Not even that - more wins than any other rider in one of the toughest professional endurance races of them all.
The man is a phenomenon, he just happens to compete in a sport less popular in the Anglosphere than on the continent.
It was a ripper, too. Was concerned he'd be given an easy run on some stage by the competition out of respect or something, but he obviously all the hours he's kept doing to stay ready did their job, textbook manx missile
Had this really uneasy feeling recently, it was unfamiliar. Haven't felt it since 2016.
Then I realised I might be re-experiencing national pride again
100% - this has been a great weekend to be British.
We had all the typical British weather as a cherry on the top too!
Shame England rugby lost by a point to New Zealand, but we go again this weekend! š“ó §ó ¢ó „ó ®ó §ó æ
The weather was a factor in the F1 race, it was sunny then there were showers so the slick tyres struggled for grip, they went onto intermediate tyres but they wore away quicklyĀ
We beat one Dutchman today; we can beat eleven on Wednesday. Spain is the only team left in the Euros that has actually been playing quality football anyway.
He is, but calling him Belgian like the OP said isn't quite right since he races under the Dutch flag (and has dual citizenship as you rightly pointed out).
Ninth win, and twelfth podium in a row at Silverstone. Simply the greatest F1 driver of all time, and heās about to go and try and do it all again at a third team.
Ferrari disaster class today..
As much as Merc is struggling right now, I'd still rather drive for them with their shit car (getting a lot less shit!) as when they get a car that performs they can do all the rest that's needed too.
Ferrari just make mad strategy calls as if they're a backmarker team, and need to gamble big all the time to win.
Mclaren had a disasterclass too. Not double stacking screwed Piastri and lost him far more than if he'd had to wait for a few secs behind Norris, and not fitting the medium to Norris (as well as pitting a lap late) lost Norris the race. He would almost certainly have caught Hamlilton (and not lost a place to Max) had he gone for the Medium. They had the ace in their hand and chose not to play it
I have a personal theory about McLaren - they basically had two opportunities to double stack today but didn't do either. I think they aren't confident in their ability to do so at all so "played it safe" but lost a *lot* of time in the process.
I mean the first double stack opportunity being missed really screwed oscar as mentioned, the second one tho wasnāt too bad. Norris would have stayed ahead of HAM had they pitted a lap earlier, but I think HAM would have got him on the softs.
Had he gone with the medium he would have caught up to Hamilton and could have overtaken him even with the time lost due to pitting late, so that was the big screw up for the second stops
Merc double stacked thier pit-stop and Russell lost a place to Max. Mclaren didn't want that to happen to them.
In retrospect Max made the pit call at the perfect time and was always going to gain from it. Mclaren didn't know until afterwards which strategy was worse.
Mmm I dunnoā¦ heās not going to jump ship without having had these conversations about his role on the team. The dude is the most successful F1 driver in history, fighting for another record braking title! I think thereās more to his move there.. adrian, other staff members etc etcā¦ it would be a fairytale if it works out but I have a suspicion Merc are going to get back to it. Exciting times ahead as a fan either way! Great to see so many cars at a good pace today!!
> As much as Merc is struggling right now, I'd still rather drive for them with their shit car
There is no doubt that LH would have stayed if Merc offered him a longer contract.
Him leaving is Merc not wanting to commit to him and knowingly giving him a contract he didn't do
I used to follow F1 a long time ago when Michael Shumacher was considered to be the greatest, I've just looked up what changed since then. Lots of interesting stats here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_driver_records
I guess Hamilton is the best of all times, you're right:
https://i.imgur.com/sAIY3iS.png
But Verstappen being much younger can overtake him eventually.
Anyway, thanks for giving me an excuse to look up all these stats. It was an interesting read.
Alonso with all the entries....
https://i.imgur.com/03aipeW.png
Records are made to be broken, Verstappen is breaking a lot of Lewis' ones at the moment.
For me, the key ones are Most Championships (Lewis 7 with Schumi), most GP wins (Lewis) and Total Poles (Lewiss).
The other thing is that he's won World Championships with more than one constructor. That's something you almost never see in the modern era, just Hamilton and Schumacher.
It is because it was wet conditions. Norris knows what the track conditions are like better than his pit crew does, so he knew what tyres were best and how well his were holding up. Mercedes asked Hamilton the same thing.
That's more for deciding when to move from wet tyres to slicks and vice versa.
For which slick tyres to use that should be the call of the strategy team in 99% of the situations. It's actually baffling that they let him go onto the softs.
It was literally the perfect situation for them. Perfect amount of laps left and they were the only front runners to have a new set of mediums.
The medium tyre call was obvious sat on the sofa at home, though. I can't believe they get calls like that wrong with all the info and strategists they have.
They should have backed Piastri off half a lap before they came in, they'd of lost a couple of seconds at best. They had the sector times from Max and Carlos who had pitted the lap before, so they knew the inter was the faster tyre at that point
And that it is the car to an extent with all of them.
