It was a dominant performance and the result never in doubt.
Even had Ferrari made the right choice with quali-tyres I don’t think they were getting anywhere near the mercs.
Hamilton is superb at the moment, to dominate a period of the season in an inferior car was purely down to him and he’s a worthy champion-in-waiting for this year.
His career stats are incredible and it would not surprise me at all to see him pass the records of Schumacher if he decides to keep driving for a few more years. And that’s without the benefit of a 100% no.1 driver status.
He’s already an all-time-great. Better than Prost and Vettel and on a par with Senna, Clark, Fangio and Schumacher.
I think you are fooling yourself if you believe anything other than the fact that the Mercedes cars are head and shoulder the superior cars, and have been for a very long time.
As far as being better than Prost and Schumacher, no. On par with Senna? Yeah, they are/were pouty Prima-Donnas. Excellent drivers no doubt. But only decent human beings when they’re winning.
I don’t think any of the Mercedes of the last few years have been as dominant as the Red Bulls were prior to that, which is one reason why I rate Hamilton significantly above Vettel. Not sure about Prost - many (all?) of his championships were won in a dominant car, albeit in most cases with more pressure from a team-mate than Hamilton has ever had. Senna and Clark I think are in a class of their own as their careers were tragically cut short (this phrasing is compulsory, of course) and as such probably had more natural talent than any of the others but were never able to put this on the scoreboard, as it were. Schumacher also benefited from dominant teams, and a much longer career than the rest. And as usual, it’s tricky, perhaps foolish, to compare across eras.
Hamilton certainly has a chance to surpass the career achievements of all who have gone before him and if he does, he will probably deserve it. But Clark is probably unsurpassable as the greatest pure driving talent. Then again (on the third hand), you could argue that Clark (and perhaps Senna) were so quick precisely because they were prepared to take that extra percentage of risk that ultimately killed them (granted Senna’s was mechanical failure, too). So in terms of a GOAT conversation, maybe it’s best to stay out of trouble, like Fangio, Schumacher, and Hamilton. A great footballer who is always injured is no use to their team.
That’s a minority opinion when it comes to the car this year.
Well it can only ever be an opinion as there is no objective standard against which individual drivers can be compared.
As for character? I doubt that any of the top drivers are particularly happy bunnies when they aren’t winning but I can’t ever remember Hamilton pulling a stunt like Senna or Schumacher did, not sure what the bar is for “decency” here.
One thing that is outside of my direct experience but a recurring and pretty much universal theme, is that Jimmy Clark comes up time and time again being rated as the best and a lovely person to boot. It is a common opinion among those who’ve seen it all, it was certainly Fangio’s opinion.
One of these years I’m going to take the drive down to Austin to watch the race. Looks like not going this year was the right call, though. (Sunday might be OK)
On the TV, yes. In person? No thanks, particularly since I believe the parking lots are all still grass and dirt that have turned into terrible messes on previous rainy weekends.
Honestly, not a problem at all. My wife’s exact words to me yesterday when I was getting in a flap about some total irrelevancy? “cheer up you miserable sod!”
What may cheer all of us up is the fact that the top teams seem pretty close on this track, Vettel realistically has to win and Verstappen is well out of position. Potentially a recipe for an interesting race. (even more so if Raikkonen gets the jump on Lewis)
I’m predicting Verstappen to be on the back of Ricciarddo and Vettel by about lap 10 and then let the fun commence.
Incredible that a driver of his talent had no wins from 113 attempts. When I first started watching F1, 113 starts was a pretty lengthy career! Albeit the season was shorter in those days - maybe 14 races?
I think he was stuffed either way in this race. The very specific challenges of this track meant that it was the worst-case for the Merc and the best-case for the RB’s, as could be seen from them leading the way all through the week-end.
No matter, he’s a worthy five-time champ and has done it whilst driving in an exemplary manner. Whenever anyone talks about Schumacher they will say “He was a great driver but…” and then go on to list the darker elements.
