F1 End of Season Report: Rate the Grid - Lewis Hamilton

[Sky]

Of course it has to be you that writes this. You are the perfect example for a Hamilton fanboy and Vettel hater

Of course it has to be you that writes this. You are the perfect example for a Vettel fanboy and Hamilton hater

 

[BP]

It's getting bored to see him at the first place all the time. I'm still surprised that this guy can be faster than most. He doesn't look like a fighter. But he has won and he is good. I hope in the coming season we'll be seeing more drivers fighting for the title and it brings a new champion. Rated 8

Glad you acknowledged that he's good...but please give us examples of what a fast guy, or a fighter looks like.

 

[samcar304]

Glad you acknowledged that he's good...but please give us examples of what a fast guy, or a fighter looks like.

I'm not sure what a fast person looks like either. Sometimes you blink and you miss them..

 

[dragob]

Nobody's perfect so he gets a "9" from me. A great season for Hamilton.

 

[Maurits Vernel]

World champions should always get a 10.

Lastly, name one year when all F1 cars were on equal footing...yet, not surprisingly, it never stopped people from praising Schumi, Prost, Mansell, etc as the greatest ever, when they also won their championships using the class of the field. What's good for the goose...

Well, the best drivers are usually invited to the best teams..

 

[Hor-hay]

Don't like the guy, sick of seeing him fix his hair before every podium, but solid performance he gets a 9.

 

[wombat999]

Never had any time for Hamilton so I'm not going to vote or comment.

 

[CobraCat]

Opinions are plentiful and haters gonna hate, but here's mine...

I'm always baffled when certain people win races or championships, it's always the "it's the car" argument or something about his mannerisms/attitude/private life/style of dress/etc "hurts the sport", like these cars drive themselves, or this is some kind of elitist country club. I rarely ever hear these arguments with the likes of Schumacher, Mansell or Lauda for example, but it's always comes out in droves with Hamilton and, in the past, Senna. Not to mention, unlike sim racing (where people also have 'off days' mind you), real drivers also are subjected to rediculous amounts of G-forces and abuse, but are somehow expected to deliver the perfect race, the perfect season, every season...nonsense.

Lastly, name one year when all F1 cars were on equal footing...yet, not surprisingly, it never stopped people from praising Schumi, Prost, Mansell, etc as the greatest ever, when they also won their championships using the class of the field. What's good for the goose...

Lewis worked very hard to get where he is, he once again performed admirably over the course of the season and deserves a 10, or at the very least, a 9.

Thank you!! This needed to be addressed! Well said !

 

[CobraCat]

Is there a way to reset my vote and vote again, I inadvertently made the wrong selection.

 

[Nick Hill]

I am an unabashed Hamilton hater, but I had to be objective and give him a 9. Yes, Vettel and Ferrari combined to take the red cars out of the equation way too soon for the sake of our entertainment as race fans, but ultimately Hamilton still had to bring the points home to get the WDC. I'm not sure there is another driver on the grid who can do the things he does - he is among the all time greats in my book.

I'll be rooting against him every race next year, but if pushed a little harder, i suspect he may end up just showing us all what a "10" looks like.

 

[Michel Forest]

Not a fan, far from it, but I still gave him a 10. Yes, he has the best car, but he's making the most of it. In qualifying, he's amazing. When he needs to push to get some extra speed in a race, he can raise his level like few drivers can. I gave a 10 to only three drivers: Hamilton, Verstappen and Alonso. To me, that was the elite club of F1 this season, with Ricciardo very, very close to joining that club.

 

[Esploratore]

A rare case where my vote doesn't agree with the most popular opinion, which was 9 here, I was undecided between 8 and 9 and went for 8.

I count against hamilton the bad qualifying (despite penalties, I'm talking about the time he set) in monaco, austria, hungary, russia, bad race as well in russia and brazil mistake (title was over but a mistake is a mistake).

At the start of the year, hamilton wasn't that consistent, it was a typical case of: when hamilton is on it he's unbeatable but he has off races too, just look at silverstone, canada, china for examples where no one could catch him, obviously the car has merit too.

He proved the best or joint best of the grid in the rain again at monza and singapore, where I think even without the starting crash he could've challenged ferraris, so much better he is in the wet.

He also did a good job at avoiding troubles with drivers who weren't in competition with him for the title, like verstappen in malaysia who was coming with a faster red bull.

