Hamilton: Data key to fighting Rosberg – and Alonso

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton says the sharing of data within Mercedes has made the battle between him and Nico Rosberg so close – as it did with Fernando Alonso at McLaren in 2007.

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Hamilton reveals why title battle with Rosberg is so close this year (James Allen on F1)

“Like the experience I had with Fernando (Alonso at McLaren in 2007). When I got to F1 I thought, ‘Jeez Fernando’s so quick and he is using all these different techniques’. But fortunately there was data. If there wasn’t data I wouldn’t have been able to beat him that year.”

No agreement on FRIC among teams (ESPN)

FIA spokesperson: “We have not yet got, nor do we expect to get, the agreement of all teams to the proposed amnesty.”

‘Zero chance of agreement’ (Sky)

“I think the likelihood of a unanimous agreement is zero quite frankly. I think there will be people out there who say ‘if the FIA think it should be banned then let’s do that’.”

F1 boss Ecclestone explains ‘insurance policy’ payment to German banker (Reuters)

“‘I was a little sarcastic when I asked would 50 million help you?’ Ecclestone said of a conversation with [Gerhard] Gribkowsky.”

Ecclestone Said He Hoped $50 Million Would Keep Banker Quiet (Bloomberg)

“So far in Ecclestone’s bribery trial his lawyers have only read out written testimony at the start of proceedings.”

Perez backs F1 leniency on penalties (Autosport)

“In my opinion, what they gave me a penalty for in Montreal was a bit too much, because we both did our bit to collide.”

Haas Declined Chance To Invest In US F1 (Forbes)

“Mr Ecclestone told Forbes in the paddock at this month’s British Grand Prix that he has ‘said to [FIA president Jean] Todt ‘you must see how honest they are. Tell Haas to put a deposit down’ and apparently they have.'”

Sebastian’s favourite German things (Red Bull)

“Favourite joke?
SV: Germans don’t joke”

Tweets

Comment of the day

The old Hockenheimring was not remembered for producing great races but as @GT-Racer explains that was partly due to shortcoming with television direction at the time:

The old circuit actually did produce good racing, The problem was that the local director usually missed all of it.

I remember in 1997 the local director spent most of his time watching the top few cars where nothing was going on. However on the digital pay-TV feed plenty of good racing and overtaking was shown and it almost feels like you’re watching a totally different race when comparing the two broadcasts.

For example pretty sure the local director didn’t show anything of this:

It was the same in ’98/’99/’00/’01, There was a lot of good racing going on which the local director didn’t feel like showing.

Another example from 2001:

@GT-Racer

From the forum

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On this day in F1

Ayrton Senna’s frustrating season continued on this day 25 years ago as a mechanical failure put him out for the fourth race in a row, this time while he was leading at Silverstone.

That left Alain Prost to take his second win in eight days and as in France he was followed home by Nigel Mansell, the Ferrari driver recovering after an early puncture.

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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64 comments on “Hamilton: Data key to fighting Rosberg – and Alonso”

  1. Daniel (@collettdumbletonhall)
    16th July 2014, 0:15

    I just can’t excited about this year anymore now with all these dumb new rules. Double points angered me but I was pretty confident that it would not be here for the long term but after hearing Charlie Whiting confirm that there were no plans to drop it and now the new safety car rule has been unveiled I haven’t been too fussed about the racing since. I barely even paid any attention to the Alonso-Vettel battle last week.

    1. Could we have a round-up, or better yet a week’s worth of round-ups, without Ham-Ros related news. I know you don’t write them Keith, but you surely can select which sources you quote here. For example, you could quote more spanish/french/german/italian papers here, rather than 90+% of british that you currently are. You have, after all, promoted that this is international website. Would be appreciated if you’d consider this.

      1. Although this is a website which caters for an international audience it is an English-language website, so filling the round-up with links to articles in others languages would not be useful for most people. Some foreign-language links do appear from time to time, however.