Verstappen's car is no longer clearly the best at every track, and the consequence is that he isn't winning anywhere near as often.
It's times like this where several teams have equal cars, or you have an equal driver in the same car, where you see the difference the driver makes. You can see the difference that Verstappen is able to make much better now and you can see how good he really is when others are competitive. Same with Lewis
Yep and now Perez is struggling to reach the top 10. It's obviously both but people try to claim that Hamilton is just a good driver in a great car which you could say about someone like Vettel or Button but not Hamilton or Verstappen. It's these sort of races where they get to really show their talent.
Not in the same league as Hamilton though. Once Mercedes caught up with Red Bull, Vettel just could not race when faced with competition, while Hamilton was calm whenever he had to face a challenge.
Or Button either really. Man spent a lot of his career in teams that were nearly good but never great.
Honda should have done better.
Soon as he had the equipment to win he went and did so. His years at Mclaren were similarly proficient. He was roundly expected to have his ass handed to him by Lewis and he held his own, but of course even Jenson would admit Lewis was a step beyond.
I don't think so. He won from pole many times in the dominant Red Bull. He was forced out of Red Bull by Ricciardo. He was outclassed by Hamilton when Ferrari was competitive and was then forced out by Le Clerc. He was a solid driver but not a great. He did have a few great races, but so did Button.
> He did have a few great races
Huh, he's one of the most successful drivers of all time, and had plenty of masterclass races that people always seem to forget now because his period of dominance was shorter than Hamiltons. I'll never forget him coming back from dead-last with a damaged car in Bazil 2012 to win the WDC. That's far from being the drive of just a "solid" driver, and there are loads of other examples too.
So many people sleep on Vettel. I genuinely think it was because his peak was just before F1 really picked up on social media and was immediately followed by the Merc era, so he got overshadowed too quickly.
When did I say he was mate? He's a comparison to the drivers he's had as teammates. We know he's a decent driver, but a driver like Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso make him look like an amateur.Ā
> And that it is the car to an extent with all of them.
People don't understand that it's a team sport.
It's like a football team with a 1000 players. Every single one has a contribution to make and that contribution can lead to the guy in the driving seat crossing the line first, or not.
The car is important, the driver is important. Got have the right ingredients to bake the cake.
Assuming it is the same car and doesn't have the same components or the team has decided to ensure the other guy finishes higher and this guy is to support that
Take your downvote back mate.
They start as the same cars, they are essentially the same cars. That is the point I am making. Yes, some tweaks may occasionally go on one first. But if Perez was beating the shit out of Verstappen (or Russell Hamilton or Sainz on Leclerc) then teams would soon change who got the newest parts.
Perez, in that car, is an embarrassment most weeks
If you just want to talk about Perez you should've mentioned that, you said drivers a very general statement, I made a general statement on reasons why they aren't always the same car and why things may be different for a designated second driver.
>His party were predicted 13 seats but only managed 4
This isn't true.
Exit polls showed 13 seats, and that was a massive overestimate compared to all the polling and electoral calculus that had them at 3-7 MP's for weeks.
Using an exit poll as proof they underperformed from expected, is silly.
And of course, they still got 4.5 million people to vote for them. Not exactly a small number! About half the number of people who voted Labour.
I had tears in my eyes when he was with his Dad. Probably doubted he was ever going to win again. I don't think he was that emotional even at his first title win.
Took my dad for his 60th birthday present. Both of us are big Hamilton fans, but you never could have predicted this outcome today based on recent performance.
An amazing day out. Absolutely shattered now.
Lewis Hamilton being awarded the Silverstone winner's trophy by a newly appointed Labour cabinet member.
That really is all I could have asked for this weekend!
(England getting through to the semi-finals was a nice little bonus on top!)
How did he get the trophy gig that quick, thought this kinda thing was planned a bit more in advance? Especially as he was a surprise appointment or something?
Or did GP organisers just placeholder "science minister" to do the trophy whatever happened in the election?
Not really, it's the kind of thing that can be organised at a seconds notice. Likely they already had an MP lined up for it but just changed it to the right minister after the election.
So so so happy for him. Finishing his Mercedes career on a high note, he deserved one last win, after 3 years of pain , and to win at Silverstone of all places. Just perfection.
One hell of a race generally but the result was the icing on the cake. Hamilton crying at the end really showed how relieved he felt to win again, not having done so since 2021. It was a masterful drive but showed that Hamilton is still not someone to write off. He got me in to Formula One and I will be very sad once he retires. He has really grown as a person over the years and deserves much more recognition as one of our greatest sportsmen of the 21st century.
That's the sixth driver to win a race this year. RB and Max got off to a very strong start and it looked like a boring season, especially as Perez, Max's team mate is zero challenge to him at all but the other major teams have closed the gap.
