90% of the drivers would win in the Mercedes-Verstappen

Yes. As Brawn said, Hamilton checks so many boxes at this stage: Patience, strategy, fitness, speed, focus, work ethic etc. The guy is really at the top of his game now.

 

Damaged car from Turn 9 on Lap 1.

 

And the empirical evidence culled from these seven pages is that....? Everybody knows something and nobody knows everything. Hamilton's career blossomed. Alonzo's faded. And having a good car under you is very important in auto racing. Anyone hear any interesting technical news?

 

Yes...as per Pedro de la Rosa.

Remember that Alonso was signed for Mclaren in 2005 already. He didn't know who was to be his teammate yet. It was very likely it was to be Pedro. Pedro and Lewis had to test against each other and Pedro said he thought he had it in the bag as the first test for Lewis was awful. In subsequent tests he wasn't so sure anymore, Lewis wasn't beating him but was ''up to speed''. When Lewis was testing in 2006 the initial plan was for him to race in 2008, but Lewis wanted to race in 2007. 2007 was to be a learning year but after the first race (and podium), it became very clear to Ron that he had marketing gold on his hands. No driver has won the title in his first season. What better than the Briton that was supported by Mclaren, to win a championship for Mclaren, in his very first season? Britain, Britain, Britain. The support for Alonso very quickly disappeared, and was completely gone from Hungary onwards. Despite having zero support, Alonso still did fantastic.

 

+1

very telling.

 

Whether Max would win if they had equal machinery this year is something that'll inevitably go to what ones personal opinion is as it's unprovable...

Given that Max has beaten the 2nd Merc on merit quite often this season, and in seasons past, and of course Lewis' own battles against teammates that he should've quite easily beaten, I would think that Max would've won the titles against Lewis. Sure, he'd be behind him here and there....but over a season? Max.

 

I own a Dutch passport...have very little do to with the country itself. If it wasn't for some friends living there I would never return even for a holiday. I only spend my early years there.

 

You spend too much time profiling people, as if that had any bearing on their opinions.
Now that you said your are French, I undestand better some of your comments.
Why do I understand? Well, because I am French myself: that's my second nationality, so I known about the French and their twisted mentality.
I was born British, but moved to France when I was 14, to come back in UK at 28, having lived in Belgium in between.
I was given French citizenship at 18 (never asked for it), so now I have both nationalities British and French, but travel only under British passport.
The rest of your mental picture is also completely wrong, about being nationalistic, reading the Sun or the Mirror, allegiance to the Queen, bla, bla, bla.
Nationality is an accident of birth, and most educated people have moved away from stereotyping.
Also, Brits in general are far from being narrow minded; we are a truly multi-cultural society.
As an example, my latest grand son has grands parents from 4 different nationalities and 3 different races!

 

Obviously you have not understood the concept of the French nation defined by Ernest Renan. Your post is frightening of ignorance and confusion.

 

The only things we can learn from this:
Red Bull has found no real answers to reduce Mercedes dominance since 2019.
Red Bull does not have the environment where an outside driver can go around 130 laps and come within a few tenths of qualifying pole position lap times. In fact, there contracted number 2 driver cannot come close to the contracted number 1 driver within a few tenths.

I really dislike what I call the sore-loser-football-fan logic. "My team won against the team that won the World Cup, so we are better than World Champions."
You cannot really draw conclusions on that. Maybe the W10 is more accessible and 99% or 100% of performance can be extracted requiring only an 85 talent-point driver, whereas the Red Bull needs a 100 talent-point driver to come close. That does NOT automatically mean that the Mercedes drivers are lesser drivers.

 

Well, I am from Dudley, and my favourite driver was ... Alain Prost, the archetype of a racing driver, IMO. So there !!
I don't have any allegiance, I just state facts.
As for passport, it's just a necessary instrument to travel, nothing more. Same for Bas Jaski perhaps ?

 

I reject it completely. Going further in this discussion though, would lead nowhere and get us banned, so I stop here.

 

You have just exposed 2 reasons why participants argue so much on this forum.
The first is bad faith, the second is refusal to accept facts.

 

Did you see how easy that Mercedes was to drive last race? Bottas only spun six times, and he's a seasoned driver.

 

Correction...Bottas hit Ocon 2x on the opening lap THEREBY he had a steering wheel alignment issue hence his spin 6x during an already slippery track.

 

Says a person that spends his life arguing on the internet

 

Ocon is quite good at contact

 

I'll correct it...
Did you see how easy that Mercedes was to drive last race? Bottas only hit Ocon 2x on the opening lap, and he's a seasoned driver.

 

You are not doing too bad yourself on that account.

It's like the pot calling the kettle black !

 

Personally, I wouldn't take Hamilton's 8th title for granted. A lot could happen next year.
Aussi, "La roche tarpéienne est proche du Capitole".

It could also be said that with a better car, Verstappen (and Vettel) could possibly make less mistakes.