        As for the balance of stories within it, that is influenced to a large extent by what’s being written about at the moment. That’s just how it is from time to time – back in early 2011 and 2012 I remember the round-ups being packed with stuff on Bahrain because that had become such a major intentional news story.

        I’m well aware that some people think there is too much coverage of Hamilton and Rosberg in the media at the moment and I like to feature other topics – seven of the eight links in today’s round-up are not about them. Incidentally, I thought the most interesting aspect of the other story was how it relates to Alonso in 2007.

        1. Incidentally, I thought the most interesting aspect of the other story was how it relates to Alonso in 2007.

          My thoughts on the article too Keith, that was a really interesting part as it nicely fills in some details of that story

          1. Indeed, we can see how Lewis gradually got stronger in the first half of the season, culminating with the win in Canada, after having good pace in Monaco.

        2. @Keith Collantine
          Imagine not following the 2 WDC prospects Keith- shame on you :)
          As a Senna fan I watched 1988 & 1989 VERY closely and all I can remember is Gerhard would normally be third!! But I didn’t care!! Hahah

          The best part of this year (for a non-Merc fan) must be Daniel Ric showing he can race with a 4 x WDC!! Most on this site doubted Daniel for the drive last year- he has proved worthy I say !!! :0

        3. @keithcollantine I appreciate you took time to respond to me. While I understand that foreign language links wouldn’t be much of use most(?) of this site’s users but maybe there could be translations, like main points of the article done by you (don’t know if you speak other languages) or maybe by some active forum users that speak the language. I’m not asking to completely forget LH/NR aspect, since they’re after all the only 2 that can achieve WDC this year, but just the portion of it from total links. Yes, today’s round-up wasn’t maybe the best time to bring this up, since you actually had quite nice and some not-so-often-linked sources today but the point still remains. I just think the british media likes to write anything that includes LH/NR (understandably though) atm but I bet there’s a lot of other interesting articles about F1 in foreign papers that don’t just write about that situation. There’s a lot more interesting things (even more in relation to average round-up portion) in F1 than just those 2 drivers. For example, if you link, say 5-8 links per day, maybe keep it max 2 for british links/sources and rest from other countries. That is, if the translation etc could be worked out somehow.

          1. If you don’t like English speaking websites…don’t go there,If you don’t want to keep up with the only two people in contention for the world title…don’t go there.

          2. If you don’t like comments, don’t be here. If you don’t like suggestions, don’t be here. If you don’t like my comments, don’t be here. According to your logic…

    2. The double points issue wouldn’t be an issue if they did… a double race.
      I hope FIA thinks about this, they could do two feature races in the same place, on the same weekend and this could easily justify the “double points”…

      1. @xusso As in IndyCar, for examples: they have three races this year which offer double points, each of which are about twice the length of an ordinary race.

        1. That was I was referring to, indeed. It’s inevitable to compare both.

  2. Don’t really need the Perez-Massa argument reopening, but Perez is wrong in saying the penalty too much. While I believe it was a racing incident, I cannot help but think that the penalty was absolutely tiny considering how dangerous the accident was, and that it nearly took out Vettel.

    1. @strontium The stiffness of the penalty should depend on the actions of the Driver/Team and not on the scale of the accident. All of us are yelling out for consistency among the stewarding, but that is not going to happen if the punishments are dished out depending on the dangerousness.

      1. In theory that should be the case, but in reality (in my opinion at least) the two are directly proportional.

        1. That’s literally the opposite of what you said in your previous comment!

  3. Vettel’s comment reminded me of this amusing little VT on German culture from ITV F1 back in 2008…

    http://youtu.be/auvmljhAWok

    1. I recently met someone who is heavily involved in the F1 in Schools programme in the UK. He took a group of kids into the Red Bull garage on the Thursday of the British GP, where everyone was too busy to give them a quick tour, until Vettel spoke up. At the end of his tour, the kids sang him Happy Birthday, and he teared up, and sat each one in his car.

      I like to weigh up people in F1 based on how much they’ve given to the sport versus how much they’ve taken from it, and its this kind of thing that makes a big difference on the scales.

