Which Mercedes driver will lead at the summer break?

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix preview

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The season-long struggle for supremacy between the two Mercedes drivers reaches an important point at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

As the last race before the four-week summer break, both Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton will be looking to seize the momentum in Hungary ahead of what will be a crucial final third of the season.

A Hamilton victory could go a long way towards the 2008 world champion overhauling a points deficit to his rival for the second time this season, while another win for Rosberg could restore his points lead to the heights he enjoyed pre-Silverstone – and deliver a crucial psychological blow to his team mate.

Despite losing ten points to Rosberg last weekend, Hamilton will likely take heart from the fact that this weekend’s race takes place at a circuit where he has so often dominated – having taken four victories here in his career, including the last two Hungarian races.

The removal of FRIC suspension from the cars in Germany did not have any immediately obvious major repercussions for the front running teams. That could change at the bumpier, twistier Hungaroring.

But while Williams continue to impress with three consecutive podiums finishes, which has moved them up to third in the championship, Red Bull will be looking to provide a more formidable challenge for the final podium place around a circuit which should suit the RB10.

Hungaroring circuit information

Lap length4.381km (2.722 miles)
Distance67 laps (293.5km/182.4 miles)
Lap record*1’19.071 (Michael Schumacher, 2004)
Fastest lap1’18.436 (Rubens Barrichello, 2004)
TyresMedium and Soft

*Fastest lap set during a Grand Prix

Hungaroring track data in full

It is perhaps surprising to think that the Hungaroring has now hosted more Grands Prix than over half of the circuits on this year’s calendar. The Hungarian Grand Prix has been a permanent fixture in the championship since it hosted its very first race in 1986.

With its lack of long straights and many slow-to-medium speed turns, the Hungaroring is the slowest permanent course on the calendar. With only one straight of note, the lack of major overtaking opportunities mean races here are often decided by strategy, rather than on-track heroics.

The low average speed around this 4.3km circuit means that a high-downforce setup is required and low level of surface grip places a premium on good mechanical grip. Once again, the question of track limits will become a talking point – particularly at the fast left-hander of turn four where Romain Grosjean was caught out last year during an overtaking move.

While the weather here is often warm and sunny, when the rain does come on Sundays, the Hungaroring can produce spectacular wet races. This year, Pirelli will bring the soft and medium compounds to Hungary.

Even though there are no Hungarian teams or drivers to cheer, there is typically a healthy attendance here, bolstered by a substantial turnout from travelling Finnish fans.

Hungarian Grand Prix team-by-team preview

Red Bull

Having failed to make ground on the Mercedes out front, Red Bull must be becoming increasingly concerned about the pace of the Williams over recent races.

With its low average lap speed and frequent turns, the Hungaroring is likely to suit the RB10 more than many of the races that follow the summer break.

Sebastian Vettel knows it is unlikely that he will be able to take his first Hungarian victory this weekend and will be looking to beat team mate Daniel Ricciardo, who maintained his impressive run of form with a good recovery drive in Germany.

Mercedes

After dropping ten points to his championship rival in Hockenheim, Hamilton will be looking to regain the momentum at Hungary as we head into the long summer break. Fortunately for Hamilton, the Hungaroring is by far his strongest track statistically, having taken four wins in seven starts around the high-downforce circuit, including his sole 2013 victory.

But Rosberg knows that even if he finishes second to his team mate on Sunday, he will retain his lead heading into the break.

Ferrari

A forgettable season for Ferrari was made even more frustrating last weekend as the Scuderia lost its hold on third place in the constructors’ championship to Williams.

With rumours over Fernando Alonso’s future with the team growing slowly louder, Ferrari’s performance heading into the break could well go some way to deciding whether the double-world champion will remain with the team into next season or consider jumping ship.

Kimi Raikkonen was roughed up by his rivals at the Hockenheimring, but despite finishing out of the points he has made some more positive comments about the car’s handling. Keep an eye on his performance at a track where he has traditionally been strong.

