Could Lewis do an Alonso? | Page 2 | FerrariChat

Could Lewis do an Alonso?

Discussion in 'F1' started by subirg, Jan 11, 2022.

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  1. jpalmito

    jpalmito F1 Veteran

    Jun 5, 2009
    7,281
    Le caylar (France)
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    mathieu Jeantet
    You who are its most faithful worshiper, you can inform us then:
    What does Lewis eat for his breakfast?
     
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  2. Bas

    Bas Four Time F1 World Champ

    Mar 24, 2008
    41,300
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    Full Name:
    Bas
    A simple statement to his long time fans and the 2000 employees such as ''listen guys, I'm still upset about losing the 8th title, but I'll be back/won/t be back for 2022'' is all that's needed really...

    Call me a skeptic but I think such a statement as above won't quite generate as much impact as not saying anything at all and let everyone keep guessing.
     
  3. ktu

    ktu F1 Rookie

    May 30, 2012
    3,851
    I don't know. Look through these threads, I'm sure you will find what he ate for breakfast lunch and dinner.
     
    surfwolf likes this.
  4. SimCity3

    SimCity3 F1 Rookie


    The world needs more sixpack images

    :D
     
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  5. DF1

    DF1 Two Time F1 World Champ

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/59951382 - BBC has published this.

    Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes driver to decide on F1 future after Abu Dhabi inquiry
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    By Andrew BensonChief F1 writer
    Last updated on

    4 minutes ago--From the section Formula 1


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    Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton missed out on the 2021 championship to Red Bull's Max Verstappen following a controversial end to the season
    Lewis Hamilton will not decide whether to return to Formula 1 this season until he sees the results of an inquiry into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

    Hamilton is "disillusioned" with F1, his Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has said, as a result of last year's title-deciding race.

    Hamilton lost the championship to Red Bull's Max Verstappen after FIA race director Michael Masi did not apply the rules correctly in a late safety-car period.

    Insiders say Hamilton has lost trust in the governing body as a result.

    Mercedes declined to comment on the situation surrounding Hamilton's future when approached by BBC Sport.

    The team and Hamilton are said to be aligned on the issue and waiting to see what action the FIA takes to address the matters raised by the Abu Dhabi race.

    The FIA has launched an inquiry into the events at Yas Marina and is aware both of Hamilton's unhappiness and that it has a big task on its hands to win back the seven-time champion's confidence.

    New president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has said he has contacted Hamilton since his election five days after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

    "I don't think he's 100% ready to respond right now," Ben Sulayem said last week. "We don't blame him. I understand his position."

    Some senior F1 insiders are concerned that the governing body has not fully grasped the threat to its credibility created by the final race of the season.

    It has been a month since the Abu Dhabi race. But when asked about the timing of the inquiry's findings or what matters it will seek to address, the FIA said it was not yet ready to answer queries.

    The FIA admitted in a statement last month that the events of Abu Dhabi were "tarnishing the image" of F1 but also said that it had "generated significant misunderstanding and reactions from F1 teams, drivers and fans".

    Announcing the inquiry, the FIA said it would be done in time for "any identified meaningful feedback and conclusions to be made before the beginning of the 2022 season".

    The first of two pre-season tests starts on 23 February, while the opening race is in Bahrain on 18-20 March.

    The future of Masi is in doubt as a result of his handling of the race, which came at the end of a season in which there were repeated concerns among teams and drivers over the consistency of application of the rules.

    One senior source told BBC Sport that Mercedes had dropped their appeal against the results of the race after agreeing a quid pro quo with the FIA.

    This deal was said to be that Masi and FIA head of single-seater technical matters Nikolas Tombazis would no longer be in their positions for the 2022 season.

    Mercedes deny that any such deal was reached, and insist that they dropped their appeal after receiving assurances only that the issue would be treated seriously and appropriate action would be taken by the FIA.

    Wolff said last month that Mercedes would "hold the FIA to account".

    He did not clarify how he intended to do that but said he had "confidence, trust and faith" that the teams and drivers could work with the governing body to create a "more robust decision-making process".

    Several senior figures have told BBC Sport that they do not see how Masi can retain his position as race director, but some have cautioned that the FIA is in a difficult position because there is no obvious replacement.

