congratulations Hamilton !

[Lee Martin]

Big up Lewis!!!!!

[Nick Goodall]

He drove an absolutely faultless race, which not many others managed on the day. He had to deal with about 4 re-starts under the safety car alone, talk about pressure and he just handled it like a true pro. This kid is seriously talented, he's got one hell of a bright future ahead of him.

The fact that he could possibly win the championship this year is just amazing.

I honestly think they need to have a serious word with the team that organise the Montreal GP though, we were lucky not to lose a driver and to be honest the track was just dangerous. Have you ever seen so many crashes in one GP?? They all complained that the surface was breaking up in places, and with the amount of crashes i'm surprised there weren't more injuries.

It really spoilt what would have been an even more dominant race for Lewis, and it could have actually cost him with the amount of safety car laps as so many people gained by pitting during these periods, and although some got penalties they were taken away pretty much as the safety car was out again 2 laps later!

All the talk of Silverstone losing the GP a couple of years back makes me laugh having watched yesterday, at least Silverstone is seen as a safe and well prepared circuit - Montreal was a joke!

[losidan]

i thought lewis was excellent..in fact the top four guys i thought who kept there head were the ones who came out on top. Impressed with sato for a change.
i think i heard the commentators say kubicas first impact was 190 mph...."ooo,that's gotta hurt"

[BenG]

Originally Posted by telboy

Rattled, I think the word is!

Probably as much pressure on him now, as there was when he won his championships.......and he's not taking it very well. technically, Hamilton could destroy his career.

They were saying before the race that, alonso told ITV that he cant win the race on the first corner.....so what does he do? tries too hard on the first corner....AGAIN!....nearly taking his teammate with him!!

lol. Sometimes Alonso has off days, this been the worst, he seems to have had a few this season, such as at Catylunya was it? where he also went off.

I think the rest of the race performance was down to that first corner hiccup, so I wouldn't expect to see him drop down the ranks. Look at Monaco. Lewis has never lost there. Yet Alonso pee'd on his bonfire lol

He needs to keep cool. I dont see how he could defend the 2005 race at imola and the 2006 championship from Schumacher yet be rattled so easily by Hamilton lol. Its wierd.

[losidan]

i dont think alonso did too bad, yeah he was off a lot but wasnt he driving with a damaged chassis for the whole race?

[Kopite]

Originally Posted by BenG

He needs to keep cool. I dont see how he could defend the 2005 race at imola and the 2006 championship from Schumacher yet be rattled so easily by Hamilton lol. Its wierd.

cos Schumacher was a multi-world champion, and Hamilton is technically a rookie still. Different kind of pressure, as he is now expected to win, whereas before, if Schumacher beat him, Alonso would've been beaten by the greatest F1 driver of all time (arguably). No shame there

Hamilton keeping up with Alonso, and beating him on occasion too, is probably really pissing Alonso off, especially cos Alonso is now considered to be the class of the field, and expected to win

[Northy]

[QUOTE=losidan;44012wasnt he driving with a damaged chassis for the whole race?[/QUOTE]

But HE broke it making an error!

[DCM]

Very true, I think Alonso was completely out-psyched and out drove by Hamilton at Canada. Knowing there there was an agreement that who was in the lead after the second stop would be the winner... Alonso needed to take a punt, and as we have seen so many times, Hamilton out-drove him.

As for the track, yes, one corner was bad, but it was a slow speed corner, Kubica's accident could of happened anywhere... Monaco anyone?

[Elliott Hopkins]

According to my friend who has a lot of time on her hands, the other day Blue Peter showed some footage of Lewis driving model cars on Blue Peter, when he was younger.

Wonder what he was driving.

Elliott.

[telboy]

Exactly, being put under pressure by schuey was easy to brush off if you made a mistake, but being put under pressure by your new rookie team mate is another, that why I say he's possibly under more pressure now. plus he's in a new team and doesn't exactly know where their priorities are ( bearing in mind that they've brought hamilton up from 9yrs old.), he must be beginning to wonder now.

I've been watching F1 RELIGIOUSLY (some times obsessively) for many years, and know that mclaren have some strange team orders, 'pre-race', out of the earshot of the stewards, and one of their most popular rules (orders) is "who ever get to the first corner first wins the race" (removing any unforseen incidents). And I think that this is what order was given on sunday, and alonso tried to get there first and make the race his.

Remember Senna and Prost at Sanmarino in '88? the same happened there, BUT it was Prost who got through the tamburello first but Senna wasn't having any of it and forced his way past his more experienced, world champion team mate, which didn't make Mr Dennis very happy.
Prost was feeling the same presure from his younger less experienced team mate as alonso is feeling......and senna went on to win the world championship that year!!

Is that obsessive enough for you?

[Northy]

Tel, you are the man! You summed that up to perfection.

I am on obsessive too, but not as old as you, and with a poor memory for dates!

G

[BenG]

Originally Posted by telboy

Exactly, being put under pressure by schuey was easy to brush off if you made a mistake, but being put under pressure by your new rookie team mate is another, that why I say he's possibly under more pressure now. plus he's in a new team and doesn't exactly know where their priorities are ( bearing in mind that they've brought hamilton up from 9yrs old.), he must be beginning to wonder now.

I've been watching F1 RELIGIOUSLY (some times obsessively) for many years, and know that mclaren have some strange team orders, 'pre-race', out of the earshot of the stewards, and one of their most popular rules (orders) is "who ever get to the first corner first wins the race" (removing any unforseen incidents). And I think that this is what order was given on sunday, and alonso tried to get there first and make the race his.

Remember Senna and Prost at Sanmarino in '88? the same happened there, BUT it was Prost who got through the tamburello first but Senna wasn't having any of it and forced his way past his more experienced, world champion team mate, which didn't make Mr Dennis very happy.
Prost was feeling the same presure from his younger less experienced team mate as alonso is feeling......and senna went on to win the world championship that year!!

