong. If only Ricciardo's car wasn't made of driftwood, we could have four drivers fighting for the win.
Hammer time. Maybe not.
Last edited by Shindig; 21-10-2018 at 07:47 PM.
That was mega.
Red Bull should be disqualified for those god awful overalls.
Amazing to think Kimi has only won 21 times.
Damon Hill had 22 wins and he only had about 70 GPs in podium cars. Kimi's had 200+.
I've seen some Ferrari fans celebrating this as some kind of big victory. But that this is Kimis first win since 2013 is quite off to hear.