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    The 2021 championship was decided in the last lap of the season's final race
    What is Hamilton's contractual situation?
    Hamilton signed a new two-year contract with Mercedes last year, which in theory will keep him at the team until at least the end of 2023.

    Mercedes have recruited George Russell, one of the leading lights of the new generation of drivers, as the seven-time champion's team-mate in 2022.

    The likeliest outcome is thought to be that the FIA will take significant action and that Hamilton will return in 2022.

    But if Hamilton did decide to step away from F1, it is not immediately obvious who Mercedes would recruit to replace him.

    Every major driver is under contract for the 2022 season and it is likely Mercedes would have to seek a deal to buy their chosen candidate out of his current commitments - as they did when they bought Valtteri Bottas out of Williams when Nico Rosberg retired after winning the 2016 world title.

    What happened in Abu Dhabi to upset Hamilton?
    Hamilton had dominated the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and was on course to win a record-breaking eighth world drivers' title when the safety car was sent out when Nicholas Latifi crashed his Williams with five laps to go.

    Red Bull pitted Verstappen to fit fresh tyres in the hope the race would restart before the chequered flag, but Mercedes felt they could not do the same with Hamilton because it would have meant the Briton losing the lead with no certainty the race would restart.

    Masi then failed to apply the rules correctly in two different ways.

    Normal protocol is to allow either all the lapped cars dotted through the field to un-lap themselves so they do not interfere with racing on the restart, or leave all in place.

    But Masi allowed only some of the lapped cars in between the leaders to un-lap themselves - sending the five cars between Hamilton and Verstappen through so they were not in the way, but leaving all the others in place, including the two cars between Verstappen and third-placed Carlos Sainz's Ferrari.

    In addition, Masi ignored a rule that dictates that the race restarts at the end of the following lap after the lapped cars have been removed, and restarted it a lap early.

    There needs to be clarity going forward - David Coulthard speaks to BBC Breakfast about F1 season finale
    That lap was the last racing lap, and Verstappen used the extra grip of his fresh tyres to pass Hamilton, win the race and take his first world title.

    An initial appeal by Mercedes against the results of the race was rejected by stewards that night. The team gave notice of their intention to appeal against that decision but withdrew that notice after three days of talks with the FIA.

    Wolff has accused Masi of "a freestyle reading of the rules [that] left Lewis like a sitting duck", adding: "Robbing him in the last lap of the race is unacceptable."

    But he has also said that there is a bigger problem for the FIA to solve than just finding a new race director.

    "It's not only a decision to change the race director; the whole system of decision-making needs to be improved," Wolff said. "The race director is certainly under big pressure and some of that is due to our own faults."

    One major change expected as a result of Abu Dhabi is for team principals to no longer be allowed to contact the race director during a grand prix.

    Both Wolff and Red Bull's Christian Horner lobbied for actions that favoured their teams in the course of the race, as has become normal practice in recent seasons.
     
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  6. ricksb

    ricksb F1 Veteran

    Apr 12, 2005
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    B. Ricks
    Absence of news isn't confirmation of speculation. There is a lot of sentiment by those who dislike Hamilton that he not return (not referring about this forum, fyi), like Bernie E, but they're just stirring the pot. Then, of course, you have news sites that take tidbits of information and reposition quotes to make a 'story' (e.g. Prost stating that 'Hamilton has taken a blow to the head""and is finished"). They completely twisted his words to make it sound like he was making a statement when he was answering a question, then took partials of that to represent the statement he did not actually make.

    I just ignore the media noise....none of it is credible at this point.
     
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  7. Bas

    Bas Four Time F1 World Champ

    Mar 24, 2008
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    Media is dominated by cheap, out of context, headlines, unfortunately.
     
  8. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Jun 3, 2006
    25,447

    Is Hamilton breaking any law by keeping quiet?
     
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  9. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Jun 3, 2006
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    DF1 likes this.
  10. jpalmito

    jpalmito F1 Veteran

    Jun 5, 2009
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    mathieu Jeantet
    What a duel it would have been with Lewis since 2017 instead having Bottas as a wingman !
     
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  11. ricksb

    ricksb F1 Veteran

    Apr 12, 2005
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    Almost the exact article from mid-December with a few pieces added to it. Like I said, you can't distinguish any credible reporting currently, which is only further casting a shadow across Formula 1. The social media turf wars are misinformed and toxic. These guys just keep adding gas to the fires.
     
