Is Lewis Hamilton struggling or being beaten?

One statistic that this year is going to change in Canada for sure: both Rosberg (6-0) and Hamilton (5-0) have always beaten their team-mates in qualifying at this track.

 

this years Mercedes is a lot better then the last 3 years Mercedes.

 

I think when he comes on song he will over the course of a season beat Rosberg. i cant help but feel that his new found freedom etc... could be affecting his overall focus/performance but I suppose time will tell.

 

Both. He's struggling and being beaten. He's clearly not at his best, even in China he seemed like he was struggling, nothing's coming naturally to him at the moment. Rosberg seemed slightly faster but Hamilton was driving round his own problems and managing to scrape it all together when it mattered.

For his part Rosberg's driven exceptionally well. He seems far more assured both on and off the track. It should be a great battle between the two when they're both in form.

 

The brakes are Lewis' strength in his driving.
For Alonso it's the tyres.
For Vettel it's his skill in rotating the car a certain way.


If you change the brakes, Lewis would be screwed. (This year is proof enough, 2011 was another period of him messing around with brakes.)

If you changed the tyres from one year to the next, Alonso would be screwed. (At the start he really struggled with the Bridgestones and Pirelli's)

If you change the balance or mess with it in a drastic way, Vettel is screwed. (Banning the EBD significantly affected him for a while.)


Well that's what Autosport likes to make out on their driving styles.

And what happend with 2/3 of these drivers? They overcame it and carried on like Lewis will eventually do himself.

 

I meant like not dislike lol.

 

Crap I meant dislike, not like

 

It looks like Hamilton overcame it in Canada and by a decent margin, around 0.5 sec

 

Is this when I get on my high horse?

 

on your high horse or you're high on horse?

 

Is Lewis Hamilton struggling or being beaten?


Hmmmm, let me just look at the standings. Oh, Lewis 77 Nico 57. Who is beating who?

I think Lewis is the only driver out of the top four drivers who has finished above his champion teammate, in 07 2010 ans 2012 and is fresh from hitting the 2009 Wdc 17-3 in quali WOW.

Once Lewis becomes more familiar with the W04 then there will be an air of inevitability regards Lewis dispatching another teammate to a No2 status.

 

It's hard to disagree with that

 

He's also the only driver out of the 3 big guys to ever have been outscored by his team mate, who is supposed to be average...

 

Well Webber almost had double the points when he teamed up with Nico, guess that's the goal for Lewis as well

 

And this is where the legitmate debate goes out the window - the selective Lewis stats!

That average 2009 WDC also outscored the best driver on the grid 672-657 over a three year period? Why the need to justify Lewis's abilty by slating other drivers, we all know how good he is!

 

3 poles and 1 win says it all doesn't it?

 

This wasn't a Lewis Bashing thread by the way.. It was based on Lewis himself saying he is struggling.

 

Good arguments on both sides tbh on who is doing the best job at Mercedes.

 

We all know that mate and for the F1 fan its an interesting discussion to be had. Lewis has todate been viewed as one of the fastest and best drivers on the grid and Nico has come under some pretty heavy criticism and "some" fans when looking at this years stats seem to forget Nico's mechanical failure and being politely asked not to overtake Lewis in Sepang. I also like the bedding in period (which we all know is needed when moving to a new car/team) which was rarely acknowledged when Lewis was "dominating" Button.

Anyway, I thought it was a good thread which will evolve over the season - one in which I expect Lewis to outperform Nico over the full calander.

 

Think Nico was running well at 6th at both Australia and China so 16pts lost there and Malaysia with team orders which is another 3pts.

57pts + (19pts) = 76pts. 1pt off Lewis if luck wasn't against Nico.

But again it's true that Lewis is still getting used to the brakes, but so is Nico tbh as they changed them for Lewis' benefit.


Also don't be surprised if Nico matches him at Silverstone, he's pretty solid around there.