Formula 1 - 2008 Season

[Kaotik]

Even if he didn't finish 5th he still deserves it. He lost so many points outside the races *cough* belgium, valencia *cough*

Yeah, of course breaking the rules shouldn't matter, after all, that guy is above all gods and what not according to brits.
He didn't deserve the championship win, Massa did and without technical problems Massa would have won it easily.

 

[Bludd]

That was a crazy race. The rain at the start, Coulthard's and Piquet's heartbreaks, Vettel passing Hamilton, Glock's loss of grip, Kovalainen once again not doing well, Alonso finishing the season in style, Räikkönen being so-so par for the course this season, Hamilton not doing anything stupid like beaching the car, flat-spotting to a puncture or overdriving.

Massa has improved a lot this season, but I think it's amazing that for the second season in a row the champion wins by 1 point.

Congratulations, Hamilton. Commiserations, Massa.

 

[Bludd]

Yeah, of course breaking the rules shouldn't matter, after all, that guy is above all gods and what not according to brits.
He didn't deserve the championship win, Massa did and without technical problems Massa would have won it easily.

Yeah, and Hamilton would have won it easily last year if he'd gone in earlier for tyres in China. What's your point? Let's give Kimi's championship to Lewis and Lewis' championship to Felipe?

 

[Bludd]

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[Kaotik]

Yeah, and Hamilton would have won it easily last year if he'd gone in earlier for tyres in China. What's your point? Let's give Kimi's championship to Lewis and Lewis' championship to Felipe?

It's one thing on losing championship on your own mistake (Lewis's tyres etc last season) or to what happened last night

 

[Phil]

Yeah, of course breaking the rules shouldn't matter, after all, that guy is above all gods and what not according to brits.
He didn't deserve the championship win, Massa did and without technical problems Massa would have won it easily.

So Massa deseved it?
- 1 points handed out by the FIA after the incident with Bourdais in Japan.
- 2 points handed out by the FIA after Hamilton got demoted after winning at SPA plus a "win" he didn't win (which would have mattered if he and Ham had the same points after last nights race).
- 2 points handed out by his team-mate Raikonnen in the last race.

What about all the other incidents that Massa didn't get punished for, but were worthy of a penality in some form?

He was lucky he even got that close to winning the championship. Certainly didn't deserve it in my book. I'm not exactly a fan of Hamilton, but no other driver got this much crap from the FIA this year and not much of this has to do with his driving style rather than the team he hasn't been driving for. I think the win by one point, while close, is deserving and I'm glad we had one race without any influence from the FIA.

 

[Kaotik]

So Massa deseved it?
- 1 points handed out by the FIA after the incident with Bourdais in Japan.

That I could agree with, maybe, it's still IMO quite a bit unclear, it was clear that Massa was a LOT faster when coming to the corner AND in corner, Bourdais hadn't gotten to the normal speed yet, so it's debatable if it was a racing situation or not.

- 2 points handed out by the FIA after Hamilton got demoted after winning at SPA plus a "win" he didn't win (which would have mattered if he and Ham had the same points after last nights race).

Hamilton broke the rules, those points belonged to Massa. (In fact giving the 25sec penalty after the race favored Hamilton if anyone, if he had been sentenced to the usual stop'n'go he would have lost more time than that 25sec)

- 2 points handed out by his team-mate Raikonnen in the last race.

You know that this happens on every team in case one of the drivers has a chance on championship and the other doesn't.

What about all the other incidents that Massa didn't get punished for, but were worthy of a penality in some form?

Pit incidents like... trying to leave pits with fuelhose attached? Teams/launch systems fault, he got the green light for it, didn't he?
What else? That "tight" situation which "might have been dangerous" which got quite a lot of talk during this season? You have to be kidding, there has been plenty of cases where there wouldn't be enough space for a monday paper between the 2 cars and no-one ever, not before this Massa case, even thought about giving penalties for 'em.

He was lucky he even got that close to winning the championship. Certainly didn't deserve it in my book. I'm not exactly a fan of Hamilton, but no other driver got this much crap from the FIA this year and not much of this has to do with his driving style rather than the team he hasn't been driving for. I think the win by one point, while close, is deserving and I'm glad we had one race without any influence from the FIA.

He was unlucky if anything, several times he lost due technical failure he had nothing to do with, without those he would have had championship easily already

Also it's quite funny to notice that any activity by FIA is bad - if it doesn't somehow benefit Hamilton. No-one has given a crap about it before it has some negative effect on Hamilton directly or indirectly.
Hamilton-supporters have kept their mouth shut every time Hamilton gets benefits from FIA, but raise hell if something is even remotely bit negative towards him.

 

[infinity4]

Well even with these failures he had over 15 races to redeem himself. His erratic driving in Malaysia, Silverstone and Monaco are clearly not championship winning drive. Hamilton as well made so many mistakes in Canada etc but if you have more points over 17 races nobody can argue about it.

 

[Phil]

That I could agree with, maybe, it's still IMO quite a bit unclear, it was clear that Massa was a LOT faster when coming to the corner AND in corner, Bourdais hadn't gotten to the normal speed yet, so it's debatable if it was a racing situation or not.

It's not unclear at all - Bourdais was in front and had the right to defend his position. He was on the inner side of the corner as well. No matter what rule you or the FIA dreams up, he did everything correct and was still punished.