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  12. Mitch Alsup

    Mitch Alsup F1 Veteran

    Nov 4, 2003
    9,252
    Alonso in a front-of-grid car would be epic.
     
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  13. absostone

    absostone F1 Veteran
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    Jul 28, 2008
    9,178
    Yes please please let him have the trophy and the ceremony and a wedding with colored helmets, Then He can go far far away with his 8 WDC. BFD He should be erased in my opinion. Spoiled entitled fool
    Maybe he can be on a team with MJ and Bubba .
     
  14. Terra

    Terra F1 Rookie
    Rossa Subscribed

    Feb 16, 2004
    3,677
    (1) A wedding with colored helmets. The very tired Lewis-is-gay trope rearing its ugly head yet again.

    (2) What do LH, MJ and Bubba all have in common? Yeah, I get it . . .
     
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  15. absostone

    absostone F1 Veteran
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    Jul 28, 2008
    9,178
    What a lovely surprise! I knew you would be first on the scene Terra!
    Its about Wokeism dude so stop trying to entrap with the oh I get it nonsense.
     
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  16. Terra

    Terra F1 Rookie
    Rossa Subscribed

    Feb 16, 2004
    3,677
    #41 Terra, Jan 11, 2022
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2022
    I guess MJ must mean Michael Jordan (i.e. as he co-owns the 23XI Racing NASCAR team with Denny Hamlin for which Bubba Wallace drives, with Kurt Busch coming onboard for 2022).
     
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  17. ingegnere

    ingegnere F1 Veteran
    Silver Subscribed

    Sep 12, 2004
    5,222
    Montreal
    I hope he does an Alonso… but with a twist: he never comes back! :)

    Really a delusional, entitled idiot. He obviously expected the 8th title handed to him and can’t understand how the events of the last laps—which no one could have predicted or planned for—resulted in him not winning.

    Also, he probably wants to understand better how Russell will fare with the new car and if Russell being a match for him will impact his reputation but mostly his own ego. Or he’s just being childish and creating more drama around himself.
     
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  18. Giallo 550

    Giallo 550 Formula 3

    May 25, 2019
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    My ass is firmly planted as far from the edge of my seat as it can be. Just cut to the chase already.
     
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  19. absostone

    absostone F1 Veteran
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    Jul 28, 2008
    9,178
    Amen
     
  20. subirg

    subirg F1 Rookie

    Dec 19, 2003
    4,186
    Cheshire
    I’m beginning to think the Lewis silence and speculation is nothing to do with Lewis and is in fact driven by Merc itself. They have withdrawn their appeals on the assumption that the FIA changes its rules and governance moving forwards. The best leverage they have is to threaten that Lewis won’t come back, because believe it or not, Lewis still carries weight amongst the F1 fan base.

    I expect it will all blow over. The FIA will make changes and Lewis wil announce his miraculous return just before the start of testing…. Or maybe he won’t. He doesn’t need the money and he has nothing left to prove… Who knows!
     
  21. Bas

    Bas Four Time F1 World Champ

    Mar 24, 2008
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    Looks like Merc wants Masi and Tombazis (why Tombazis I don't know) sacked, and they're using Hamilton as ammo. No sacking? No Lewis.

    What a desperately sad bunch of clowns.
     
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  22. jpalmito

    jpalmito F1 Veteran

    Jun 5, 2009
    7,281
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    mathieu Jeantet

    Sincerely hope you are wrong..
    It would be a shame
     
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  23. SimCity3

    SimCity3 F1 Rookie



    Mercedes are still bossing the FIA.

    No surprise.
     
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  24. SimCity3

    SimCity3 F1 Rookie



    Ham needs to prove he can beat Max in a similarly capable car
     
    Bas likes this.
  25. DF1

    DF1 Two Time F1 World Champ

    True but the insider issue is about how this affects all teams. What if this was Charles in the lead for Ferrari for a title. The inconsistency is the issue. The resulting meltdown if Charles as the party in the lead at Yas .........would be large to say yes?

    The BBC article is polite reminder there is activity in the background and its not an LH only effect or issue. Larger issues and policy is the issue and not for only Mercedes. For the premier series of the FIA to show this is not overall positive.
     
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