Is that obsessive enough for you?

And when Hakkinen and Coulthard were racing at was it silverstone or germany, and they both agreed that if David got to the corner first, he'd let hakkinen through as he was winning the champs.

Think it was like 1998. But dont quote me

[telboy]

Haha, beleive me northy, my memory is sh*** at anything other than F1.

Ask me what I did yesterday and I haven't got a clue!!

It must an age thing, as you get older you forget what you've just done, but can remember things from years ago. It's like your grandparents, they can rmember what they did in the war 50yr ago but ask 'em what they had for dinner.......NO CHANCE!!

[Nick Goodall]

Originally Posted by DCM

Very true, I think Alonso was completely out-psyched and out drove by Hamilton at Canada. Knowing there there was an agreement that who was in the lead after the second stop would be the winner... Alonso needed to take a punt, and as we have seen so many times, Hamilton out-drove him.

As for the track, yes, one corner was bad, but it was a slow speed corner, Kubica's accident could of happened anywhere... Monaco anyone?

Monaco as a whole isn't really that bad though, as the barriers are so close you don't have that time of a car going flat out off the circuit and hitting a wall - it's more like driving a Scalextric track with the barriers all the way around

I think the massive raised kerb in the last chicane before the "wall of champions" is just dangerous and unecessary, the tarmac was breaking up and because it doesn't get used during winter at all there's hardly any build up of rubber which results in what i think was one of the worst GP's for a long time with the amount of accidents and it seemed that more laps were under the safety car then anything else, makes it rather a joke really and as i said i think Lewis would have been even more dominant seeing as he built up 20 seconds before that first safety car, he was by far the class of the field for me.

It was a great race for Lewis and he drove perfectly, but it could have really cost him with all the debris on track etc, it would have been a different story if he'd blown a tyre or worse.

Lewis does race 1/8th, and i'm told his brother is doing some of the Nats this year?

[MK999]

1/8th all the way baby !

*cough* >>

[telboy]

Canada has always been 'one of thse tracks' where you get lots of incidents. I think what made Kubica's accident realy bad, was the fact that his front wheels never hit the ground before he hit the wall, so there wasn't much in the line of braking resistance going on. And the angle that he hit the wall too was very reminiscent of Sennas fatal crash. Other than that the rest of the accident was fairly tame, with just bits of car flying everywhere, which makes it 'look' more spectacular.
But F1 has done well recently, without any major crashes for a while.

The reason the FIA moan about silverstone, is because of the pit facilities are not exactly up to scratch, for some reason, and need updating. But I think they are putting a lot of money into it to bring it up to standard.

It'd be nice to see the GP return to Donnington again.

[MK999]

Originally Posted by telboy

Canada has always been 'one of thse tracks' where you get lots of incidents. I think what made Kubica's accident realy bad, was the fact that his front wheels never hit the ground before he hit the wall, so there wasn't much in the line of braking resistance going on. And the angle that he hit the wall too was very reminiscent of Sennas fatal crash. Other than that the rest of the accident was fairly tame, with just bits of car flying everywhere, which makes it 'look' more spectacular.
But F1 has done well recently, without any major crashes for a while.

The reason the FIA moan about silverstone, is because of the pit facilities are not exactly up to scratch, for some reason, and need updating. But I think they are putting a lot of money into it to bring it up to standard.

It'd be nice to see the GP return to Donnington again.

The pits at silverstone just back out on to a car park pretty much, they're fairly small and a bit more open to what F1 is used to i think, and on kubica's crash i'm not sure i agree, if you watch the way the guy is thrown around as the remaining cockpit of his car bounces around the place it's pretty nasty

[telboy]

Oh yes, I agree he was knocked around quite a lot in the final moments, but that sort of thing you get with any heavy crash, but normally you don't see it from the angle we saw on sunday so it isn't appreciated as much, whereas on sunday you could see him 'from above' technically, so it gave more of an understanding of what goes on inside the cockpit when they have accidents. Normally you only see things from a low angle.

His broken leg obviously came from the impact with the wall. technically drivers feet are just behind the centre line of the front axle, and if you look at kubica's 'safety cell', its smashed almost to the rear mounting point of the front suspension. So he was VERY lucky to come away with only a broken leg really.

[telboy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWZ7iKXfLXs

Gives you more of an appreciation of the speed the car was travelling!

WOW! just watch the mashalls.......life flashing before their eyes!!

[terry.sc]

Originally Posted by telboy

His broken leg obviously came from the impact with the wall. technically drivers feet are just behind the centre line of the front axle, and if you look at kubica's 'safety cell', its smashed almost to the rear mounting point of the front suspension. So he was VERY lucky to come away with only a broken leg really.

He came away with a sprained ankle and drove himself away from the hospital Monday. He hopes to be racing at Indy.

I can live in hope that ITV stops banging on about Hamilton so much now, although I think it's likely to be worse. Got sick of James Allen going on about Lewis being faster than Alonso, while Alonso was behind Heidfeld. I've got nothing against Hamilton, but James Allen going on about how great Hamiltons driving was when he was in the fastest car, while Heidfeld hanging on to him most of the time went totally unnoticed.

Pity Heidfeld, Wurz and Kovaleinen(starting 22nd!), great drives overshadowed by Hamilton winning. Great fun seeing Sato at the end running faster than Alonso, who else would try driving round the outside at the final chicane. If only there was a few more laps we would have seen him take on Raikkonen and pass him for a second time.

Loved Coulthard on the radio:
"The car doesn't turn, brake or go in straight line...apart from that it's great!"

There was one fatality though, my thoughts go out to the family of the beaver that Anthony Davidson ran over.