      1. Chris Cooper
        16th July 2014, 9:57

        Despite not one of my favourite drivers on the grid, Vettel is a lovely bloke. Met him a couple of years ago and despite his entourage repeatedly reminding him he had other duties, he spent ages with my kids

      2. It’s always noticeable how much we don’t hear about Vettel hanging out with the latest celebrity or using ‘Personal PR’ etc…

  4. love every minute of F1 regardless of who is winning,
    shame people have to run it down because their driver/team is not winning,
    with all this negative talk from watchers they have the administrators running around like chocks with their heads cut off wondering how to improve the show,
    this year has been the best motor racing F1 ive seen for a very long time,
    yet still the complaints from readers keep pouring in.

    1. I completely agree.

      People keen going on about the volume, sound, tyre/fuel management yet despite constantly been told how these things are terrible & destroying the racing, The racing has actually been fantastic at pretty much every race so far this year & I have been enjoying it.

      OK Mercedes have a dominant package & are running away with things, But at least they have 2 very fast drivers who push each other hand every weekend leading to some great & unpredictable battles for the lead between the 2 & its not 100% certain at this point which driver will end 2014 on top, Especially as the momentum keeps swinging back & forth due to driver errors & unreliability.

      It saddens me how all the constant unwarranted negativity & constant whining about how supposedly bad the racing is has pushed those inside F1 to start introducing stupid rule changes & proposing all manor of nonsense to fix things which frankly aren’t broke & don’t need changing.

      Double points, Standing restarts, Artificial sparks generated purely for ‘The Show’ are answers to questions nobody was asking & frankly none of these things will do anything to improve the actual racing which I was under the assumption was the primary point of watching this crazy sport.
      The sparks may look cool for 5 minutes, the standing restarts may create some drama for a few corners & the double points may mix things up in the championship standings after the final race (In a bad way) but what of the actual racing in-between, What do any of things do to to actually make the racing better?

      Answer, Nothing & thats my problem with all this nonsense!
      I’ve never watched a dull race & thought about how much better it woudl have been if we had a couple standing starts, sparks & double points, And on the flip side I’ve never watched a good race & thought about how these things would have made it ever better.

      All I really care about when it comes to a race on a Sunday afternoon is the racing, I want to see some competitive racing, Close battles & good, exciting overtaking. This year to be honest I think we’ve had that & its been fun. Don’t give a damn about all the other totally artificial & at times utterly gimmicky nonsense, Could do without all that.
      I’d still rather they drop DRS but at least thats been working a bit better this year.

      1. @stefmeister, this great racing we are having is only happening because the tyres are more durable and need less management, something we should continue to point out to BE and JT to show them the error of their ways in the hope that they will see the benefit of continuing to reduce tyre wear and downforce levels rather than trying to think of gimmicks to randomly handicap faster drivers.

      2. At the risk of being informed again that I should ‘stick to the guitar’, I would like to weigh in on this too…….

        I think certainly the biggest positive we have in 2014 is that the drivers are being able, on the whole, to push hard most of the time without risk of wrecking their tyres, and that has been a massive relief. There is still rather too much ‘management’ going on for my liking, but it has also been very pleasing to see that the dreaded situation of major ‘fuel management’ has not really materialized either……Phew!

        As a TV sport, I would say I am loving F1 at the moment perhaps as much as I ever have since becoming hooked in the early 1980’s. I have made my views clear that at the circuit I find it a much reduced spectacle, but I will not be jumping into the shark tank here again on that issue………..:)

        Let’s hope for a great and fair fight for the balance of the season, and a worthy 2014 champion, without influence from the nonsense of the double points finale!

        1. Funny enough, you said that you got hooked up on the sport on the 80’s, but in the 80’s there was a LOT of management.. Otherwise they wouldn’t finish.
          And if the double points decide the champion, he will be worthy. EVERYONE know the rule, so must adapt to it. Hamilton and Rosberg know that they need to be separeted by 14 points or less for the last race.