Hamilton broke the rules, those points belonged to Massa. (In fact giving the 25sec penalty after the race favored Hamilton if anyone, if he had been sentenced to the usual stop'n'go he would have lost more time than that 25sec)

Sorry, forgot that Hamiltons demotion to 3rd place didn't cost him 2 points, it cost him 4 points (!) while giving 2 points to Massa making the damage total 6 points. Hamilton might have broke the rules in the overtake to Raikonnen, but gave back that advantage within the fine line McLaren assumed to be sufficient not to be penalised. If he had waited with the overtake, he would have passed him later, as the McLaren was claerly a lot quicker in those conditions. Not that it mattered much anyway - Raikonnen smashed the car into the wall anyway. Massa just happened to conviniently profit by that decision which in no way impacted his race. Hamilton was by far the best driver in SPA and deserved that win and the points. This little incident doesn't change that at all - so much for your "Massa deserving the win".

You know that this happens on every team in case one of the drivers has a chance on championship and the other doesn't.

Of course, but you were the one speaking of his "deserving" to win the title. If a driver requires his teammate to slow down by over 10 seconds to have a chance at the world-champion in the last race, I'm not sure that qualifies as one deserving the title. Do you?

Pit incidents like... trying to leave pits with fuelhose attached? Teams/launch systems fault, he got the green light for it, didn't he?

F1 has always been a team sport. That incident was no different than Hamilton losing his tires last year and handing out the championships. He had to deal with it then, it's your time to deal with it now. Not that it mattered much anyway - with the demotion of Hamilton at SPA, it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

What else? That "tight" situation which "might have been dangerous" which got quite a lot of talk during this season? You have to be kidding, there has been plenty of cases where there wouldn't be enough space for a monday paper between the 2 cars and no-one ever, not before this Massa case, even thought about giving penalties for 'em.

That's one of them. If Hamilton can get a drive through because of overshooting the first corner (like it happend countless of times) and Massa only gets a drive through as well for ruining Hamiltons race after crashing into him after going straight through the corner without even being on the track, then an overtake as dangerous as the one against Webber should be more than enough justification for the over so safe-conciouss FIA.

He was unlucky if anything, several times he lost due technical failure he had nothing to do with, without those he would have had championship easily already

Massa failed because of team errors - Hamilton nearly lost it to politics. I can deal with the fact that Hamilton may have deserved some of the crap he received this year, but all of it? No way.

Also it's quite funny to notice that any activity by FIA is bad - if it doesn't somehow benefit Hamilton. No-one has given a crap about it before it has some negative effect on Hamilton directly or indirectly.
Hamilton-supporters have kept their mouth shut every time Hamilton gets benefits from FIA, but raise hell if something is even remotely bit negative towards him.

I think you're dreaming. Hamilton was rightly punished by the FIA numerous times, for example for messing up Heidfelds qualifying earlier in the year. And I'm not a Hamilton supporter either. Not as much as you seem to be a Massa supporter anyway.

Massa had some bad luck from the team and some very good luck of getting a lot of points back by FIA after-race decisions. At the end of the day, Hamilton won and I'm not sure how anyone can say he didn't deserve that win.

 

[pocketmoon66]

He won because of luck, not because he did such a good job at driving.

McLaren chose to pit and put on intermediates. The team knew they were racing Glock, not Vettel. It worked out perfectly. That wasn't luck, that was judgement.

 

[chavvdarrr]

Raikonen handed points to Masa?! LOL
Will Hamilton ever win with teammate who is not puppet (like Kovalainen ) ?

 

[Phil]

You mean like last year with Alonso where he missed it by his own silly mistake and some bad luck by 1 point?

 

[chavvdarrr]

I just don't like Hamilton. Too much PR for my taste. Let him drive Toro Roso and see if he can beat Vettel in McLaren?

But, congratulations to McLaren-Mercedes, they were best team and deserved one title this season. If their second pilot was better they could win both.

 

[Gerry]

Raikonen handed points to Masa?! LOL
Will Hamilton ever win with teammate who is not puppet (like Kovalainen ) ?

Bizarre comments. Raikkonen clearly allowed Massa to pass him in China, as you'd expect any teammate to do in the same situation.

And Alonso clearly wasn't a puppet last year, and yet Hamilton came within a whisker of winning the title. And why you regard Kovalainen as a puppet this year is just plain odd. He wasn't a puppet, he was just slower.

 

[chavvdarrr]

oh yea, Hamilton is so much faster than Kovalainen, that he passes him the moment he come behind him, weird that he can't pass anyone else so easy
I'm not saying that Hamilton is not a very good driver.

 

[pocketmoon66]

oh yea, Hamilton is so much faster than Kovalainen, that he passes him the moment he come behind him, weird that he can't pass anyone else so easy

You only have look at the points gap between Hami and Kovi in the final standings - 45 points. That’s more than the points gap between any other team-mates.

Sure, Kovi was in the team to back Hami but McLaren wanted the constructors title as much as Hami wanted the individual. And Kovi was often so far back he couldn't 'assist' in any active way, unlike Kimi who was always in the mix.

There must be elements of '2nd best' in there (2nd best engine, 2nd best engineers etc) but also the brilliance of Hami has to account for a lot of those points.

 

[chavvdarrr]

IMHO, being nr2 damaged Kovalainen's psychic.
Take a look how was he racing at the start of the season and how he finished!
Its not normal a driver in top team to suffer so much degradation.
Last starts of the season he was not fighting at all.
Or maybe after winning a race he lost his motivation? I doubt that, if he was such man he won't be able to come into F1.

 

[Deepak]

About Kubica's driving in last lap, was he within his rights to tail and overtake drivers (Vettel and Hamilton) who were a lap ahead of him?

 

[Kaotik]

About Kubica's driving in last lap, was he within his rights to tail and overtake drivers (Vettel and Hamilton) who were a lap ahead of him?

If you are faster than the ones who have previously lapped you, yes, you can overtake them

 

[Bludd]

If Kubica had managed to overtake Massa, he could have finished another lap and possibly overtake more people. If you are lapped and the winner takes the chequered flag, your race is over.