Overall a good season, don't think it was the best ever from him, but I think if cars had been swapped he wouldn't have got the title, the little performance difference + lack of reliability ferrari had made the difference across a season.

 

[Rinax89]

I have had this rule in life that I can't give any product or person a perfect rating, so the highest I can ever give is a 9, thus I gave LH a 9 (I rated Vettel an 8).

I was never a fan of his honestly, but his drive last season was immaculate. I am a fan of Ferrari and wanted Vettel to be champ, but what separated LH and Vettel was LH's maturity this season; calm under pressure and way more consistent.

Others may argue, oh he had the better car in the end, but it still takes a whole team effort and a good driver to get the best out of the car... something Vettel and Ferrari failed to do so by the second half of the season (and it broke my heart lol)

As much as I would have wanted Vettel to be champ, LH deserved it way more last season.

 

[antirussia81]

I have had this rule in life that I can't give any product or person a perfect rating

You wouldn't rate your own mother a 10 as a person and a parent?
But joking aside, 9 out of 10 for Hamilton seems fair. There wasn't anyone this season who would impress me like Schumacher or even Vettel few year ago.

 

[ears]

7. Clearly the best car and still struggled against a worse car (Ferrari) and a subpar driver (Bottas) quite some times

You know it's 2018 now right? And that last year it was 2017?!

I watched a lot of the 2017 F1 swason and I didn't come away thinking that the Ferrari was clearly a worse car than the Mercedes.

In fact, on many occasions, it was my opinion that the Ferrari was the better car.

 

[Celestiale]

You know it's 2018 now right? And that last year it was 2017?!

I watched a lot of the 2017 F1 swason and I didn't come away thinking that the Ferrari was clearly a worse car than the Mercedes.

In fact, on many occasions, it was my opinion that the Ferrari was the better car.

A common mistake people make, when only watching a few races, and not knowing the technical aspects of the race car. Seeing Vettel fighting toe-to-toe with a Mercedes and thinking "oh, the car is as good as theirs". Not only the case with Ferrari, also with other cars, that people mistake car with driver.
Possible that their are a couple(!) of circuits out there that suit the Ferrari better chassis-wise in general, but engine wise the Mercedes has 15hp more - and that is not track dependent, that's fact on every single ciruit. In motorsport that's worlds, where the margins are that small.
You can see the difference of those two cars best, if you compare Raikkönnen and Bottas. Apart from this season most people would have tipped Raikkönnen as a better driver then Bottas..which is most likely still the case. And they are still worlds apart in the Championship, were worlds apart on pace. That 0.8s it mostly was is around the difference between the Mercedes and the Ferrari on average over the course of a season. Making that up with driver skill on that level is near impossible. Some people are arguing that the cars don't drive themselves. Well, that is definitely true. But on that level of F1, the supposedly best drivers on the planet, there shouldn't be a difference of 0,8s between one driver to the next. So in the end it is the car who wins the championship. You could have put every possible driver pairing of last season in the Mercedes, and one of them would still have won the championship - well maybe apart from Stroll and Palmer, who really were 0.8s worse then their teammates on some occasions.
Same thing with the omnipresent slagging of the Sauber drivers. People just don't understand how far back the Sauber is compared to all other cars, not only in the second course of the season. People slagging of Ericcson as worst driver, people slagging of Wehrlein as "not much better". That's plain ridiculous and just shows the missing knowledge about the sport. If you'd swap Wehrlein and Ericcson with Hamilton and Bottas, end result of the Mercedes and Sauber cars in the championship would probably be the exact same. And forgetting the history about Hamilton, the same people crowning Hamilton as "best driver", "blest" and other nonsense would probably crown Wehrlein in the same manner. The same people slagging of Wehrlein and Ericsson would probably call Bottas "the worst driver of the grid" if he would sit in a Sauber, and call Hamilton "not much better".

 

[ears]

A common mistake people make, when only watching a few races, and not knowing the technical aspects of the race car.

