Dream Weaver

No it doesn't matter, that wasn't my point.

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Colin McRae was good.
Richard Burns was good. Sadly Richard died on the same day as the drunken northen irish football tosser, so was forgotten. Only English man to win the WRC.
Barry Sheene was good.
The Stig is good.

Sir Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes, Bradley Wiggins etc all paid far less and better people all round.

F1 driver = Kiss (Foot) ball players of Motorsport.

scooby L

You mean paid millions to entertain millions of "experts" across the pubs of England.

Top gear illustrated just how hard it is to drive an F1 car..let alone race one for 1.5 hours non stop.

They earn their money far more than the football poofs imho

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Hamilton reminds me of Schumacher. He pushes the rules to the limits and then if he oversteps them instead of apologising just comes out with some explanation that he makes sound so plausible you almost want to believe him

Anyway if he reminds of Schumacher that is good enough for me - he is the real deal.

cster

I wouldn't put him in the same league as Schummacher/Senna for rule pushing.
I don't think I recall him trying to crash into opponents in order to put them out of the race and win championships in that way.
Ah, those were the days weren't they

blubs

Good debate this;

I am sick of English 'gentlemen' sports people, who get no results.

I like seeing Hamilton's aggression on the track, I want him to upset people and the establishment and try every trick in the book to win.

McRae was at times, a total git (I am a huge fan of his, dont get me wrong). If you look at some of the interviews he gave, and the comments he made then he really was quite unapproachable, unless things were going his way.

However, on the stage he was hugely aggressive, never considered a percentage drive even when he had a comfortable lead and was happy taking big risks.

That is why he was adored by fans everywhere, he created excitement on every rally he did, WRC or clubman because you knew there was a good chance that something dramatic would happen if he was in the entry list.

I see Hamilton in a similar light.

Good luck to 'im I say!

The Rig

iTrader: (13)

never liked him,never will,dont support him.

i still find it eary and weird he`s been milked through mclaren all these yrs by ron dennis.......

and no, being cocky isnt what makes a race driver, take valentino rossi.

now thats how to be a sportsman
he hasnt won the championship for 2yrs and still commentators call him the best/sposnors love him/he is chairman for most groups etc

mart360

Unfortunately, i think young Mr H is well and truly caught in the PR/ marketing machine

He is now a very valuable commodity to be maximized to its full potential.

He was due to appear at the FOS this year, which he did, but it wasn't to plan.

The plan was:

Arrive:

Greet the crowds, (balcony)

Autograph session on the lawn

Race sessions



As it was we got,

greet the crowds

walk past

race sessions


his PR people were literally pushing him from the house to the track,

with some hastily signed autographs on the way. the guy next to me got L

on his programme, before his PR people pulled him away.

What i cant understand is why?

surely managing his time cant be that bad??

it wasn't as if he was racing before the visit, or washing his hair etc, lol

in some respects i feel sorry for him, his life for the foreseeable future is going to be mapped out by the PR people


ffs if i have a meeting in germany at 10 am, im in germany prepped and

ready to go at 9:55, why is it some people always cut it so fine they have

to miss parts of schedules etc.

after all if you alienate your fans, they wont be around when you need

them



Mart

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

He is a superb driver, still has lots to learn, as for being bland, it does appear so but the drivers are so controlled by the teams nowadays they cant be themselves, so much so they end up sounded like scripted call centre workers.

We need Hero's, Villians, ********, Drinkers and Brawlers in F1, not Shower gel advert models. They are all too perfect, Hamilton at the moment make Mansell look like Mr CHarisma (Though I dont think Mansell was as dull as people made out)

MJN 555

Very cocky but still very talented!

Agree with mart360, but why don't his advisers ever see it, they must read the news!

A good guide for me as to how far some of the drivers are up themselves is those that will spare a minute on the ITV grid walk.

Kimi and Lewis, can't remember them doing so at all recently, Massa very occasionally, Alonso of the big names is probably the most regular which is a surprise with his reputation.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

And neither did Senna or Schmacher in their first two seasons of racing.... give him a few years

Best of luck to him

RoShamBo

iTrader: (1)

They sure were ! I miss those days.

Every sport has its bad boys and good boys - LH is the latter and always will be.

But its the bad boys you remember - Senna, Schumacher etc and not the good boys Mika Hakkinen etc (remember him, 2 world championships?)

The "win at all costs" mentality just doesn't seem to exist in british racing drivers - they are all just "nice"

Had MS been in LH's position in at Spa he would not have gone wide, he would have run Massa off the road, crashed into him "if I am not going to win then you aint either" attitude - thats whats missing and thats why F1 is so dull at the moment.

FlightMan

Sorry, but that's absolute bloody rubbish.

Do you really think if MS was catching the leader at 2/3 secs a lap, as LH was with KR, he would have run him off the road/crashed into him?

Schumacher would have blown him into the weeds and collected 10 points.

JRFRACE

Its good to see that the majority here do seem to appreciate his talent if some of you don't like the way he comes across.

Its probably true Lewis has had the most sucessful junior career of any driver in history, from karting through formula renault, f3, gp2 he has won every championship in impressive style. The only thing webber has ever won just for comparisons sake is the formula ford festival.

Now yes he's had mclaren support, but its like which came first the chicken or the egg? hamiltons talent attracted mclarens money. He is not the only driver to have had this support from mclaren but they are pretty cut-throat about it, if he'd stopped performing the money would stop as has happened to others.