Lotus

Germany proved that Lotus were one of the teams who were the most affected by the loss of FRIC suspension, but Pastor Maldonado was still able to match his best result of the season with a 12th place finish.

But 12th place finishes are not what Lotus are targeting at this stage of the season and the team will be desperate to secure their first points since Monaco to provide a much needed boost ahead of the final stretch of the season.

They may be encouraged by the fact that the Hungaroring has been one of their strongest circuits in recent years, having taken three podium finishes from a possible four in their last two visits to the Hungarian circuit.

McLaren

McLaren were disappointed to have scored only six points in Germany after Kevin Magnussen’s race was compromised at the first corner following his contact with Felipe Massa.

With the Woking team keen to take fifth place in the constructors’ championship back from Force India, Magnussen feels as though McLaren have another chance for good points this weekend.

“I think we’ve shown recently that our car performs slightly better on tracks with a combination of low- and mid-speed corners,” he said. “After a couple of frustrating races, I’m hoping for a weekend where everything comes together.”

Force India

With Vijay Mallya having hailed his team for its best performance in a season so far, the team are keen to avoid a similar slump in performance to the second half of 2013.

“Performance-wise we have some developments which will be on the car soon and that should give us a useful step,” says Mallya. “In terms of targets I certainly feel that more podiums are possible. We need to end the season in the same way we started it.”

Sauber

Adrian Sutil’s spin and subsequent retirement at Hockenheim last Sunday was perhaps the perfect metaphor for Sauber’s desperately disappointing season.

With the team now in the midst of their longest-ever points drought, it is difficult to see Sauber’s fortunes turning around dramatically this weekend.

Toro Rosso

After a frustrating run of races including four retirements in the last five outings, Daniil Kvyat is determined to have a strong result around a circuit he describes as one of his favourites.

“It can be very hot and from a physical point of view, Budapest can be even tougher than Malaysia because you don’t get time to rest as there are no long straights,” says Kvyat. “Quite a lot of Russians come to this race, so I am looking forward to seeing a lot of Russian flags in the grandstands: not on the scale of Sochi of course, but a nice feeling all the same.”

Williams

Three successive podiums for Valtteri Bottas have helped to cement Williams’ position as ‘best of the rest’ behind Mercedes. Having taken third place in the constructors’ championship off Ferrari, the Grove team will now have their sights firmly set of chasing down the 67 point gap to Red Bull over the second half of the season.

But to do that, Williams need to start getting both cars into top five finishes – something that the team has only achieved once all season, compared to five occassions for Red Bull.

As a high-downforce circuit, Hungary should not suit the FW36 quite as well as many of the circuits that follow the summer break. But with the team introducing what Rob Smedley describes as a “mightily impressive” upgrade package for this weekend, expect Williams to be fighting for podiums again this weekend.

Marussia

After a run of difficult races, Max Chilton – notably in Hockenheim where the removal of FRIC clearly hurt impaired the MR03’s performance – is aiming for a good result at the circuit where he won his first GP2 race back in 2012.

“In development terms we need a strong and reliable weekend, hopefully benefiting from what we learned in Germany last week,” says Chilton. “The progress continues but we need to ensure we can realise more of it during the course of a race, so we’re not finding ourselves out of position with the Caterhams.”

Caterham

The change of ownership appeared to be having an immediate effect on the fortunes of Caterham with the team now mixing with the Marussias once more. Christijan Albers is aiming for further improvements this weekend.

“In Germany the gap to our competitors was closer than it has been for several races and we are definitely aiming to continue that progress in Hungary,” says Albers. “We can keep making small but significant improvements across the whole team, both on track and at the factory, and they will contribute to our ongoing development.”

