Hamilton wins Driver of the Weekend again

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Lewis Hamilton picked up his second Driver of the Weekend win following his victory and titanic battle with team mate Nico Rosberg in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Hamilton received 49.2% of the vote to top the poll ahead of Sergio Perez, who scored his first podium for Force India in only his third race with the team after a series of overtakes on the exit of turn four.

Meanwhile Daniel Ricciardo – who just missed out on stealing the final podium spot from Perez on the last lap – was voted in the top three for the second time this season after his comeback drive from thirteenth on the grid to fourth.

1. Lewis Hamilton

Started: 2nd
Finished: 1st

After topping all three practice sessions it looked silly to bet against anyone other than Hamilton for pole position. However a slow first run and a mistake on his second meant he was denied the top spot by teammate Rosberg.

He quickly made amends by taking the lead in the first corner and proceeded to attempt to open a gap over his team mate, although Rosberg refused to give in. On lap 17 Rosberg made his move and the two engaged in battle, although Hamilton fought back. Rosberg tried again the following lap and succeeded, but Hamilton got a better exit from turn four and swept in front into turn five to ensure he could pit first at the end of the lap.

On a quicker tyre than his team mate Hamilton then set about building a gap, knowing Rosberg would have the advantage in the final stint. The safety car eradicated this however and Hamilton was then left to defend from Rosberg for eleven laps on the slower tyre. Rosberg fought hard but Hamilton used all his karting knowledge to keep in front, and claim possibly the hardest-fought win of his career.

Hamilton has to be my pick for Driver of the Weekend.

Had he fended off Rosberg with soft tyres it would be a different story, but handling his teammate while using primes in spite of two DRS zones was simply astonishing. I thought he was dead in the water once the Safety Car came out. It was a world class drive, especially how he reclaimed the lead exiting turn one so many times.
Brian (@Bforth)

For some reason (probably set up, but we’ll never know), Rosberg had a faster car than Hamilton, but Hamilton showed real grit to keep the lead just before his first stop.

Then quite how he kept Rosberg behind him in the race was pure genius. OK, he made a mistake when it counted in qualifying, but in every other aspect of the weekend he was the best driver in my opinion!
@GeordiePorker

I went with Hamilton. He’s known as a great attacking driver, but little is said of his defensive ability. So it was nice to see it on display this weekend.
Neil (@Neilosjames)

2. Sergio Perez

Started: 4th
Finished: 3rd

After a torrid and unlucky first two races, Perez needed a clean and strong weekend in Bahrain. Out-qualifying highly rated teammate Nico Hulkenberg on Saturday was a good way to start as he put himself fourth on the grid following Ricciardo’s penalty.

Perez came alive in the opening stint as the Williams’ pair’s tyres began to degrade and he proceeded to pull some impressive overtakes on the exit of turn four with his superior grip. A move on his team mate exiting turn four – after Hulkenberg had been somewhat blocked by Felipe Massa – signaled a sign of intent and Perez held on from Daniel Ricciardo after the safety car despite being on slower and more worn tyres.

Hamilton and Rosberg’s battle was epic, but Rosberg should have been able to get past him on softer tires and Hamilton shouldn’t have goofed on his qualifying run on Saturday so that takes them out of the Running for me.

Perez got the best he could possibly get from his car.
@Lancer033

I voted for Perez. He outqualified and outraced Hulkenberg, which is no mean feat, and in doing so he really needed to ring the neck of that car. Qualifying has never been Perez’s strongest attribute so to put a Force India on the second row was a terrific effort, and then to top it off with only their second podium.
Deej92 (@deej92)

3. Daniel Ricciardo

Started: 13th
Finished: 4th

After practice had been more or less dominated by Mercedes powered cars it was somewhat of a surprise to see Ricciardo pop into third during qualifying, the closest challenger to the two Mercedes works cars.

His penalty from Malaysia dropped him to thirteenth but Ricciardo put in a storming drive to finish fourth, even daring to ask that teammate Sebastian Vettel let him through.

Went for Ricciardo. Excellent qualifying, undone by the grid penalty unrelated to this weekend, which meant that he had the rare chance to have a good qualifying and come through the field. Outraced Vettel, which is a good achievement (even though Vettel had DRS and MGU-H problems which may have made Ricciardo look slightly better than he really was).
@Mike-Dee

2014 Driver of the Weekend results

RaceFirstSecondThird
AustralianKevin Magnussen (48.38%)Valtteri Bottas (24.49%)Daniel Ricciardo (14.05%)
MalaysianLewis Hamilton (54.3%)Nico Hulkenberg (24.0%)Sebastian Vettel (6.5%)
BahrainLewis Hamilton (49.2%)Sergio Perez (25.7%)Daniel Ricciardo (16.6%)

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

Browse all 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix articles

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

31 comments on “Hamilton wins Driver of the Weekend again”

  1. he may be leading the real championship but no sign of Rosberg yet in the top 3 of this little title fight…

    1. It also happened to Vettel more often than not in the last few years.

    2. Don’t forget, Rosbberg only won the first face due to Hamiltons cars “Break Down”.

  2. Yes. Hamilton hands down. It really was a great race, with suspense and chaos thrown in with Maldonado being Maldonado and bringing out the safety car.

  3. This is one where I didn’t think he deserved it. Sure, his last stint was terrific, but he failed the test of qualifying.

    Perez would have been more worthy, but he in turn I think less than Ricciardo. That was a truly excellent performance – qualifying third, only to overcome the adversity of a grid penalty (which he attained through no fault of his own) to very nearly finish on the podium again. Ahead of none other than Sebastian Vettel, who although had car problems never really looked as stellar as Daniel the entire weekend. It’s a track which does appear to really play to his strengths.