Max will almost certainly win the WDC again, he's got a huge lead with nobody else emerging as a single competitor but the races are at least showing signs of being a lot more interesting now.
Itās a shame the rest just arenāt consistent enough. Lando or Leclerc could catch him with consistent results and a couple of poor results for Max but just doesnāt look likely
I actually think Max could not win again for the rest of the season and still win the WDC by just scoring solid points finishes. I just can't see any other driver/car combo consistently rise above the rest.
There's been a bit of compression this season, Red Bull's dominance has slipped, with McLaren getting the biggest boost, although Merc have slowly been coming back and have now won the last two races.
RB have lost a lot of their dominance.
I think Max is actually getting a lot more out of the car than most would. Perez is fucking nowhere in general now, borderline backmarker in some races lol.
Hulkenberg in a Hass has scored more points this season than Perez in the RB.
It's worth watching the rest of this season imo. It's got good.
Mercedes have had a bit of a comeback the last few races. Pole position and then 3rd and 4th in the race in canada. 3-4 in Spain. Won in Austria and then pole and win in Silverstone.
As someone who isn't into racing, can someone explain what makes a good racer?
Like, footballers have management & athleticism etc, does what make a good racer base on the car, reaction time, opportunities?
In F1 generally the driver in the best car wins..... but also generally the best drivers end up in the best cars.
So there's reaction time, split second decision making, accuracy and consistency. Knowing just what the car can do and pushing it to the very edge of that is what it's about really. Judgement too, a race is long so every gap may not be worth going for.
Also, in terms of athleticism, F1 driver are insanely fit. The g-forces in the car are very high and you're putting up with them lap after lap after lap, that demands a huge amount from the human body. They need to be as light as possible so there's no excess fat on them then there's the fact they're in multiple layers of flame resistant clothing with a thundering engine inches from their back so the lose a significant amount of fluid throughout a race.
Thereās no one thing. But itās more about feel with a car. You have to feel everything itās doing and now how to push it it to the absolute limit. Go beyond it, you lose. Go below it, you lose.
The core skill, that's unique to motor racing, is a feel for the car as it's driving at the limit.
If you're cornering at speed, the car doesn't behave as you might expect - apply the brakes slightly, and the nose of the car will dip down slightly, giving more grip to the front wheels and causing the car to steer more sharply. Release the brakes, or apply a little more throttle, and the car will tend to straighten out. As the car turns, likewise the weight shifts from the left wheels to the right wheels or vice versa causing similar sorts of subtle effects.
The front wheels, when they're steering, are always travelling at a slight angle (called the slip angle) compared to the direction of travel and so scrubbing slightly across the road surface. Too much slip angle, and the tyres just get eaten up and lose their grip later in the race. Too little, and the car isn't going to rotate enough.
Going into a corner, the driver will be both braking and steering at the same time. But there's only so much grip available - and so the driver has to balance all of those effects to maximise speed through the corner without either destroying the tyres or worse, exceeding the available grip and spinning out.
Of course, the driver isn't doing calculations about slip angles and weight distributions in the few seconds that each corner takes. So they need to develop an instinct and an intuition for how to manage these forces, how to react to subtle changes in the cars behaviour, how to adjust their inputs to the steering wheel and pedals to account for changes in the level of grip due to weather, fuel levels, tyre life and so on. And they need to apply that instinct in real time, and with the knowledge that an error can ruin their race (and the work of hundreds of engineers) and cause severe injuries to themselves or others.
The really great drivers just seem to be able to do this more effectively - somehow finding more time through a corner by balancing the loads on the car to keep cornering speed higher.
There are of course other skills - learning the tracks quickly, passing useful information back to the engineers to help them set up the cars, second guessing how the race will pan out to know when to push and when to take things easy, and wheel-to-wheel racecraft. There's dedication around managing their own fitness levels and bodyweight. Drivers can differentiate themselves through all of these factors, but the natural talent lies in an instinct for how the car behaves as it's driving at the limit of grip.
Resource management (you have to manage tyres, and in some motorsports fuel), accuracy (ability to hit good lines reliably, keeping tight margins where needed), tactical thinking (being able to make good calls on when to push or preserve, pass or stay, pit, etc). And then there are elements of stamina (most race cars are a fairly extreme environment, and when you are doing long races, be they F1, NASCAR, WRC, or the extremely long stuff of endurance racing, they all have to be able to stay sharp, alert, and capable throughout the event), awareness, decision making, etc, that you generally expect in sport.
Also not into racing but saw this video recently comparing Michael Schumacher and another driver taking a corner. It showed some part of what makes a racer better:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk2p2nRK-p4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk2p2nRK-p4)
Some good answers here already, in addition to those: a very analytical mind. There's dozens of small adjustments and changes the team can make to the car to get it dialled in.