          1. @edmarques,

            It is true there were periods in the 80’s where there was lots of management, the most ridiculous of all being when they kept running out of fuel and had to turn the boost down all the time. Oh dear, that was really awful! I think what drew me to it in the early 80’s, when I was just a kid, was the noise, excitement, colour etc. As time went by I learned it was rather more complicated than that, but a large part of me wishes there was little or no ‘management’ at all. Refueling aside, I rather liked the purity of the relatively recent ‘flat out sprint’ era of F1, before the clown tyres were introduced.

            I understand what you are saying about the double points rule being the same for everyone, but I think if the championship is decided as a direct result of a double points finale, it will be forever devalued. You simply can’t just give out twice the points for one race and have it taken seriously, in my view.

    2. @lethalnz, sound aside the complaints are mostly about the gimmicks introduced by the headless chooks (thats chickens).

      1. nah headless Chocks is better,
        Chickens are those that keep running the show down because their favorite driver/team is not winning, seams they are all youngsters thus don’t realize what a fantastic show is unfolding in front of them,
        wish my Team McLaren would do better, but hey i can live with it and still enjoy the show for what it is.

  5. According to Will Grey, “it is believed teams are starting to use clever valve set-ups to activate certain movements solely for aerodynamic benefit – specifically making the rear of the car drop at high speed to reduce the angle of attack of the rear wing and cut downforce.”

    If that’s so then I don’t see why that particular implementation of FRIC cannot be banned without banning the entire thing. Just issue a rules clarification saying “no ride height adjustments via FRIC are permitted”.

    1. certainly some team has come up with a package that took it over the the fresh hold to make Charlie decide it has gone too far, otherwise he might have left it alone.
      do you know which team come up with this new configuration rm???

      1. Not specifically. But the teams mentioned as being on the bleeding edge of FRIC development for the past couple of years are usually Mercedes, Williams, and Lotus, so I’d guess one or more of those three pushed things too far.

    2. But that wouldn’t help Ferrari…

  6. “Zero chance of agreement”

    Well there’s a surprise!

  7. Oh my, aounds like Caterham are in a very dire state

    Logistically and (probably) financially-speaking.

    1. *sounds

    2. @younger-hami theyve been in dire straits since TF was lured into establishing a team by promises of a budget cap that was torpedoed by the big guns he’d have to try to compete w/ and not get lapped by…

  8. Great clip from @GT-Racer in the COTD of the Panis-Trulli scrap in 2001. Some excellent defensive driving from Trulli with a car clearly suffering from extreme brake wear, which must have been pretty scary at the old Hockenheimring! Whilst ‘Trulli Train’ is normally used to highlight the problem of aerodynamic dependence in the mid-00s, it is also worth remembering that Trulli was a good qualifier on his day and was a solid defensive driver in a time where that was seen to be a skill!

    1. Indeed, that was just an amazing battle. Goes to show how much a good director can do to make a good race a great race or make a great race feel so-so!

    2. Indeed, the chief clamour during those days was for more racing.. yet we could have all the cars outside the top ten battling all race, while remaining stuck on Schumi who was cruising around at the front to another win in a row!

      Then everyone would say, “What a boring race… no one overtook the whole time, and Schumi cruised to another win”.

      1. And then on the back of this, some gimmicks would be introduced…… e.g. more starts… so how many replays will we need to see what’s happened throughout the whole pack? Usually the start replays only cover the top ten, and thus we miss seeing how someone like Bottas has magically gained ten places on lap 1.

  9. Aditya (@adityafakhri)
    16th July 2014, 3:34

    Regarding @GT-Racer ‘s COTD:
    the old layout is somewhat scary for me, that high speed straights are just, wow. but it was good track indeed, as Trulli and Panis (who ended their career both only a single win, in Monaco) showed on the footage. but I’m afraid the old track just don’t compatible with today rules: DRS, which could probably ruin race in the old layout. no need to make a tight slipstreaming or aggressive defending.