    1. “This is one where I didn’t think he deserved it. Sure, his last stint was terrific, but he failed the test of qualifying.”

      Have to disagree with you there @vettel1

      There are few drivers that would have managed to hold nico off in the way that he did, his car position in was truly spot on. Perfect defence both on laps 17 & 18, and for 10 laps at the end of the race. Hamilton’s skill in defence completely nullified a couple of small mistakes in qualifying.

      No doubt Perez and Ricciardo both drove superbly last weekend, but what Hamilton did was exceptional, and in my view any of the top drivers in any era would have been proud of that performance, so it was a no brainer for me to vote for him.

      1. It could well be that Nico isn’t very good at overtaking…

      2. @3dom to be fair, I would rate his race performance higher if his margin was emphatic prior to the safety car – in other words if he “Vettel’d it”. Rosberg was on a strategy which should in theory have brought him into contention for the win without the need for the safety car interruption.

        No doubt it was a masterclass in defensive driving, but nor did Rosberg look particularly imaginative in attacking.

        So, considering the weekend as a whole, I still feel Ricciardo’s performance was more admirable.

  4. So if theirs a championship with points 3,2,1 then we have:

    1) Hamilton 6
    2) Magnussen 3
    3) Perez 2
    4) Bottas 2
    5) Hulkenberg 2
    6) Ricciardo 2
    7) Vettel 1

    No real championship leader Rosberg suprisingly

      1. Hey look.. a grammar nazi..

    1. From that, I would move down Magnussen and Perez, promote Hülkenberg, leave Bottas and promote Ricciardo as a form guide. Obviously also Rosberg would be included as well.

  5. Well.. If Hamilton wins – he’s first. If Rosberg – he’s nowhere… :-/

    1. I think if Rosberg had driven Hamilton’s race in either Malaysia or Bahrain, he’d have won DoTD.

    2. Rosberg only won when Ham was out ^^

      What´s more surprising is the comparison to Vettel-wins in earlier seasons. How come allowing Rosberg to close up and fight is rated higher than being miles ahead of Webber? Do people rate Rosberg so high or Webber so low? I allways thought they were pretty similar in strength.

      1. British site… Hamilton winning by 17 seconds or just 1? Who cares, DOTW.

        1. Every time I see such comment I really want to yell nonsense ! Keith pulished stats about site users a while ago, and if I’m correct, English IPs were less than a third of total traffic. I’m sure had Rosberg won in Malaysia emphaticaaly, he would have been DotW

        2. Gotta love the Xenophobia

      2. I used to rate Webber pretty high @crammond, @f1mre (I am Dutch by the way, not from UK), and in a way still do, but as the years went by, it became clear he was no match for Vettel on a regular basis, for whatever reason. I just stopped expecting him to be a real challenge for his team mate.

        Rosberg, I think we had to conclude since last season, is really very fast, and methodical, that is why he won more races last year than Hamilton (yes, and perhaps less ‘unlucky’ than either Webber or Hamilton). Looking at the years with Schumacher I now think the cars really were bad at being set up, and Schumacher actually did pretty well, but Rosberg edged him out by being younger, and more hungry for success.

        Also, we never saw a fight like in Bahrain between the two RBR drivers, their on track youstling never lasted long, partly due to the team not trusting the drivers to stay out of each others wheels ever since that Turkey clash.

        1. Rosberg, I think we had to conclude since last season, is really very fast, and methodical, that is why he won more races last year than Hamilton

          Err…NO. The reason was Lewis’s delamination in Silverstone whilst in the lead.

          1. Err…I suppose we’ll just forget Rosbergs 3 mechanical retirements to Hamiltons 1 will we?

          2. @kbdavies is right. Hamilton would have won more races – or at least have been tied, as there was a chance of Vettel winning had he not had a gearbox failure (if we are taking that as not being an inevitability).

      3. @crammond
        Rosberg is more consistently fast and has far less boogie circuits than Webber did. Also, Rosberg doesn’t make as many mistakes as Webber did either. I’d say that in his current form Rosberg is heads and shoulders above what Webber was as a driver.

        1. @kingshark how I interpret it is that Webber of 2010 is a match for current Rosberg. But not Webber of 2013 – he seemed to have accepted his position in Vettel’s shadow on a lot of occasions.

          1. @vettel1
            Perhaps
            If Rosberg can challenge Hamilton this year on merit alone this season without the need to rely on Lewis’s misfortunes, then I believe he is above Webber in 2010.
            Webber was good in 2010 but he relied a lot of Vettel’s bad luck to bring the title challenge as far as he did.

  6. didnt lewis have a brake leak in bahrain quali,which caused him to lockup…….anyhow,yeah i think lewis deserves this one.well done to perez tho.he did a good job also.

    1. didnt lewis have a brake leak in bahrain quali,which caused him to lockup

      I heard that as well. Don’t remember where though.
      I am still wondering how on earth a brake leakage could cause a lockup. If anything, I would think that he would loose breaking power and thus be unable to stop, rather then locking up. Seems weird to me anyway..

      1. @mads, matt, maybe he felt (knew) he had a leak, so applied more force to the breaks than normal, which was then too much and caused a lock-up? That’s about the best I can think of. I think Hamilton mentioned to Sky after the race that he had his breaks repaired after qualifying.

  7. A spelling mistake by myself – it should be *wring the neck of that car!

  8. He deserve it. But ‘nobody’ remark Sergio Perez performance.

  9. In my humble dutch opinion, Hamilton will always have the upper hand over Rosberg. My favorite team is Williams though I am not a Massa fan. I think my favorite drivers are Hulkenberg and Ricciardo.
    Hamilton is awesome and great to watch.

Comments are closed.