Motoring Discussion > F1 and general motorsport discussion - Vol 15   [Read only] Miscellaneous
Thread Author: R.P. Replies: 101

  Hamilton - Suppose
Hamilton's races:

Suzuka - 5th. Started 3rd. Should have got pole, but Hamilton failed to start final qualifying lap after McLaren sent him out too late near the end of Q3. He dropped from 2nd to 4th because of a puncture and had to pit on lap 9 earlier than scheduled. Vettel pitted lap10, Button and Alonso and webber on lap 11, and Massa lap 12. The second round stops were Vettel and Webber lap 20, Button lap 21, Hamilton lap 22, Massa lap 23. So he came in earlier than planned for the first stop, but then was left out longer than Jenson who then had the right to come in first - a double whammy. Massa's tyres were 3 laps younger when he caught Lewis on lap 22, just as Lewis was coming in for the 2nd pit stop. Hamilton went from 4th to 7th after that stop, because of the undercut him by the other drivers coming in two/three laps earlier.

Martin Whitmarsh explained, McLaren made changes to Hamilton's car at his first pit stop to compensate for a lack of grip at the rear of his car.
"We brought him in early because of his puncture and at that stop we took some front wing angle out," Whitmarsh said. "In hindsight that was a mistake.It was to compensate for oversteer, but that oversteer had probably been created only through the pressure differential [in the deflating tyre] and so we over-compensated and Lewis was struggling to find the balance he'd enjoyed during the previous two days."

Whitmarsh after Suzuka:
on Jenson's style -
"Not chasing, not getting tucked up someone's diffuser. It is very difficult and non-intuitive of a race driver if you have a car in front and you think you can catch him, but actually not catch him. But that is the maturity and the brains that Jenson brings to bear at the moment in terms of how he goes motor racing."
on Hamilton -
"Hamilton's biggest hindering factor in the Japanese GP was the slow puncture he suffered during the early laps of the race. He paid the price for a slow puncture. We could see it coming, and he had a big misbalance across the rear axle from that. It cost him a couple of places and the coming together with Felipe didn't help either. It was a combination of those things that lost him some places and it was tough to come back from that."

Hamilton's problem is that the team is managed by Martin Whitmarsh since Ron Denis left. Martin gets on very well with Jenson, but not so well with Lewis. Also, the team seem to make too many strategy errors, especially with Lewis's pit stop calls where he loses out on the undercut.

Hamilton's other 2011 races:

Australia - 2nd. Vettel streaked away. As Hamilton began to catch him, latter in the race he was told to back off as part of his undertray had worked loose

Malaysia - 7th after 20 second penalty added for weaving in the race. Started 2nd on the slow side and then got stuck behind Heidfeld off the start line. McLaren pitted him early to get past Heidfeld and so needed four pit stops during the race whereas others used a three stopper strategy. Alonso crashed in to Hamilton in the race for which he got a after race 20 second penalty. Hamiltion complained about McLaren’s race strategy in the interviews after the race.

China - Winner. Button’s failed to come into the pits when he was first called on lap 13. He stayed out a lap longer, meaning Hamilton had to stay out a lap longer too. But Hamilton was already struggling with tyre wear and was passed by Vettel and then Felipe Massa. This left him fifth. Hamilton then overtook drivers on the track, including Button, Rosberg, and Massa; and finally caught and passed Vettel who had been way way ahead.

Turkey - 4th. Started 4th on grid, but lost two places immediately as he tried to go around the outside of the slow starting Red Bull of Webber. He found himself sliding to the edge of the road and Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button overtook him. He had a slow third pit stop, caused by a pair of cross-threaded wheel nuts, which cost him 14 seconds. Managed to overtake on the track to finsih 4th.

Spain - 2nd. Started 3rd. Vettel spent much of the final third of his race watching his mirrors as Hamilton reeled him in on the start/finish straight. Haamilton showed good pace on the car late in the race and hounded Sebastian Vettel to the flag, finishing just six tenths of a second behind the Red Bull. This was despite qualifying almost exactly a second slower than the RB7s.