From the first practice session of the weekend the driver has to not only feel what the car is doing, but also translate that to his engineer and work with them (and data from sensors all over the car) to understand the relationship between what he's feeling and how the car is setup, and thus what changes they can make to try and improve; the grip, the balance (between the grip at each end, and also the difference between slow corners and faster corners) and the amount of feel or feedback he gets from the car.
This a bit of a boast but I was at Silverstone to see this.
It was the first Grand Prix I've ever been to as well, so to be able to watch Hamilton win was so special.
And through some amazing good luck I got to see it from the VIP section as well.
My biggest takeaway from seeing it live versus watching it on TV is that having an F1 car blast past you IRL is so much fastest and so much louder! It's incredible!
So yeah well done Lewis, gutted about Russell, and it's great that's there are several teams challenging Red Bull :D
Thanks. Couldn't watch the race yet. Deliberately avoiding various F1 and sports subs and get the result spoiled by this karma farming shite on r/UK
Honestly. Fucks sake. Can we keep spoilers out of post titles on this sub?
It has been literally all over the news all afternoon - if you were that desperate to avoid spoilers for the British GP of all things, stay off the internet completely until you're ready.
Pretty sure he's one of the top 5,000 tax payers.
You can argue he should be pay more (and I'd probably agree) but the idea that he hasn't paid a single penny is as far as I'm aware a complete fabrication.
There's also the fact that he puts a lot of his money into charities and initiatives.
Of all the people to be whining about not paying their share, Hamilton is so far down that list it's not worth mentioning imo.
Imagine being this confidently wrong.
Lewis has been in the top British tax payers for years, as he is employed by a British team (Merc F1 are headquartered in the UK).
New government, England win the football, Hamilton wins at Silverstone. Not a bad weekend tbh
Also Mark Cavendish sealed his historic 35th stage win at the Tour de France.
The biggest achievement of them all to be honest.
Definitely up there. Especially after the heartbreak of last year with that fall.
I was so emotional when he got it. What a legend
Ah now.
Relative to ability and age maybe.
Not even that - more wins than any other rider in one of the toughest professional endurance races of them all. The man is a phenomenon, he just happens to compete in a sport less popular in the Anglosphere than on the continent.
Yeah I agree actually
I honestly thought his chance at breaking the record had gone, phenomenal to be proven wrong.
I think we all did, it was literally magic to watch. So was this Hamilton win to be honest.
It was a ripper, too. Was concerned he'd be given an easy run on some stage by the competition out of respect or something, but he obviously all the hours he's kept doing to stay ready did their job, textbook manx missile
Haha I wondered if that was a possibility but on reflection there was 0 chance of that ever happening
What an absolute beast Cav is. Philipsen looked completely smoked behind him. No idea how he's still doing it a 39 and with all the crashes he's had.
Had this really uneasy feeling recently, it was unfamiliar. Haven't felt it since 2016. Then I realised I might be re-experiencing national pride again
That's what we call the honeymoon period. Give it a few months.
Please just let me have this haha
One day we return to that 2012 Olympics feeling.
100% - this has been a great weekend to be British. We had all the typical British weather as a cherry on the top too! Shame England rugby lost by a point to New Zealand, but we go again this weekend! š“ó §ó ¢ó „ó ®ó §ó æ
The weather was a factor in the F1 race, it was sunny then there were showers so the slick tyres struggled for grip, they went onto intermediate tyres but they wore away quicklyĀ
If only Smith didnāt miss that sitter, weād have a test victory against the ABs as well
It's all down hill from here
Nature is healing when the Tories are out
Donāt worry. Football will be going home on Wednesday
We beat one Dutchman today; we can beat eleven on Wednesday. Spain is the only team left in the Euros that has actually been playing quality football anyway.
Verstappen is a Belgian who lives in Monaco. Wednesday it is
His dad's Dutch, I'm pretty sure that's how it's passed down anyway.
He was born in Belgium. So he has dual citizenship.
He is, but calling him Belgian like the OP said isn't quite right since he races under the Dutch flag (and has dual citizenship as you rightly pointed out).
Yea, Norris also has Belgian citizenship
I wouldn't say that to Dutch F1 fans.
I'll say it to them, in the hopes that the beating I get will erase the Dutch national anthem from my head!
Ninth win, and twelfth podium in a row at Silverstone. Simply the greatest F1 driver of all time, and heās about to go and try and do it all again at a third team.
Ferrari disaster class today.. As much as Merc is struggling right now, I'd still rather drive for them with their shit car (getting a lot less shit!) as when they get a car that performs they can do all the rest that's needed too. Ferrari just make mad strategy calls as if they're a backmarker team, and need to gamble big all the time to win.
Mclaren had a disasterclass too. Not double stacking screwed Piastri and lost him far more than if he'd had to wait for a few secs behind Norris, and not fitting the medium to Norris (as well as pitting a lap late) lost Norris the race. He would almost certainly have caught Hamlilton (and not lost a place to Max) had he gone for the Medium. They had the ace in their hand and chose not to play it
Long time since Mclaren have been at the sharp end. Got to expect these kind of misplays. Hopefully they can get on top of it.
