Winning for Losing

[Conceptual]

In a season with almost flawless reliability, can Hamilton really say that he "beat" the competition with all of the DNF's and other mishaps at ferrari this year?

I understand that the most reliable is worthy of reward, but isnt there some reasoning that can blame Ferrari for losing more than McLaren winning?

Just a thought going into this weekend.

WHat do you guys think?

[Beemer4]

Hamilton shouldnt be so confident going into Brazil, anything can happen.

[CMSMJ1]

What about all the times when McLaren reliability cost them the title?

Naff post Chris... You can do better mate

[axle]

Hamilton and Massa have suffered equally with lost points/bad luck/mistakes this year.

It's a non issue.

[Conceptual]

I was referring to Alonso's comment about point totals during the season...

Last year it was 110, 109, 109 for the top WDC finishers...

Compared to this years 94, 87, 75... That shows me that this years point totals are much lower going into the last race of the season than in 2005-2007.

That to me shows that the teams/drivers have not performed at those levels. I am not a Ferrari apologist by any stretch, I was simply comparing the point totals year over year.

It is a non-issue for the overall scope, but I personally could take pride in winning only if it meant that I was the best driver, not because all of the other drivers suck...

Like Schumi's post race press conference at Indy 2006. He was vocal about how meaningless that win was because most of the field didn't compete, or competed very poorly.

It just seemed to draw a similar line to my mind.

[ESPImperium]

I feel that the pressure of F1 now is such that drivers feel that they cant screw up, and thus takes some "edge" off of their competition egde, such they will drive for the points over anything else. Take Singapore and China as the case studys here.

Drivers are making mistakes at pit exits and going into corners too quick and collecting the wall, even driving into the back of other drivers cars. Take Canada, Monaco, Bahrain and Singapore as the case studys here.

Even pit crews feel it, take Ferarri at Sinagpore, also include Valencia as well as the case study here.

I feel that mistakes are magnified so much now that everyone feels they shouldnt f-up, they want to strive for perfection so much now, and thats where mistakes occur. The most perfect season that i have seen is full of im-perfections.

If drivers didnt have the pressure they were under to perform, i belive things could be closer, also if teams didnt put even the tea lady under pressure, im shure things would eventually look up and teams that arnt usally compeditive would win races. Take STR at Monza as the case study here.

I think the best teams are the ones that theres a degree of pressure, but not exessive ammounts, thus thats why Renault have had a resurgence and BMW Sauber have became the next challengers, also Toyota have also became challengers on occasion.

But this season in particular i think the real winners are the Fans, 3 new winners, lots of on track controversy to talk about, not to mention the off track exploits.

[guy_smiley]

In a season with almost flawless reliability, can Hamilton really say that he "beat" the competition with all of the DNF's and other mishaps at ferrari this year?

I understand that the most reliable is worthy of reward, but isnt there some reasoning that can blame Ferrari for losing more than McLaren winning?

in a close battle like this,
if massa wins, people will say hamilton lost the title. if hamilton wins, people will say massa lost the title. thats just how it is with us f1 fans. like i frequently say, the only accomplishment of hamiltons in f1 is losing the world championship in spectacular fashion.

but if the championship is a landslide, it becomes a non issue. scenario: if championship leaders heikki & mclaren next year are 20 points ahead of 2nd place heidfeld & bmw at the finale, with heikki and mclaren having 5 DNFs during the year and heidfled & bmw making no mistakes, what difference does it make? would heidfled go running around saying he "beat" the competition because of their DNFs and other mishaps? and wouldn't people have more respect for the flawless?

so i think this 'winning for losing' is moot.

like kimi and fernando, our only active champions, say: whoever has the most points at the end of the season deserves the championship

[Ratatouille]

How short memory some people seem to have. Mika Hakkinen lost his 3rd consecutive championship to reliability, not to Schumacher or Ferrari. Even then, neither Mika nor Mclaren ever questioned Michael's merit for winning the championship. The very same thing happened to Kimi in 2005. F1 is not only an ontrack championship you know, most of the technical excellence goes behind closed doors. It really bothers me that some people don't realize this.

[Ciro Pabón]

One reason to blame Ferrari for losing?

I can think of some, including the absurd changes in the team that "expelled the british chassis experts" and pushed some people into spying for the competition (!), Montezzemolo moving to FIAT, Todt wasted into retirement, the couple of morons they hired as drivers, allowing Alonso to sit on the Renault bench for an entire year (and maybe two or ever, I don't know), culminating with ripping the gas hose, blowing an engine two laps from the end, giving Schumacher the goodbye kiss for good and, overall, failing to push McLaren away from the championship for a couple of years for cheating. Besides that, I can not think of a good reason. Sorry, I'm short on words today.

Ferrari should concentrate on what they do best: to cheat. That's what they should focus into: the happy latin custom of "cheating on the gringo".

"Indigenous malice" (malicia indígena), we call it down here. Once they went into the management business, they were clearly lost. Let's hope they recover, I miss Manchild rants about Schumi and his "finesses".

[donskar]

Ciro, are you joking? Must we re-open "Stepney-gate"? Or are you writing revisionist history? That is, Ferrari "cheated" by forcing Mclaren to take hundreds of pages of tech data?

F1 is as much about politics (a polite wording covering all sorts of grey and black activities) as anything else. To win in F1 today, you must play the game. It is a VERY dirty game, and Ferrari plays it very well.

Here is a case where I think my signature is very apropos.

[Ciro Pabón]

No, I'm not joking. Ferrari cheated many times during its history, McLaren cheated last year, that's all I meant. The proofs are the penalties they received. I did not tried to imply that Ferrari "forced" McLaren to cheat (where did I write that?), simply that they weren't able to push McLaren out of this year's championship, an outcome many people expected. These are not opinions, but facts of history.

[Belatti]

"Indigenous malice" (malicia indígena), we call it down here. Once they went into the management business, they were clearly lost. Let's hope they recover, I miss Manchild rants about Schumi and his "finesses".

Yeah dude, we all do.

[Conceptual]

Awesome finish!

No matter what reasons caused the points to disappear, it was the teams and drivers to lose.

Congrats to hamilton and Ferrari, and thanks to them for an incredible season!

[alexbarwell]

Maybe ferrari lost the championship at the start of the season with reliability issues and the first few races when Massa's act wasn't together. Some people (me included) wondered if he would see the halfway point of the season before getting elbowed if he kept coming off the track, for a team that takes losing so very personally. A couple more points would have tipped it, but very easy to say in hindsight.

[Ray]

Ferrari should concentrate on what they do best: to cheat.

Sorry to bust your bubble Ciro, but ALL teams cheat. Always have and always will. It doesn't matter who does it, it's still wrong and Ferrari may be the best at it. I don't really care who cheats to win in any sport, I'm not losing my money by others cheating and me not winning. I don't condone it, but I myself can't stop it.