2014 driver form

DriverG avgR avgR bestR worstClassifiedForm guide
Sebastian Vettel6.904.29367/10Form guide
Daniel Ricciardo5.204.00188/10Form guide
Lewis Hamilton4.501.50138/10Form guide
Nico Rosberg2.001.56129/10Form guide
Fernando Alonso6.905.203910/10Form guide
Kimi Raikkonen9.309.677129/10Form guide
Romain Grosjean14.1010.838146/10Form guide
Pastor Maldonado18.0014.0012176/10Form guide
Jenson Button9.208.1031710/10Form guide
Kevin Magnussen8.408.672139/10Form guide
Nico Hulkenberg8.806.6051010/10Form guide
Sergio Perez11.608.633118/9Form guide
Adrian Sutil16.0013.4011175/10Form guide
Esteban Gutierrez17.0015.1712196/10Form guide
Jean-Eric Vergne11.2010.208135/10Form guide
Daniil Kvyat10.4010.509146/10Form guide
Felipe Massa8.409.294157/10Form guide
Valtteri Bottas8.205.22289/10Form guide
Jules Bianchi18.0014.869187/10Form guide
Max Chilton19.3015.8913199/10Form guide
Kamui Kobayashi19.1015.1413187/10Form guide
Marcus Ericsson20.5016.8311206/10Form guide

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2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Images © Daimler/Hoch Zwei, Red Bull/Getty, McLaren/LAT, Williams/LAT

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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78 comments on “Which Mercedes driver will lead at the summer break?”

  1. I cannot see Hamilton losing this one at all, barring unreliability or a highly unlikely fumble like he did in 2011; The guy is supreme around this track and he has the best car.

    Looking forward to how the Red Bulls/Williams/Alonso mix it up this weekend. Hopefully some good racing to come from them.

    1. Lewis was supreme at Canada. Rosberg finished higher.
      Rosberg proved that somehow he is able to deliver better that Hamilton.

      1. @slava
        Rosberg qualified higher, but Hamilton was ahead in the race before his brakes failed.

        1. wasn’t he only ahead because Rosberg had the same problem and slowed?? after that Rosberg managed the damage better so didn’t retire like Hamilton had to.

        2. Hamilton was ahead only because of slow pit stop for Nico.

          1. @slava
            So what? he was still ahead. A slow pitstop is a part of the race.
            Might as well argue that Nico was ahead in Austria only because of Hamilton’s slower pitstops.

            Also, Nico cut the chicane under pressure.

          2. No Hamilton was ahead due to a stonking in lap, if Rosberg would have had the same pitstop time as Lewis he still would have come out in second.

      2. Erm, think you forgot the failing brakes… Lewis had ‘finally’ made it past Nico just before they went. True, he underperformed in Q (whereas Nico didn’t) but I don’t think we’ll see that again, mechanical issues aside…

        1. Mercedes will never ran out of tricks just to ensure that a German driver will win.

      3. Karthik Mohan
        24th July 2014, 14:00

        Lewis Hamilton was ahead before his brakes gave away in Canada. Would be expected after all the hunting he had to do, Nico had clear air all around. Lewis has had 2 DNFs as opposed to one for Nico. And Lewis had the brake failure and gearbox penalty in Germany, and regardless of what anyone says, Monaco was hardly fair for Lewis. Lewis wasn’t exactly helpful to himself in Austria or Silverstone, but he persevered. Compared to Lewis, Nico has had a fairly smooth year, and he is still just 14 points ahead of Lewis. I think it’s fairly obvious as to who is delivering at Mercedes.

        1. The guy who hasnt qualified out of the front row.

          1. @austus If you mean Rosberg, you might wanna check his starting positions in Australia, Malaysia and China this year.

          2. @andrewf1

            I… did not remember that.

          3. Yeah, I remember a stat after about 5 races which said that on the several occasions where Hamilton got pole, had he been removed from qualifying then only once would Rosberg have earned Mercedes a pole.

          4. @austus @andrewf1 You’re also forgetting Austria, where Williams locked out the front row. All in all, Lewis qualified out of front row three times so far and Nico four times.

    2. the driver is a complete child, he can’t deal with the emotional stress of formula one and is frankly annoying many old fans like myself. I want Rosberg to win the Championship, he is emotionally ready and mature, i’m a Brit wanting a German to win, sounds wrong but Rosberg is ready for his first championship and deserves it in my opinion.