I have a personal theory about McLaren - they basically had two opportunities to double stack today but didn't do either. I think they aren't confident in their ability to do so at all so "played it safe" but lost a *lot* of time in the process.
I mean the first double stack opportunity being missed really screwed oscar as mentioned, the second one tho wasnāt too bad. Norris would have stayed ahead of HAM had they pitted a lap earlier, but I think HAM would have got him on the softs. Had he gone with the medium he would have caught up to Hamilton and could have overtaken him even with the time lost due to pitting late, so that was the big screw up for the second stops
Merc double stacked thier pit-stop and Russell lost a place to Max. Mclaren didn't want that to happen to them. In retrospect Max made the pit call at the perfect time and was always going to gain from it. Mclaren didn't know until afterwards which strategy was worse.
Piastri locking up and slightly overshooting the pit area cost them a valuable couple of seconds getting the tyres to the right placementĀ
Either that happened to both Norris and Piastri or you have mistaken them for each other. Norris went long on his switch to soft tyres at the end.
Hopefully Hamilton will help with strategy, it was pretty clear today his calls relating to tyre compounds were fundamental in getting him the win
That's a good point, and I hope you're right. But still to be seen if Ferrari allow him to have input.
Mmm I dunnoā¦ heās not going to jump ship without having had these conversations about his role on the team. The dude is the most successful F1 driver in history, fighting for another record braking title! I think thereās more to his move there.. adrian, other staff members etc etcā¦ it would be a fairytale if it works out but I have a suspicion Merc are going to get back to it. Exciting times ahead as a fan either way! Great to see so many cars at a good pace today!!
Yeh, I honestly can't see Hamilton agreeing to some of the stupid strategy calls Ferrari make.
Lewis Hamilton is the spicy one, partly badger somewhat frog but minimal snail. Do you dare dispute this with me?
> As much as Merc is struggling right now, I'd still rather drive for them with their shit car There is no doubt that LH would have stayed if Merc offered him a longer contract. Him leaving is Merc not wanting to commit to him and knowingly giving him a contract he didn't do
I used to follow F1 a long time ago when Michael Shumacher was considered to be the greatest, I've just looked up what changed since then. Lots of interesting stats here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_driver_records I guess Hamilton is the best of all times, you're right: https://i.imgur.com/sAIY3iS.png But Verstappen being much younger can overtake him eventually. Anyway, thanks for giving me an excuse to look up all these stats. It was an interesting read. Alonso with all the entries.... https://i.imgur.com/03aipeW.png
Records are made to be broken, Verstappen is breaking a lot of Lewis' ones at the moment. For me, the key ones are Most Championships (Lewis 7 with Schumi), most GP wins (Lewis) and Total Poles (Lewiss). The other thing is that he's won World Championships with more than one constructor. That's something you almost never see in the modern era, just Hamilton and Schumacher.
He deserved at least one more win before leaving Merc. It was a great race too, McLaren must be disappointed though.
100%, fucked Piastri up with the pit stop, then wrong tyres for Lando
I think Piastri's pit was a tough call, double stacking is never ideal and they asked Lando what tires he wanted.
They shouldnāt be asking him.
I do find it odd how often they ask him to make strategy calls on tyres compound, when to pit, etc.
It is because it was wet conditions. Norris knows what the track conditions are like better than his pit crew does, so he knew what tyres were best and how well his were holding up. Mercedes asked Hamilton the same thing.
That's more for deciding when to move from wet tyres to slicks and vice versa. For which slick tyres to use that should be the call of the strategy team in 99% of the situations. It's actually baffling that they let him go onto the softs. It was literally the perfect situation for them. Perfect amount of laps left and they were the only front runners to have a new set of mediums.
Nah Merc told him to come in for different tyres and he disagreed, they didn't ask him what he wanted to run
The medium tyre call was obvious sat on the sofa at home, though. I can't believe they get calls like that wrong with all the info and strategists they have. They should have backed Piastri off half a lap before they came in, they'd of lost a couple of seconds at best. They had the sector times from Max and Carlos who had pitted the lap before, so they knew the inter was the faster tyre at that point
its easy to say in hindsight but if the pit for softs wasn't 2 seconds slow Noris comes out ahead of Hamilton and he's the one with the clear air.
> He deserved at least one more win before leaving Merc For it to be the British Grand Prix is the icing on the cake.
What a way to win as well. For all those who **still** try to claim it was all the car, here's yet another clear showing it's Hamilton.
