2022 Formula One Australian Grand Prix

Personally I think Mclaren have been sandbagging up til now, and that they're going to storm it with a one two this weekend.

Don't laugh.

Yep, McLaren need to get it going...
.. and Magnussen / Haas, on top of the Red Immortals.
Yes, me too.. surprised.

Obligatory "Fire the Stewards" because Vettel got fined for entertaining the crowd.

Slapped said:

Personally I think Mclaren have been sandbagging up til now, and that they're going to storm it with a one two this weekend.

Don't laugh.

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They are up for some fine BOP-adjustments I'm sure...

JayOTT said:

Obligatory "Fire the Stewards" because Vettel got fined for entertaining the crowd.

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They should fine him even more for setting a bad example driving without the helmet correctly on.

How good it is to see the GOAT with a really bad car, with the teammate managing to extract more from the bad car than the "best in the world"

gleidson84 said:

How good it is to see the GOAT with a really bad car, with the teammate managing to extract more from the bad car than the "best in the world"

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It's early days. You may end up eating those words.

I know it's early, I was just ironic, from 2014 to 2020 we always heard that it was Hamilton's arm that made the difference, the car superior to the rest of the grid, the protection of the team was well ignored. Of Hamilton's 7 titles, only the first had real dispute, against the average Felipe Massa, the rest just an easy life running alone. Still managed to lose a title to the middling Rosberg

Slapped said:

Personally I think Mclaren have been sandbagging up til now, and that they're going to storm it with a one two this weekend.

Don't laugh.

Click to expand...

We can dream

gleidson84 said:

I know it's early, I was just ironic, from 2014 to 2020 we always heard that it was Hamilton's arm that made the difference, the car superior to the rest of the grid, the protection of the team was well ignored. Of Hamilton's 7 titles, only the first had real dispute, against the average Felipe Massa, the rest just an easy life running alone. Still managed to lose a title to the middling Rosberg

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You need to remember when he joined Merc the car wasn't so great, people questioned the move and it would appear he made the right call.

If you look at F1 over the years, the best car tends to win. Just so happens in many cases those with the best car also have the best driver.... when Michael joined Ferrari they hadn't won a championship for many years and look what happened. The best drivers attract the best talent in other areas.

You need to look at the bigger picture.

Now Max is a great driver but can you honestly put him in the same category as Lewis and Michael? Right now, no I don't think you can. Same with Charles, but maybe in a few years we can. Time will tell.

I voted for Max because I want Charles to win again

gleidson84 said:

How good it is to see the GOAT with a really bad car, with the teammate managing to extract more from the bad car than the "best in the world"

Click to expand...

Eh? Hamilton placed ahead of Russel in Abu Dhabi, and the Jeddah result is far more down to setup and the diceroll that was the race direction in Jeddah. I love Russell and would love to see him do better then Hamilton, but it's a massive stretch to make that argument on one race whilst ignoring the previous one. In that vein I could argue that Sergio Perez is the better driver then Verstappen (as Perez was leading the race until Ver got the freebie pitstop), and whilst I'd love to see Verstappen eat ****...

Going to be a difficult one to predict. Ferrari been a bit faster with their new diffuser. But it also had a lot of high speed bouncing. Don't know if they kan drive like that for 58 laps in a row without brain concussion. RB shaved 7 kilos off their weight, still a bit less efficient at the lower speeds.
Liking the updates to the track a lot.

gleidson84 said:

How good it is to see the GOAT with a really bad car, with the teammate managing to extract more from the bad car than the "best in the world"

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I was also surprised seeing Ocon ahead of Alonso.

gleidson84 said:

I know it's early, I was just ironic, from 2014 to 2020 we always heard that it was Hamilton's arm that made the difference, the car superior to the rest of the grid, the protection of the team was well ignored. Of Hamilton's 7 titles, only the first had real dispute, against the average Felipe Massa, the rest just an easy life running alone. Still managed to lose a title to the middling Rosberg

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I genuinely don't think that that was ignored, at least on this website or in the Verstappen fandom over here in the nether regions. Over the last couple of years I've seen races where Hamilton's reputation may have been well deserved: The race in Turkey in 2020, where the Mercedes was clearly a bad car, springs to mind as a clear-cut example, as does the race in Brazil last year. The Vettel-Hamilton championship battle, where Mercedes clearly had the worse car, also showed Hamilton consistently being a better driver then his direct competitors.

It's impossible to make a fair assessment since so much is down to team performance and Hamilton, like Schumacher with Ferrari back in the day, has had the opportunity to build a race team around him. But I genuinely think that if Hamilton never had a seat at Mercedes, whoever had that seat would not do as well.

Wow, who would have thought Lewis would have been just about last out of all the front runners to win the race according to this survey. Just shows how its turned around. We need the two Mercedes back in the fight else its another two car boring fight for the championship

Ferrari and Alpin updated the bottom and .. it gave a huge huge + !

Paul Glover said:

You need to remember when he joined Merc the car wasn't so great, people questioned the move and it would appear he made the right call.

If you look at F1 over the years, the best car tends to win. Just so happens in many cases those with the best car also have the best driver.... when Michael joined Ferrari they hadn't won a championship for many years and look what happened. The best drivers attract the best talent in other areas.

You need to look at the bigger picture.

Now Max is a great driver but can you honestly put him in the same category as Lewis and Michael? Right now, no I don't think you can. Same with Charles, but maybe in a few years we can. Time will tell.

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I think the OP's motto is "don't let the truth spoil a good story".

Looks like we have another tight scrap between Red Bull and Ferrari! In other news alpine has been performing quite strong in the first two practice sessions and mclaren seems to be heading in the right direction. Looking forward to quali.

Paul Glover said:

You need to remember when he joined Merc the car wasn't so great, people questioned the move and it would appear he made the right call.

If you look at F1 over the years, the best car tends to win. Just so happens in many cases those with the best car also have the best driver.... when Michael joined Ferrari they hadn't won a championship for many years and look what happened. The best drivers attract the best talent in other areas.

You need to look at the bigger picture.

Now Max is a great driver but can you honestly put him in the same category as Lewis and Michael? Right now, no I don't think you can. Same with Charles, but maybe in a few years we can. Time will tell.

Click to expand...

The "bigger" picture, is that Mercedes got a head start with the new engine regs. I am sure that Lauda used this information to lure Lewis, that and the fact that he promised him a truckload of money, and it surely didnt help that he was being shown by Button in the same team, the team that he thought it was "his" team, and suddenly it wasn't anymore.

As for the "best talent", thats the job for team principals, not drives. Its no coincidence that a pivotal person in both those teams was a man called Ross Brawn.

Also, both Ferrari and Mercedes were by far the teams with more money and resources in both those eras of domination.

Now, i am not disputing Hamilton's skill, but i also dont think he was that big of an influence in Mercedes success. Something that seems will actually be put to the test this year again.