      1. Agreed 100%!

      2. I agree me too

      3. If he couldn’t deal with the emotional stress he probably wouldn’t be a champion, wouldn’t be so close in this championship despite more problems than his team mate, and wouldn’t have accumulated so many wins through his career.

      4. Hamilton’s recovery at Silverstone was huge, a fantastically emotional win after a soul destroying mistake in qualifying.

        Frankly that was magnificent.

        I like the fact that Hamilton wears his emotions on his sleeve – it makes his racing more visceral, dramatic and real to me.

        Senna was incredibly emotional too, and frankly pretty sulky and brattish as well. Not reported anything like as negatively or sourly as Hamilton however.

        1. @Ed Bone

          You cannot compare a modern day F1 driver to the times of Senna. Senna had nothing but his skill and knowledge, yes the F1 drivers of today have skill and knowledge but their was no way a driver in the 1980’s could race a modern F1 car as Micheal Schumacher proved in my eyes, he was great in their era and can’t cope with the different cars.
          Senna also had a very different mentality than modern F1 drivers. In F1 today they expect to go home back then they turned up knowing their was a 20% risk they could die. To be racing under those circumstances is incomparable and I think Senna is the greatest F1 driver of all time if he had lived long enough to prove himself that he was.

          1. I do agree that safety levels are higher than in Sennas era. But not all drivers reacted in such a brattish and emotional manner as Senna. I dont think he was any the less of a driver for that. In fact, I admire him more for being unashamed to show his feelings.

            Comparisons are made between modern drivers and those of the past, sometimes ironically in order to denounce Hamilton. Yet he has a lot in common with Senna as I say in terms of his emotional mind set.

            Remember also that Senna was not above driving his team mate of the track, a feat hich would probably result in WW3 in the media and on the forums if Hamilton tried the same tactic.

            Schumacher nearly sqeezed Baricello into the wall a few seasons back, and yet he is nonetheless lauded as a great. Schumi was also known to assault other divers, or storm off in a mad rage if his race ended badly. And all that in a safer era.

          2. Schumacher raced well in 2006, which is still quite modern. He also didn’t fare terribly against Rosberg, who is finally proving to have quite a lot of talent.

  2. It will come down to reliability and which of the two Merc drivers are best on each track. For instance Lewis is mighty @ USA.

  3. Statistically Hamilton should walk all over Rosberg this weekend, but remember when Montreal was supposed to be Hamilton’s circuit?

    1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
      24th July 2014, 11:47

      @celicadion23 – Wasn’t Hamilton substantially faster than Rosberg during the race before his brakes failed in Canada?

      1. Nope, they matched each other even when they were both having mechanical troubles:

        1. And Rosberg, not Hamilton, got pole in Canada

          1. Statistically speaking NR has never nearly quite had the package he does now to even compile numbers. So without taking anything away from the amazing career LH has had so far, along with the top cars he has far more often had, I think NR has done enough so far this year to prove that given the package there’s so little between these guys that neither is going to ‘walk all over’ the other. Nico is really only just this season starting to compile real stats.

    2. “Statistically Hamilton should walk all over Rosberg this weekend”

      Statistically, of the 29 GP’s they’ve been in as teammates Hamilton has outqualified Rosberg 15 times and Rosberg has outqualified Hamilton 14 times. LH has scored 364 points in that time compared to 361 for Nico. They’re as closely matched as any two drivers can be, neither is likely to suddenly ‘walk all over’ the other.

      1. Statistically as in ‘for this race’. Statistically, Hungary is one of Hamilton’s best races.

  4. I predict it is LH’s turn for a better weekend, so an LH-NR 1-2, leaving NR leading the chase slightly going into the break. Just wondering too…I know we’re being told the absence of FRIC has barely made a difference, but from the radio comm in Germany there sure seemed to be a lot of tire woes, even without considering LH’s due to his damaged front wing. Are the slightly less balanced or stable FRIC-free cars now being a bit harder on tires? Even NR had ‘issues’ even without being pushed, although I don’t know if it was that big a deal for him. Bottas was potentially going to have to concede second to LH just to finish the race decently. KR and others had issues too. I wonder if tires will be a bigger issue in Hungary than they would have been with FRIC still in place.