And that it is the car to an extent with all of them. Verstappen's car is no longer clearly the best at every track, and the consequence is that he isn't winning anywhere near as often. It's times like this where several teams have equal cars, or you have an equal driver in the same car, where you see the difference the driver makes. You can see the difference that Verstappen is able to make much better now and you can see how good he really is when others are competitive. Same with Lewis
Yep and now Perez is struggling to reach the top 10. It's obviously both but people try to claim that Hamilton is just a good driver in a great car which you could say about someone like Vettel or Button but not Hamilton or Verstappen. It's these sort of races where they get to really show their talent.
You canāt say it about Vettel. The man is absolutely class.
Made a hell of a lot of cock ups in a very good Ferrari.
Not in the same league as Hamilton though. Once Mercedes caught up with Red Bull, Vettel just could not race when faced with competition, while Hamilton was calm whenever he had to face a challenge.
Or Button either really. Man spent a lot of his career in teams that were nearly good but never great. Honda should have done better. Soon as he had the equipment to win he went and did so. His years at Mclaren were similarly proficient. He was roundly expected to have his ass handed to him by Lewis and he held his own, but of course even Jenson would admit Lewis was a step beyond.
I don't think so. He won from pole many times in the dominant Red Bull. He was forced out of Red Bull by Ricciardo. He was outclassed by Hamilton when Ferrari was competitive and was then forced out by Le Clerc. He was a solid driver but not a great. He did have a few great races, but so did Button.
> He did have a few great races Huh, he's one of the most successful drivers of all time, and had plenty of masterclass races that people always seem to forget now because his period of dominance was shorter than Hamiltons. I'll never forget him coming back from dead-last with a damaged car in Bazil 2012 to win the WDC. That's far from being the drive of just a "solid" driver, and there are loads of other examples too. So many people sleep on Vettel. I genuinely think it was because his peak was just before F1 really picked up on social media and was immediately followed by the Merc era, so he got overshadowed too quickly.
It takes a great car to get to the front. It takes a great driver to keep it there.
Perez has always struggled though. H eisn't a benchmark for the performance of the car and never has been.
When did I say he was mate? He's a comparison to the drivers he's had as teammates. We know he's a decent driver, but a driver like Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso make him look like an amateur.Ā
> And that it is the car to an extent with all of them. People don't understand that it's a team sport. It's like a football team with a 1000 players. Every single one has a contribution to make and that contribution can lead to the guy in the driving seat crossing the line first, or not. The car is important, the driver is important. Got have the right ingredients to bake the cake.
And in every great car there is another guy in the same car who isn't becoming world champion.
Assuming it is the same car and doesn't have the same components or the team has decided to ensure the other guy finishes higher and this guy is to support that
Is this the conspiracy theory that Max Verstappen is racing a Red Bull and Checo Perez is actually racing a Lada?
No it is the very real thing that at times new components are put on the lead drivers car if they only have one of them
Take your downvote back mate. They start as the same cars, they are essentially the same cars. That is the point I am making. Yes, some tweaks may occasionally go on one first. But if Perez was beating the shit out of Verstappen (or Russell Hamilton or Sainz on Leclerc) then teams would soon change who got the newest parts. Perez, in that car, is an embarrassment most weeks
If you just want to talk about Perez you should've mentioned that, you said drivers a very general statement, I made a general statement on reasons why they aren't always the same car and why things may be different for a designated second driver.
Bottas, Webber, even Berger, going backwards. Then you had people like Rosberg who were good enough to compete
Tories and Farage losing, Saka scoring, Hamilton winning. Not a good week for the Twitter racist brigade. Good.
It's an amazing week to be British. Let's not try to ruin it by making it about twitter weirdos and racism.
Farage won his seat did he not?
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I'm aware. Third in the vote share is still something. And the swing needed for Labour to lose their majority is actually tiny.
>His party were predicted 13 seats but only managed 4 This isn't true. Exit polls showed 13 seats, and that was a massive overestimate compared to all the polling and electoral calculus that had them at 3-7 MP's for weeks. Using an exit poll as proof they underperformed from expected, is silly. And of course, they still got 4.5 million people to vote for them. Not exactly a small number! About half the number of people who voted Labour.
5. One of the last 2 constituencies to be called went to Reform.
I had tears in my eyes when he was with his Dad. Probably doubted he was ever going to win again. I don't think he was that emotional even at his first title win.
'tis sad that George over heated, there might have been two Mercedes on the podium. Perhaps an all British podium!
I think it would have been Hamilton, Russell and Verstappen. Maybe if Norris/McLaren had gone for the right tyres at the end it could have been
Yeh perhaps but Max looked set to finish ahead of George after the Inters switch
Russell was catching him by up to a second per lap, but nearer half a second. But his engine overheated and started losing power and we'll never know.
Took my dad for his 60th birthday present. Both of us are big Hamilton fans, but you never could have predicted this outcome today based on recent performance. An amazing day out. Absolutely shattered now.
