Like I said, it became a dominant, but they didn't have a dominant car all season. Ferrari was winning France until Leclerc put it in the wall. That was the 12th race. In the first 12 races Max won 7 races in what some could argue was the second best car. Once TD39 came into place, it was over for anyone. Max had a great shot at winning another 7 races even if the car wasn't dominant, just simply equal or the best.
Yeah...SS454 must not know what the word "dominant" means... OR He's only applying "dominant" to any car Hamilton drove, to prove, I suppose, that Lewis is a lesser driver bolstered by a great car, whereas poor Max, wins because of his never before seen brilliance and the RB14 is just an OK car. Or something like that. Anyhow, I've had my weekly fun in this thread, see everyone next week when I'm sure the same people will be yelling at the same clouds.
By all means how about doing some research and figure that out for us. I would say the answer is not many relative to his 103 wins he has. He has lost more races with the best car than he has won without having the best car.
It seems I and the other logical people have a better definition of dominant than you. Can you explain to me how a car that is 2nd best for 12 races is dominant? We are talking about the entire 2022 season, not just the races you choose. Otherwise, we can say the Mercedes had a dominant car because it was the class of the field for 1 race (Brazil).
Hamilton and Mercedes are struggling...it might go on for years...just like Ferrari's down period. I'm guessing that Hamilton gives it two more years...his new Mercedes contract...and if he doesn't get WDC #8, then he moves on with his life. And if he does get it, he moves on as well. He isn't stupid. And he still is a strong driver, just not the best anymore.
What are talking about? Red Bull won 17 races (out of 23) in the 2022 season (They won 73.9% of the races!!!) Where were they "2nd best for 12 races" in 2022? Is this new math or did you get your "data" confused? PS. I am talking about the entire 2022 season. I have NO idea what you're looking at but it's NOT the 2022 F1 season.
Stop relying on Wikipedia alone and actually watch the races. Ferrari were the best car much of the first 12 races, they just threw it all away. Remember Charles had a sizable lead in the points? Remember Ferrari/Leclerc throwing away several races they should have won?
Leclerc was leading in points only until Barcelona (6th race) after which Vertappen took over. Verstappen had suffered 2DNFs (Bahrain & Melbourne) . Red Bull had the best car from the start. Leclerc only won twice early on because Verstappen didn't finish.
Ferrari had the better car, they just threw it all away with strategies only Ferrari could think off (actually, that may be too generous...looked more like ''see what sticks with zero logic applied to anything at all), crashing, and mechanical DNF's. Red Bull started to lose some weight and really only truly equalised Ferrari by the time we got to Hungary. Then TD39 arrived that's when it was truly game over, Toto's wild accusations of RB cheating backfired immensely and the technical directive that came to exist because of his accusations only slowed down Ferrari.
Leclerc had an epic battle with Max and was winning on merit in Bahrain. Leclerc should have won Monaco if it wasn't for Ferrari. Leclerc crashed out of the lead in France. Leclerc had a mechanical failure while leading in Spain. Leclerc possibly could have won Baku, but had another DNF. Ferrari had 8 poles in the first 12 races. We're in a Ferrari forum and some of you can't even give credit to Ferrari when they had a great car.
A lot of "ifs" and "buts" there. Should have, would have LOL Ferrari story and list of excuses It doesn't show that Ferrari had the better car, since most of these 8 poles didn't translate in wins. One lap wonder in qualifs don't mean a thing. I am no sycophant, so I speak as I find.
Those aren't "ifs and buts'' though. They're facts. The data proves that at the time of all those things happening, the Ferrari was the fastest. The results show that Ferrari messed up.
Well, it doesn't matter how fast the car was, Ferrari couldn't be dominant if they messed up, had failures or crashes ! I see the definition of dominant in a different way: a team that performs and wins regularly to becomes unreachable for the rest. I agree with post #7877, @SS454 must have his own definition of dominant.
If that's your reasoning then there's no point arguing the point. A car is dominant when it's faster than the rest. If a driver crashes said car or the team messes up the strategy time and time again, that doesn't make the car slower. Barcelona 2001, Mika hakkinen leads the race on the very last lap and had a 30+ second or so lead. A dominant performance, right? But Michael won because Hakkinen's clutch failed. Does that mean Michael dominated the race? No.
To me, a car is dominant when it wins regularly over a period of time (not one race !) and other teams cannot catch it. McLaren Prost-Senna era, Ferrari Schumacher years, Mercedes Hamilton-Rosberg, now Red Bull Verstappen are true periods of dominance for me. If it's regularly faster but fails to finish races, it doesn't dominate.
I tend to agree with this. Reliability and finishing are the first two ingredients in racing. If you don't have that, having the fastest car in the world doesn't really matter. *cough*MP4-20 *cough* Sorry, little something in my throat.
But again, context matters. If at the final pitstop the team forgets to put the tyres on, that doesn't make the car any slower. It just makes the team idiots.
If the design of the car causes unreliability and it breaks routinely, it's not a dominant car. As the saying goes, to finish first, first you must finish.
With that I agree about 90% of the way. However, driver errors and team errors are certainly excluded. Ferrari when they had the fastest car last year, did make plenty of errors leading to a significant points deficit by the time TD39 came in and Red Bull became dominant.
My research is Max didn't start breaking records until he got a dominant car. So just as I said, my problem is the ones who say It's Max when he has a dominant car. But switch back to its the car when Sir Lewis Hamilton broke records
It's not always the fastest car that win, but the first to see the chequered flag. Some cars are fast, but never win: the Novi at Indianapolis in the 50s. With its supercharged V8 it developed almost twice the power of the 4 cyl Offenhauser that powered most of the field. The Novi used to post record speeds in practice, often qualified at the front, lead many races, but always failed to reach the end. or The turbine cars also at Indy. Promoted by Andy Granatelli and STP, they were seen as a threat to ICE engines in the 60s Parneli Jones was easily leading and on its way to win on its Paxton Turbo car until something broke a few laps from the end. The following year, Art Pollard was doing the same on his Lotus Turbine when a 2-dollar part gave up and forced him to retire. In both instance those cars litterally hammered the rest of the field, proved superior speed, and literally stunned the opposition. Were they dominant? Don't think so. But the got banned anyway !!!
That may well be (way before my time), but it completely misses the point that Ferrari lost a lot of races due to mistakes that they should've won before TD39 came into place.
That's possible, but this is motor racing. There are several ingredients in a win: car, reliability, driver, strategy, pit work, etc ... A failure in any of those, and it's over.