  5. Rosberg has been great at qualifying entire season. If he gets pole then all of Lewis’s speed will be of no use during the race.

    Another scenario is that Nico might suffer a lot more from FRIC loss and Red bull/Ferrari being faster here that he might actually finish out of podium!

    Hoping Lewis gets a break in quali.

    1. “Rosberg has been great at qualifying entire season”

      Really?

      Last time i checked, he spun on his final run in China. Then ‘botched’ his final run in Monaco.

      Hamilton had an error in Austria and Canada. Thats 2 for 2.

    2. it wont be a break.. it will be him making no mistake. it was only Germany where he was unlucky in qualifying. I predict Hamilton to be .25 to .5 seconds faster then rosberg in qualifying (barring mistakes), but in the race the difference will be negligible. Hamilton should win, and Rosberg will go into the break still leading. I have a feeling there is a 20% chance of a Mercedes car failing in the heat though, which could see Hamilton take the championship lead, or Rosberg extend the lead to 39 points.

      1. Yes true, it was Hamilton making mistakes that cost him quali.
        – Monaco he was up before Rosberg had that off.
        – Canada he was outqualified
        – Austria he did look really fast and had that off
        – Silverstone he was ahead before his blunder in not going full out for the final run
        – Germany it could have gone either way

        Really it should have been 3 to 1 in these 5 races. I agree if he does not make a mistake (law of averages supports that) then he should be on pole.

        However in the race i think he will be significantly faster than Rosberg.

    3. @vishy Yeah Lewis seemed more positive about losing FRIC than Rosberg didn’t he? We didn’t get so see that play out last weekend, one way or the other.

      Also we didn’t get to see how far Lewis had ‘reset’ with the Silverstone win after the Monaco thing. Hopefully his qualy will be back to normal.

  6. Red Bull should be strong this weekend, there’s barely any straights for the Renault to let them down.

    1. problem is the Renault power is so weak, that even with a better car, it is still underpowered in every part of the track. the best they can hope for is to nearly match Mercedes.

      1. Just ignore the Mercs, the real fight is behind them. And that should be looking good for Red Bull in Hungary, for Williams in Spa and Monza, and for Red Bull again in Singapur. And then there is Alonso always mixing in between them…

        1. you are right that there is more of a fight behind, and Ferrari are doing well keeping up with redbull. there are a lot of people (ie LAUDA), slamming the Ferrari, but with the power deficiency to Mercedes, the Ferrari is doing better then last year as they are closer to Redbull – I believe Redbull has the best chassis, with Merc and Ferrari close – but the Mercedes power advantage deciding everything this year. Ferrari have made a great car, just not a great engine. Williams in the mix is artificial for me – if Redbull and Ferrari had equal power to Mercedes, then Williams wouldn’t be competing as they are.

          1. As far as I know, the problem of the Ferrari-engine isn´t its power, but its fuel-consumption. They are pretty much conserving everywhere, whilst the Mercedes and Renault-engines don´t have to do that at half of the races (or are underfueling, starting with only 80-90 litres, as being lighter at the beginning and conserving a bit during the race is faster overall than going with the full fuel-load at the beginning), and so the performance of the Ferrari-engine is more heavily varying with how fuel-demanding the circuits are.
            Also, the driveability is bad, the full torque of turbo and ERS kicking in unpredictably for the driver, which led to a number of spins of drivers with Ferrari-engines coming out of mostly slow-, but also sometimes mid-speed-corners. Alonso and Bianchi seem to be somehow coping with it, but all the other drivers of Ferrari-engined cars had those oddly looking spins, and no driver with another engine had it.