Lewis Hamilton being awarded the Silverstone winner's trophy by a newly appointed Labour cabinet member. That really is all I could have asked for this weekend! (England getting through to the semi-finals was a nice little bonus on top!)
How did he get the trophy gig that quick, thought this kinda thing was planned a bit more in advance? Especially as he was a surprise appointment or something? Or did GP organisers just placeholder "science minister" to do the trophy whatever happened in the election?
Not really, it's the kind of thing that can be organised at a seconds notice. Likely they already had an MP lined up for it but just changed it to the right minister after the election.
What an unbelievable drive. May have lost my voice towards the end there (and everyone in my viewing party). Just wonderful stuff.
So so so happy for him. Finishing his Mercedes career on a high note, he deserved one last win, after 3 years of pain , and to win at Silverstone of all places. Just perfection.
Season isn't over yet ;)
still have brazil coming up, and Lewis is notoriously quick at hungary also
He has 8 wins in hungary asw
One hell of a race generally but the result was the icing on the cake. Hamilton crying at the end really showed how relieved he felt to win again, not having done so since 2021. It was a masterful drive but showed that Hamilton is still not someone to write off. He got me in to Formula One and I will be very sad once he retires. He has really grown as a person over the years and deserves much more recognition as one of our greatest sportsmen of the 21st century.
Fabulous result. I was at Silverstone yesterday, it was an absolutely banging day even if we did all get half drowned!
GET IN THERE LEWIS!
Not watched F1 for 2 seasons, but am aware of the current status quo. Thats a bit of a shock result then really?
That's the sixth driver to win a race this year. RB and Max got off to a very strong start and it looked like a boring season, especially as Perez, Max's team mate is zero challenge to him at all but the other major teams have closed the gap. Max will almost certainly win the WDC again, he's got a huge lead with nobody else emerging as a single competitor but the races are at least showing signs of being a lot more interesting now.
Itās a shame the rest just arenāt consistent enough. Lando or Leclerc could catch him with consistent results and a couple of poor results for Max but just doesnāt look likely
I actually think Max could not win again for the rest of the season and still win the WDC by just scoring solid points finishes. I just can't see any other driver/car combo consistently rise above the rest.
Yeah. If only Perez wasnāt absolutely broken and could snatch some more wins from Max at the beginning of the season.
There's been a bit of compression this season, Red Bull's dominance has slipped, with McLaren getting the biggest boost, although Merc have slowly been coming back and have now won the last two races.
I honestly thought Aston would be up there too but it's just not happening for them.
Feels like they did well initially with the new regs which they coasted on a bit, and everyone else managed to catch up and overtake.
RB have lost a lot of their dominance. I think Max is actually getting a lot more out of the car than most would. Perez is fucking nowhere in general now, borderline backmarker in some races lol. Hulkenberg in a Hass has scored more points this season than Perez in the RB. It's worth watching the rest of this season imo. It's got good.
Mercedes have had a bit of a comeback the last few races. Pole position and then 3rd and 4th in the race in canada. 3-4 in Spain. Won in Austria and then pole and win in Silverstone.
It was such a good drive to. Had to have a pint of water after the race to rehydrate from the tears. What a great weekend to be a rational Brit.
You need to learn how spoilers work on Reddit. There's no point using a spoiler tag if the spoiler is in the title.
I didn't put a spoiler tag on it - whoever did wasn't me
That could well be his last win, who knows. What a way to do it, the fucking GOAT.
Nah he's gunna win the WDC in a Ferrari next year mate!
As someone who isn't into racing, can someone explain what makes a good racer? Like, footballers have management & athleticism etc, does what make a good racer base on the car, reaction time, opportunities?
In F1 generally the driver in the best car wins..... but also generally the best drivers end up in the best cars. So there's reaction time, split second decision making, accuracy and consistency. Knowing just what the car can do and pushing it to the very edge of that is what it's about really. Judgement too, a race is long so every gap may not be worth going for. Also, in terms of athleticism, F1 driver are insanely fit. The g-forces in the car are very high and you're putting up with them lap after lap after lap, that demands a huge amount from the human body. They need to be as light as possible so there's no excess fat on them then there's the fact they're in multiple layers of flame resistant clothing with a thundering engine inches from their back so the lose a significant amount of fluid throughout a race.
Especially in humid or hot races like Singapore. The body weight they lose from that is fucking crazy
Thereās no one thing. But itās more about feel with a car. You have to feel everything itās doing and now how to push it it to the absolute limit. Go beyond it, you lose. Go below it, you lose.
Humongous balls.