He has been in F1 nearly 2 years now, and has led the championship i would estimate for 75% of the time over those years, unfortunatly not at the crucial moment last year!, he had the best all round driver as his team-mate in his debut year, and we all know what happened. He's had lots of silly dramas yet has won 8 races so far and finished on the podium 20 times.

Given everything he has acheived, and what he is capable of he is right to be confident about himself, i do find it amazing the way people seem to rally against him though. I remember speaking to a guy i hadn't seen for a while, who has no interest at all in f1, never has, but he was quite sure he hated lewis hamilton, based on what he couldn't be quite sure! the media boom and bust should take a lot of blame for this i think, watch the f1 on itv and during any race James allen will alternate between hailing lewis as the second coming and scalding him for his stupid error strewn driving every 10 minutes or so.

A last point about the mclaren money that got him there, the fact is all the drivers on that grid have had truck loads of money thrown at them by families, family friends, dubious gangsters et-al, despite what some of the press like to say about kubica in particular there are no true rags to riches stories in F1, you either find the money to get there or you can't play.

Sonic'

Wasnt Olivier Panis the only driver to pay for his seat in F1 ?

JRFRACE

up until the early 00's there were many drivers who paid for seats, or effectivly paid for them by having sponsors place them by partial funding of a team.

I don't think Panis ever paid for a seat in F1

Sonic'

Im sure there was one driver who paid to race in F1, because for one he was incredibly rich, and secondly because he wanted to and thoroughly enjoyed it

JRFRACE

well i haven't searched so i may have got the spelling wrong, but there was 'count geovanni lavaggi' who did pretty much exactly what you are talking about, and drove for minardi i think

what would scooby do

Katayama (and IIRC some other japponaise drivers) where all paid drives - he was never good enough to warrant a place on merit..

RA Dunk

you can blame the media and james alan for turning the F1 into the lewis hamilton show TBH, i guess thats where alot of it comes from

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Pedro Diniz

Sonic'

Thats the fella

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Son of the owner of Petronas I think or certainly in the Petronas family hence how he got the drive, but he actually wasn't half bad either.

Leslie

He is not in the least bit cocky. He is such a talented driver that if he actually was he would have an excuse anyway. What we see in fact is good manners. People these days seem to find that unnacceptable, maybe they regard it as a weakness when in fact it is the opposite. He certainly cannot be blamed for the media hype which surrounds him either.

I wonder why the moment someone in this country shows some real ability with the attendant success, that so many feel they have to drag him down. It is jealousy or what? When some pick holes in what he does, even imagining a two faced reaction if a camera might appear, then it is getting well over the top. That really is scraping the barrel!

Surely it is worth accepting how good he is and being glad that he is a British driver, and handing him the praise that he is due. He is a young bloke and it is difficult at that age to cope with all that comes with such success. I think he does that very well under the circumstances.

Unlike the last great ace driver, he is a pretty clean driver too.

Les

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Sorry Les that is just jingoistic tosh!

He pushes the rules just as much as Schumacher did and let's not forget this is only his second season of racing. He has had more questions asked about his on track antics than Schumacher did in his first two seasons and who knows what he will do in the future.

Don't get me wrong it doesn't bother me, the rules are there to be pushed and exploited and just as Schuamcher was ruthless on track so is Hamilton, they are so similar it's uncanny.

Great drivers both of them, but to paint one as a saint and the other as a sinner is just daft.

scooby L

I love it... it's like watching cart racing...or the BTCC... much more entertaining than straight---slip stream---pass--- break---- procesion we were getting used too... (Or MS doing an horizon job...equally boring)

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Totally agree. Lewis has pushed his luck and the rules further than Schumi did in his early years. He is a 'racer' and is expected to do these kind of things. Why everyone paints him as whiter than white (if you'll excuse the expression! ) i'll never know. Just because he is English, quick and cocky, doesn't mean we all have to like him.

scooby L

But he's got such nice skin....

Leslie

I fail to see where he has pushed the rules though. Yes he is a hard driver but he has always been within the rules when he has been trying to overtake or when he is defending his position. I know of no driver who has complained about his driving yet and they are never slow to mention anything like that. Even when he touched front wheels with Webber last race that was a straight racing incident and neither driver was to blame, even if the commentators were looking for an excuse to run him down. The front of Webber's wheel hit the rear of Hamilton's by the way.

When I was racing we used to fight for an advantage into a corner on the outbraking bit but we would never drive another off the track and the first man at the corner took the line as he was entitled to do. no one disputed that and the race winner that weekend bought the first round after the race! We were also good mates even as competitors.
I have not yet seen Hamiton deliberately try to drive anyone off the track and he is as entitled as anyone to try to outbrake someone into a corner. he was within his rights to outbrake Raikkonen into the Bus Stop and he was squeezed by Raikkonen onto the rumble strip. He had no option but to get onto the flat bit of ground or risk a spin which would take him and Raikkonen off. Maybe you have not tried to keep a car under control on the rumble strip in the wet!

You are being totally unfair or even biased perhap's to say he is ruthless. have you also forgotten the German deliberately driving into Hill in order to destroy his car so that he could take the World Championship? And how he would deliberately drive someone off the track if they got near him? He was pretty good at "brake testing" other drivers too! Hamilton is not guilty of that sort of behaviour.

Is it really "jingoistic" to support a driver from your own country by the way?

Les

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Have you forgotten that Hill admitted to be being 'a bit too keen' and that he put the nose of his car where is shouldn't have been? Patriotism is fine, as long as it doesn't blind you!