          2. @crammond

            I heard the Ferrari PU has some sort of heavier odd mounting (I dont know if thats the word I’m looking for) which gives some cooling advantage, but Ferrari failed to capitalise on that.

          3. Get out of here, Red Bull are equal at best just face it Merc have built a great car. Red Bull are not even 2nd best in F1 right now, they are 2nd best Chassis behind Merc. Williams power is reason their ahead of Red Bull but Merc are as good, and Ferrari no way their near Merc.

  7. With Hungary traditionally being a difficult track to pass on, Hamilton will need pole position to have a good shout at winning. Saying that, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Hamilton to jump Rosberg in the pit stops.

  8. Re: brakes on LH NR cars:
    These were not from the same company and NR’s better luck with them at different times reflect the fact
    that Brembos disks were inferior to Carbon Industries’ under extreme heat.

    Freak quality control flukes or inferior design? remains to be seen. But now both are on Carbon Industries
    and if they are going to fail, they should fail in unison.

    Also, I reiterate the observation that even in clean air, and nursing fuel, NR’s consumption is substantially higher than LH’s which means that NR’s PU is producing more HP so that, since this area is regulated by the pit wall, NR is gifted with more power than LH and this add weight to the scale.

    Why could it be so?

    Money!

    Merc pays more for Lewis than it does for Nico. Convincing Lewis that he is just on a par with Nico may help Merc shave a few millions from Lewis’ contract. So once a new contract is inked, we might get a fairer idea
    of who is who.

    Meanwhile, Merc is winning the Constructors championship, so whomever gets to be WDC is of little import to the Company itself.

    Now, What about a minute of silence, standing up, before the Hungarian Grand Prix for all the children being slaughtered in Gaza?

    1. I would suggest an alternate theory for Nico using more fuel.

      Nico runs gears longer than Lewis and being on lower gears longer gives him more power! But at the expense of fuel. Also running gears longer would mean his gearbox is more strained and likely to fail.

      Another thing to note is that Roseberg has qualified better with super soft tyres. Looks like he is able to build heat into that tyre faster than Hamilton, again possibly due to his longer running lower gears.

    2. How about you leave the Israel-Palestine conflict out of this, and any other deaths in the world like the MH17 airflight, or any humans dieing of aids (1 person contracts aids every 4 minutes in the world)- it is not relevant to this sport, not are your conspiracy theories . NR’s unit is not producing more power – have you heard of a thing called “Fuel flow rate”? it is limited, and do you realise different drivers driver differently to each other? they use the throttle differently and brake at different points, some blend the brake and throttle so much that it causes big differences in fuel usage. both merc drivers only get 100L for the whole race, its not like NR gets 10 extra litres and gets 10% more HP.

      1. F1 does have a history of observing a minute of silence following certain world events. There was a minute of silence before the Malaysian race this year for flight MH370 and there was a minute of silence before the Italy 2001 race to remember those who perished in 9/11.

        To suggest that F1 should somehow isolate itself from the world it inhabits says more about you than anything else. The people in F1 are still human beings and still have feelings, even if you don’t.

      2. @Kpcart

        I believe I do take into account different driving techniques before elaborating my conspiration theories. My field of trade is thermodynamics. I have been a race car and engine builder, racer, teacher and organiser.

        I take into account the fact that fluel flow rate control has been taken away from Nico and Lewis and laid in the hands of the pit wall engineers. This has been disclosed by MB management a few months ago. It happened because it was thought that their fiddling with the flow could lead to disastrous results.

        Also, neither of the works merc engines revs to its true limits and this also is set by the pit wall. Unless set by crystal control, there is no way you are going to get exact cut offs on two different engines by turning a knob. A few rpms more on either side will affect the ultimate power and the fuel consumption.

        Whether it has happened by design or not is a matter of legitimate conjecture. As a matter of fact, among Merc engines, LH’s seems to be the most frugal by several grams every lap.

        If it is merely the reflection of his driving, then his is truly is the epitome of driving excellence.

    3. Maybe a moment of silience @ Italian GP for Costa Concordia victims, and surely we’ll need a moment of silence in Brazil ’cause they lost the cup.