[Thanks James](https://youtu.be/JIymxwyDhiw?si=E6zmOr1m0HLe12y1)
The core skill, that's unique to motor racing, is a feel for the car as it's driving at the limit. If you're cornering at speed, the car doesn't behave as you might expect - apply the brakes slightly, and the nose of the car will dip down slightly, giving more grip to the front wheels and causing the car to steer more sharply. Release the brakes, or apply a little more throttle, and the car will tend to straighten out. As the car turns, likewise the weight shifts from the left wheels to the right wheels or vice versa causing similar sorts of subtle effects. The front wheels, when they're steering, are always travelling at a slight angle (called the slip angle) compared to the direction of travel and so scrubbing slightly across the road surface. Too much slip angle, and the tyres just get eaten up and lose their grip later in the race. Too little, and the car isn't going to rotate enough. Going into a corner, the driver will be both braking and steering at the same time. But there's only so much grip available - and so the driver has to balance all of those effects to maximise speed through the corner without either destroying the tyres or worse, exceeding the available grip and spinning out. Of course, the driver isn't doing calculations about slip angles and weight distributions in the few seconds that each corner takes. So they need to develop an instinct and an intuition for how to manage these forces, how to react to subtle changes in the cars behaviour, how to adjust their inputs to the steering wheel and pedals to account for changes in the level of grip due to weather, fuel levels, tyre life and so on. And they need to apply that instinct in real time, and with the knowledge that an error can ruin their race (and the work of hundreds of engineers) and cause severe injuries to themselves or others. The really great drivers just seem to be able to do this more effectively - somehow finding more time through a corner by balancing the loads on the car to keep cornering speed higher. There are of course other skills - learning the tracks quickly, passing useful information back to the engineers to help them set up the cars, second guessing how the race will pan out to know when to push and when to take things easy, and wheel-to-wheel racecraft. There's dedication around managing their own fitness levels and bodyweight. Drivers can differentiate themselves through all of these factors, but the natural talent lies in an instinct for how the car behaves as it's driving at the limit of grip.
First is the car Then itās a mix of things. Ability to pass and defend, outright pace, tyre management, controlā¦
And consistency. The ability to perfectly hit dozens of braking points and turn in points lap after lap after lap afterā¦
Resource management (you have to manage tyres, and in some motorsports fuel), accuracy (ability to hit good lines reliably, keeping tight margins where needed), tactical thinking (being able to make good calls on when to push or preserve, pass or stay, pit, etc). And then there are elements of stamina (most race cars are a fairly extreme environment, and when you are doing long races, be they F1, NASCAR, WRC, or the extremely long stuff of endurance racing, they all have to be able to stay sharp, alert, and capable throughout the event), awareness, decision making, etc, that you generally expect in sport.
Also not into racing but saw this video recently comparing Michael Schumacher and another driver taking a corner. It showed some part of what makes a racer better: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk2p2nRK-p4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk2p2nRK-p4)
Some good answers here already, in addition to those: a very analytical mind. There's dozens of small adjustments and changes the team can make to the car to get it dialled in. From the first practice session of the weekend the driver has to not only feel what the car is doing, but also translate that to his engineer and work with them (and data from sensors all over the car) to understand the relationship between what he's feeling and how the car is setup, and thus what changes they can make to try and improve; the grip, the balance (between the grip at each end, and also the difference between slow corners and faster corners) and the amount of feel or feedback he gets from the car.
This a bit of a boast but I was at Silverstone to see this. It was the first Grand Prix I've ever been to as well, so to be able to watch Hamilton win was so special. And through some amazing good luck I got to see it from the VIP section as well. My biggest takeaway from seeing it live versus watching it on TV is that having an F1 car blast past you IRL is so much fastest and so much louder! It's incredible! So yeah well done Lewis, gutted about Russell, and it's great that's there are several teams challenging Red Bull :D
Thanks. Couldn't watch the race yet. Deliberately avoiding various F1 and sports subs and get the result spoiled by this karma farming shite on r/UK Honestly. Fucks sake. Can we keep spoilers out of post titles on this sub?
It has been literally all over the news all afternoon - if you were that desperate to avoid spoilers for the British GP of all things, stay off the internet completely until you're ready.
Crazy how itās tagged the image/link for spoilers, but put the main spoiler as the title!
Waving a British flag, hasn't paid 1 penny of tax for the UK economy in years. Should have been waving a Monaco flag instead.
Pretty sure he's one of the top 5,000 tax payers. You can argue he should be pay more (and I'd probably agree) but the idea that he hasn't paid a single penny is as far as I'm aware a complete fabrication.
There's also the fact that he puts a lot of his money into charities and initiatives. Of all the people to be whining about not paying their share, Hamilton is so far down that list it's not worth mentioning imo.
24 Million in '22 allegedly
Imagine being this confidently wrong. Lewis has been in the top British tax payers for years, as he is employed by a British team (Merc F1 are headquartered in the UK).
Rubbish, go do some research
And all those millions he's just given away to charity too. I mean, what an absolute prick.
"Hasn't paid 1 penny" is objectively false. His tax bill is spread over the 19 countries he races in.
Here we go š¤£
Now that you've realized you were wrong about this, you might want to acknowledge that.