  10. Oh, so implying a sarcastic tone is now a viable anti-bribery defense?

    1. @zimkazimka I guess we’ll find out in September…

  11. The ’89 German GP was also a humdinger of a race. Great battle between Senna and Prost

  12. I’m not a Rosberg fan but I saw what he did with Williams so I have no doubt that he’s as good as anyone. Unfortunately many people seem to judge drivers by their results, or even worse are incapable of recognising someone’s qualities instead people make up excuses for what they actually can’t understand but want to. On the other hand I don’t think it is unfortunate that many people on Caterham were sacked, obviously I’m not aware of the details of the situation but reality is if you cannot do your job you should be accounted for it and certainly someone at Caterham was never capable of doing a reputable job. I think Caterham was born out of failures, most noticeably with the hiring of Mike Gascoyne and other engineers that actually worked in decent teams but were not actually responsible for their respective success, In the end there’s a reason why an ex RedBull guy joined Caterham and got fired….

    1. Not referring Gascoyne I’m referring a very recent engineer that got the social security letter. The guy that made the “Alien” nose.

      1. @peartree, The owner sets the budget, not even Newey could design a winner without a decent budget and it would appear that Caterham did not have a decent budget.

        1. @hohum To have employed 350 people you must have a good budget, besides the team is composed of redundant ex top team man, and in the end they are the people leaving the team therefore the new owners are trying to build something solid, not even Newey without the structure can deliver good cars, and that’s why he left McLaren.

    2. Indeed, Rosberg has been in a similar position (top ten but not quite a top five ranking driver) since 2007 IMO. Moving up to Mercedes allowed him to show that a bit better, with occasional podiums and beating Schumi through consistency. Now in a title winning car, he is ‘hustling hard’ to take it to Hamilton.

  13. But fortunately there was data. If there wasn’t data I wouldn’t have been able to beat him that year.

    But you tied with him lewis and even though you were classified second place, that just means you were the first loser :p

    1. @beejis60
      Beating him on countback, still counts as beating him.

    2. @beejis60
      I think Lewis finished ahead of Alonso in the standings. Some sports have no concept of a tie, and there always a differentiating factor.

      Massive achievement for a Rookie!

      1. Massive achievement for a rookie … absolutely … but did he beat him though? not in my opinion .. they were level on points & wins

  14. Heh, the curse of Leafield. Don’t think Caterham would have been in a better position in another facility. Nor would Leafield be cursed if it wasn’t inhabited by teams that were living on the edge financially. Arrows was run into the ground with poor decisions and lawsuits, Super Aguri was a sympathetic team, but ultimately went to bed with bad finance, while Caterham is built on empty Mosley promises.

    While I feel bad the the people who were fired (especially in this job market), I don’t think it has to be sign of the team going to fade soon. Now, if Sakon Yamamoto gets involved, that’s when the other 250 staff need to start looking for other jobs.

    1. Those fired Caterham staff need to go straight to Haas, who are now looking to hire 250 people for their England base..

      1. Me being American and judging by Caterham performance, I’m not so sure I would like them working for Haas.

  15. So Perez at least concedes he was partly to blame now. That’s a start I guess.

  16. The problem with F1 is that every team thinks that because another team is doing better at something that that one thing is the advantage, and if its gone it will equal the playing field. McLaren thought that back when they had the one race ban of the off throttle blown diffuser only to realize that they were even further off the pace without it, it then quickly came back. For this I assume its not just one team but several teams up and down the paddock. Caterham probably think they can catch Marrussia, Force India think they can catch Williams etc etc, if it turns out that it makes it worse for some those teams then it will be back. My assumption is that it will make little difference given none of the top teams are crying foul yet (usually a telling sign that they will struggle)

    1. This has been a ‘feature’ of F1 since it began.

  17. Regarding the open sharing of data within team, I think it’d serve both teammates well to not show their hand in free practice, esp FP1 and FP2.

  18. Hey Sebastian, I know a joke:

    “Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!”

    P.S. Just kidding if course, I mean Sebastian no harm ;)

    1. @meander Bonus point for the Monty Python reference :-)

      1. Lewis – my dog Rosco has no nose ,
        Nico – How does he smell
        Lewis – Awful man ,

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