Hamilton proved his worth?

[PlatinumZealot]

It was funny to see people writing him off after the qualifiers, he just bounced right back. Detractors claimed it was only the car that gave him the edge. Now there is living proof to counteract that claim. =D>

Now we have people saying.. "meh it was ONLY luck"

[andartop]

I don't think anyone here said it was ONLY luck. If LH fans actually believe this was one of his best performances that's fine with me!

[Ray]

I believe this is the first time we have a thread to celebrate how a WDC managed to finish a race without crashing!!!
a)He drove a solid race starting from 18th position, pushing hard and overtaking where he could, and being wise where he couldn't.
b)Remember he found himself 12th (I think) at the end of first lap because of the first corner incident. That was a lucky escape, he didn't overtake those drivers.
c)Both Ferrari cars had serious problems, Massa being in a 3-stopper which was ruined by the safety car, and Kimi ending up with a 5-stopper before retiring...
d)He overtook some drivers fair and square, and raced to 6th position. Now remember how many times we've seen that, or even better, in the past from drivers like MS, Rubens, Hakkinen, Raikkonen, Kubica, Massa, Alonso etc..
e)THEN, at the last minutes of the race, 2 silly boys in front of him crashed themselves out of the race, AND for some reason Trulli went off track while under a SC.. THUS, LH lucked himself in the podium, with a question mark remaining about Trulli.
Overall: a very good drive, solid and mature. Given the circumstances he did the best anyone could possibly do with that car. An awesome drive? Hell, no. Did he prove his worth? He doesn't have to. Did he prove he is as good in a bad car? Don't think so yet: chance played a major role in this result and it's just one race. Let's wait and see what happens in the rest of the season...

+1! Exactly. He drove a good race, but there were some really fortunate circumstances that gave him the finish he had.

[De Jokke]

He showed today what he can do with a mediocre car. Ok he was lucky but he finished 3rd and more than half of the field was still in the race. Fantastic.

[ernos5]

"meh it was ONLY luck"

[ernos5]

nice

[ringo]

Well i guess the fact that this thread is here means his worth is being considered by his detractors. But he proved to me what kers is capable of with a ballsy driver
He used it efficiently and at the right times, He was knocking off drivers like bowling pins.
I dont want to get in the argument of worth but i am confident that no one else on the track was doing what he was doing. All other passes were around "wounded" cars.
can someone put up how many times he passed someone and at which laps?

I disagree with anyone saying that massa has passed like that, massa is not a passer he is a man who wins from the poll or finishes less or equal to the same place he starts.
kubica maybe good at passing, but he sure wasn't knocking off faster cars one after the other like that.

I dont believe in luck, you have chance and destiny. All drivers had an equal chance of finishing on the podium, some never took advantage of it like massa

[bidong]

Lewis Hamilton deserves the third place.

He clearly pushed the car to its limits. People say it is luck, and I agree it is luck. But being able to position yourself to take advantage of someone's unluckiness is not luck. That requires skill.
I think Hamilton played a safe game where he was rewarded very fairly by luck. He made sure that he will finish in the points. When he was in 8th position, he was not driving aggressively trying to pass anyone with aggressive intent. He just stayed at the back of the 7th car and waited for mistakes to happen, or pushed to the limits when the car infront had a pit stop. He did that consistently on his 3rd stint. And took advantage of 5 places. Promoting him to 3rd.

bidong's VERDICT:
Lewis Hamilton is worthy of everything he achieved last Sunday. He was lucky that alot of misfortunes happened to drivers in front of him where he was able to capitalize. But it takes a lot of skill and patience and NOT LUCK, to position yourself to capitalize on the mistakes with the people he was racing.

If he was in 18th place, and was already conceding to the fact that he won't score points, I think he wouldn't have made it to the points and wouldn't have had his "luck", rewarded to him.

[Steve Wilson]

Lewis' performance was very reminiscent of some Schumacher performances where the right lap times were put in at the right times to gain positions and all of a sudden you wondered how on earth he managed to get that high up. I believe it was Massa at the start of last year who on a couple of occasions pretty much gave up when he was miles behind, where Kimi might have come through for a point or 2...

[kilcoo316]

The other way around... I think the track will much better for the KERS cars.

I totally disagree.

Sure, you have three significant acceleration zones, but you have alot of high and medium speed corners. Corners where the McLaren will be very poor.

I expect them to do significantly worse next weekend than they did this.

[DaveKillens]

Hamilton started at the back of the race, and diligently worked his way up to the front. He stayed out of trouble and got the very best of the situation. But then again, so did Trulli. (notwithstanding what I consider a freak penalty)

[Spencifer_Murphy]

I think it was a very good performance on his part, and if he does something similar a few more times this week he should have done more than enough to answer critics who dislike him "stepping into a good car" from the off in 2007 & 2008.

Lewis worked almost flawlessly throughout the race, none of those silly rookie mistakes we expect somebod to make in their 1st and 2nd seasons (as he did in 07 & 08).

Personally I think winning the championship means, in his own mind, he has nothing left to proove, but still lots to fight for. As a result you didn't see any crazy banzai moves, he just got the job done. I was impressed.

Of course, lady luck had a hand to play, BUT I don't feel that should detract from HIS performance this weekend. Everybody scoffed and laghed when he made a balls-up of his move @ turn one in Fuji last year. This year Vettel & Kubica both had an equally stupid accident and Lewis, to his credit, didn't do anything like that when it appeared that some unexpected points would be on offer, and he didn't drive his car into a wall like Kimi did, or try and turn his front tyres into 50p coins like Massa. In short what I'm getting at is that while luck had a part to play, he kept his head while many of those around him (in better cars) lost theirs.

Keep it up!

[ben_watkins]

+1 Spencifer & Dave K =D>

[timbo]

I believe it was Massa at the start of last year who on a couple of occasions pretty much gave up when he was miles behind, where Kimi might have come through for a point or 2...

That is simply wrong.
On the subject of the thread - Lewis drove a good race. If he manages to continue like that it would be good for him.

[jddh1]

he did really well. You need luck and I don't think Hammi would say no to that just to prove us wrong.
Listen, at the end of the day, he got the 6 points, not kubica, not vettel, not trulli, not massa or kimi. He did. case closed.