Seeing Vettel fighting toe-to-toe with a Mercedes and thinking "oh, the car is as good as theirs". Not only the case with Ferrari, also with other cars, that people mistake car with driver.
Possible that their are a couple(!) of circuits out there that suit the Ferrari better chassis-wise in general, but engine wise the Mercedes has 15hp more - and that is not track dependent, that's fact on every single ciruit. In motorsport that's worlds, where the margins are that small.
You can see the difference of those two cars best, if you compare Raikkönnen and Bottas. Apart from this season most people would have tipped Raikkönnen as a better driver then Bottas..which is most likely still the case. And they are still worlds apart in the Championship, were worlds apart on pace. That 0.8s it mostly was is around the difference between the Mercedes and the Ferrari on average over the course of a season. Making that up with driver skill on that level is near impossible. Some people are arguing that the cars don't drive themselves. Well, that is definitely true. But on that level of F1, the supposedly best drivers on the planet, there shouldn't be a difference of 0,8s between one driver to the next. So in the end it is the car who wins the championship. You could have put every possible driver pairing of last season in the Mercedes, and one of them would still have won the championship - well maybe apart from Stroll and Palmer, who really were 0.8s worse then their teammates on some occasions.
Same thing with the omnipresent slagging of the Sauber drivers. People just don't understand how far back the Sauber is compared to all other cars, not only in the second course of the season. People slagging of Ericcson as worst driver, people slagging of Wehrlein as "not much better". That's plain ridiculous and just shows the missing knowledge about the sport. If you'd swap Wehrlein and Ericcson with Hamilton and Bottas, end result of the Mercedes and Sauber cars in the championship would probably be the exact same. And forgetting the history about Hamilton, the same people crowning Hamilton as "best driver", "blest" and other nonsense would probably crown Wehrlein in the same manner. The same people slagging of Wehrlein and Ericsson would probably call Bottas "the worst driver of the grid" if he would sit in a Sauber, and call Hamilton "not much better".

I guess that's the beauty of opinions though, everyone's is different.

I'm not sure I would have tipped Raikkonen as a faster driver than Bottas. I'm still not sure I would.

I didn't just see Vettel fighting toe to toe with Hamilton, I saw him leading him, and Hamilton unable to catch or pass him.

It seems to me that although the cars were not evenly matched - Mercedes had a power advantage and Ferrari / Red Bull an aerodynamic advantage - this resulted in quite dramatic swings in performance and stability from race to race.

I think Mercedes were extremely lucky to win the drivers championship so comfortably in what could have been a classic and extremely close finish.

But while certain cars had certain characteristics that gave them advantages at certain tracks, I don't believe that any one car was dominant in 2017.

 

[Celestiale]

It seems to me that although the cars were not evenly matched - Mercedes had a power advantage and Ferrari / Red Bull an aerodynamic advantage - this resulted in quite dramatic swings in performance and stability from race to race.

Ferrari doesn't have an aerodynamic advantage. That's also a common misconception because they have fast(er) laptimes on tight and twisty circuits. The Ferrari's chassis is better at tight and twisty circuits because of it's very short wheelbase, the Mercedes chassis is better at the so called "downforce circuits" like Silverston, Spa, Barcelona etc, because it has a very long wheelbase and better stability in fast corners. According to most experts it's exactly 50:50, Mercedes and Ferrari chassis both better then the other at 10 of the 20 circuits. But the Mercedes engine is better then the Ferrari engine at every single track.
The bottom line is that on some tracks Ferrari's chassis can (over)compensate Mercedes's engine advantage (e.g. Hungary, Monaco), on some tracks it can reduce the Mercedes advantage, but on half of all tracks the Mercedes chassis even increases the advantage over the Ferrari it already has due to the engine.
Anyway, that's all the time i will spend trying to explain my opinion. It is based on many many expert's views of the sport, both in engineering terms (i am one myself) and others like ex-racers, but as you pointed out it's still an opinion, so i won't try to force it on yourself. Let's just keep enjoying the sports

 

[ears]

The Ferrari's chassis is better at tight and twisty circuits because of it's very short wheelbase, the Mercedes chassis is better at the so called "downforce circuits" like Silverston, Spa, Barcelona etc, because it has a very long wheelbase and better stability in fast corners.

I see your point but it just doesn't quite align with what I saw.

Spa was perhaps the closest race of the year between the two title contenders. Which car was faster that day? What would have happened if SV had got past LH?

It seemed like Ferrari were going to have an advantage in race conditions at Suzuka.

The expert opinions I saw said that the Mercedes chassis was unpredictable and unstable, and that their engineers never quite knew whether or not they'd be able to find its 'sweet spot'.

 

[Tibor Solyom]

Who the hell put 1?

The same who give Raikkonen 10.
17 people until now. Good eyes to motorsport. Or anything.