Monaco - 6th. Started 9th. McLaren were quick enough for Hamilton to take pole position in Monaco. McLaren chose to send him out for a single run in Q3 at Monaco but the red flag at the end of third practice meant it backfired, leaving him ninth on the grid. “We probably should have put a banker in,” he reflected, “I had the pace to be on pole”. In the race, Hamilton got past Michael Schumacher at the start but the Schumacher ran into him at Sainte Devote, breaking part of his rear wing. He was unable to pass Vitaly Petrov, and the team called Hamilton into the pits to try to take advantage of the ‘undercut’. In Hamilton’s terse words after the race: “They said ‘[pit] to overtake’, I came in, and they weren’t there”. Despite the slow stop he was able to leapfrog Petrov and Maldonado, but not Massa. Having switched to super-soft tyres he began attacking Massa, who was on softs. But a passing attempt at the hairpin ended in contact. And then the rest of the race which ended with Hamilton's remarks "This stuff’s ridiculous. These drivers are absolutely fricking ridiculous, it’s stupid.” Asked why he has had so many penalties he joked: “Maybe it’s because I’m black – that’s what Ali G says! I don’t know.”

Canada - DNF. 5th on the grid. McLaren had set up car for a wet race. Button pushed Hamilton in to the wall - he said he did not see Hamilton in his mirrors because of the spray. Button won the restarted race which was stopped for 2 hours due to torrential rain.

Valencia - 4th. Started 3rd, lost two palces to the Ferraris at the start but gained a place back from Massa through a pit stop. Boring processional street race.

Silverstone - 4th. Started 10th after McLaren misjudged the rain expected during Q3, was fast enough in the race and was running 2nd and had the pace to win, but was told to slow down as he had been underfuelled. Finished 4th with the team warning him that he had to back off to save fuel. “We’d expected him to encounter more traffic in the first part of the race than he actually did,” explained Martin Whitmarsh. “As a result, he used more fuel early on than we’d anticipated he would.”

Germany - Winner. Started 2nd. Some nifty overtaking moves.

Hungary - 4th. Started 2nd, led most of the race, but then towards the end McLaren misjudged the rain. Hamilton pitted for intermediates. Two laps later he was back in to replace them with a set of soft slicks. By this time he’d already had a spin at the chicane The spin cost him the lead to Button but his spin-turn recovery was even more damaging, as the stewards determined he had forced Paul di Resta off the track, and gave him a drive through penalty

Belgium - DNF. In Q2, Maldonado weaved into the side of the McLaren after they’d crossed the finishing line. McLaren jut managed to get Hamilton back in to Q3 for him to claim 2nd on the grid. hamilton was leading, came in for tyres, fed in behind Sutil and Kobayashi, passed them both but then crashed in to Kobayashi as he thought he had long passed him. Kobayashi said: “After he overtook me it was not my intention to get my position back, so I stayed on my line and didn’t expect him to move over.”

Italy - 4th. Started 2nd. Fell asleep at the restart, which allowed Schumacher to pass him. On lap 16, Button passed them both. Schumacher came into the pits at the end of the lap, followed by Button on the next lap and Hamilton the lap after that. Button stayed ahead, but Hamilton came out behind the Mercedes once again. Hamilton took until lap 27 to pass Schumacher, after which he pushed hard and finished the final lap one second behind Alonso.

Singapore - 5th. Started 4th. Picked up a puncture in Q2 when he ran over debris from Kamui Kobayashi’s crash and didn’t have enough fuel in Q3.
“We had an issue with the refuelling process – we couldn’t get enough fuel into the car quick enough. In the end, we just ran out of time, so I couldn’t fit in my final run.” McLaren requested FIA that Hamilton be allowed to change his damaged tyre before the race but FIA refused, despite having allowed Rosberg such a change in an earlier race. In the race, he clipped Massa’s right-rear tyre with his front wing, damaging both. McLaren kept him out for a lap with the left-hand portion of his front wing completely destroyed. They then switched him to the soft tyres with the intention of keeping him out as long as possible. The stewards handed Hamilton a drive-through penalty.
Last edited by: Suppose on Mon 10 Oct 11 at 20:25
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