    4. I reiterate the observation that even in clean air, and nursing fuel, NR’s consumption is substantially higher than LH’s

      That was not the case at the German GP.

      which means that NR’s PU is producing more HP

      Even if NR’s car is consuming more fuel (and it does not seem to be doing so lately) you cannot assume from that that it is producing more power. If NR were running more downforce than LH then he’d have higher fuel consumption with the same engine power.

  9. Some drivers coming under a bit of pressure to perform this weekend. Hamilton needs to beat Rosberg for obvious reasons. Vettel needs to out-qualify Ricciardo. Massa needs to prove he can have a solid race (especially first corner). Button needs to show he can beat magnussen on pace in order to get a new contract with Mclaren. Sergio Perez has shown he has the pace, but needs to start scoring more points and decrease the huge gap, points-wise, to Hulkenberg. And one of the most obvious: Raikkonen needs to start to perform.

    1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      24th July 2014, 18:05

      Yes the intra-team battles are raging especially for the seasoned drivers like Vettel, Massa, and Perez. Raikonnen and Hamilton are equally seasoned drivers with their teammates.

    2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      24th July 2014, 18:05

      Oops forgot Button

    3. Vettel needs to out-qualify Ricciardo.

      I think Vettel can take a brake for 1 or 2 seasons, especially with the car not able to fight WDC

  10. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    24th July 2014, 18:13

    Is it me or has Hamilton just looked fantastic during races this season? Nothing seems to faze Lewis – he’s fine from starting 1st or last or running on the harder tyre. He is the epitome of a true racer in my book along with Alonso. It’s almost as if Nico is more of a driver than a racer if you could make the distinction.

    1. yeh, because tyre wear is no concern this year and he has the fastest car. look at past 3 years to show a different story. of course he is better then Nico, everyone knows that – but typical of Hamilton like when partnered with Button, he can not dominate his teammate.

      1. Agree with that Ham can luck after his tryes many times he as done it ok, other times he as been suspect, one thing for sure every non Lewis fan is very lucky. If it was refulelling in races god help the rest of this grid. Just ask Alo how relentless Ham is with refuelling. I personally liked it, they stop for tyres anyway so why not bring it back. People say oh their not going flat out well refueling changes that. I use to like 08 Alo doing less fuel for pole it addeds omething extra for me atleast.

    2. It’s just you!

      His car has been fantastic, and any driver on the grid would look fantastic in it.

      1. Yes must be hard for you watching it. HAHA

        1. It’s the car, not the driver.

          1. Well what does that matter, not like they need another driver isit.

  11. Here’s a bold prediction: The next two races will not be won by a Mercedes (works) driver.

    1. Well, I, for one, love bold predictions. Alright, I’m in. Fingers crossed mate :)

  12. Let’s hope the “mightily impressive” upgrade package on the Williams ends up working well for them. That is a team I really want to see fighting for race wins and even world championships, not just for podiums.

  13. @willwood: The race distance is 70 laps. (the usual 300 kms + 1 lap)

    1. I think it’s >=305 km.

  14. Could someone explain what is meant by G average, R average, R best, R worst, on the Driver Form. I’m not a stats kind of guy.

    1. Grid average (the average starting position for the driver)
      Race average (average finishing position, not counting retirements)
      Race best (best result in a race)
      Race worst (worst result in a race, not counting retirements)

      At least, that’s how I’ve always interpreted them. I could be wrong.

  15. Maylander.

  16. Probably Rosberg by 7 points.
    For those who say that you can’t overtake in Hungary, watch what Hamilton did last year there.

  17. Still yet to see Rosberg beat Lewis in a fair fight. Not knocking Rosberg as hes been super consistent. But if hes going to win the championship, a proper race with Lewis is what we want to see. Well most of us it seems

  18. Nico will lead at the summer break, Lewis will lead at the end of the season , lewis would be leading now if not for unreliability , team mates going off roading in monaco and brake discs

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