Rantbox

[CoopsII]

Oh FFS.

Y'see what these knobhead journos don't pause to consider when they stoke up the conspiracy theories is that stupid people who don't follow F1 believe it and the knock-on effect of that is that I spend most of the morning answering stupid questions from stupid people in the office on a range of subjects that include Mercedes wanting Hamilton to fail because he isn't German and F1 being bad because "it's all a fix".

<breathe out>

[Rob Dylan]

My current Multi-21 t-shirt is out of date. When are Sniffpetrol going to release the Multi-333 t-shirt!?!?

[andrew]

As some may know from my ROTR post, there was a poll on the BBC sport website asking weather or not Rosberg deserves to win this years title, the result of this was approximately 75% of people saying he does not deserve the title,

How disrespectful is it too say that Rosberg doesn't deserve the title, he has driven very well this year taking advantage of hamiltons bad days, let's look at all the race where Hamilton had weekend defining issues. Malaysia is fair enough as he retired and also China as he started last and got caught up in the t2. However Russia, he started 10th and due to Vettel, Kvyat, Riccardo and Perez he was up to 5th eventually finishing 2nd, so he lost barley anything. In Spa he started last, and again due to mayhem he was 5th by the time of the red flag. Yet when he passed Hulkenburg for 3rd he made no inroads into Riccardo despite having a whole weekend geared towards the race and fresh tyres, Rosberg had a major problem in Silverstone and both had engine mapping issues in Baku, something Rosberg drove around. Singapore, it was true that in fp2 he had issues, but he also made too many mistakes and Rosberg was sublime.

Some certain media outlets have also claimed Lewis has been unlucky as he has made many bad starts and has left Nico unchallenged, although this is true on face value, he is the one starting the car, in Australia he was mired into the pack stuck behind sainz, while Rosberg pulled away behind the ferraris, in Bahrain he was rammed by Bottas, but had he got a good start he would have been fine. Rosberg has made the good starts more often and has converted more poles to victories (and leading the first lap) and hasn't needed to overtake as much (a weakness for Rosberg) as he has not so often put himself into the situation with bad qulaifying or starts. In conclusion basically last year when Hamilton led from the front and Nico had issues, nobody said Hamilton doesn't deserve the title, now it is the other way round, why are we saying this now?

[CoopsII]

How disrespectful is it too say that Rosberg doesn't deserve the title,

There's a thread somewhere on this very forum where forum members have listed drivers they feel are undeserving of their F1 titles because finishing with more points than anybody else isn't enough for some people.

You should expect the thread to be revived and Rosbergs name to be added to it should he win.

It's always seemed silly to me and more about people not liking certain drivers but if the thread had been named Drivers That I Don't Like it would've made it more obvious how juvenile the whole thing was.

[watka]

Difficult to argue that Lewis has not had the larger share of issues this year and also difficult to argue that Nico has made less mistakes. I think people will naturally favour a driver who has to triumph through some adversity (see Webber and Alonso vs Vettel in recent years). Has he been a better driver than Lewis this year? Maybe not, but the title is not decided on this basis, it is about making the best of your opportunities. If it was on that basis, then maybe Ricciardo should be champion this year.

[CoopsII]

I'm not a fan of Rosberg, I personally find him dull, dull, dull. In terms of German drivers find even Ralf Schumacher more entertaining than him. I did, however, really like his approach at the start of the season when every other journo kept telling him the title was his to lose now, he was modest and realistic and I think it's time for an F1 champion like that.

[dr-baker]

I'm not a fan of Rosberg, I personally find him dull, dull, dull. In terms of German drivers find even Ralf Schumacher more entertaining than him.

Yeah, but you are still slightly bored by Nick Heidfeld, right?

[CoopsII]

I'm not a fan of Rosberg, I personally find him dull, dull, dull. In terms of German drivers find even Ralf Schumacher more entertaining than him.

Yeah, but you are still slightly bored by Nick Heidfeld, right?

Oh yes. Thats why you'll always find Heidfeld in the kitchen at Frentzens parties.

[Meatwad]

It's always seemed silly to me and more about people not liking certain drivers but if the thread had been named Drivers That I Don't Like it would've made it more obvious how juvenile the whole thing was.

Or Drivers That Beat the Drivers I Like. Remember how many Massa fans hated Hamilton and thought he was undeserving, Alonso and Hamilton fans thought the same of Vettel and so on...

[EuroBrun]

I'm not a fan of Rosberg, I personally find him dull, dull, dull.

When he gives interviews to the Italian tv he is always joking, being genuine and natural, especially when he is correcting the interviewer on her Italian language.

[CoopsII]

I'm not a fan of Rosberg, I personally find him dull, dull, dull.

When he gives interviews to the Italian tv he is always joking, being genuine and natural, especially when he is correcting the interviewer on her Italian language.

I think to be honest me moaning about a modern F1 driver being dull is a bit like moaning because it's dark at night. Rosberg comes across really well in terms of politeness and humility and I genuinely hope that, if he wins the title, he manages to win over some of those other "fans" who think they're ever so clever by abusing him all the time.

[DanielPT]

I'm not a fan of Rosberg, I personally find him dull, dull, dull.

When he gives interviews to the Italian tv he is always joking, being genuine and natural, especially when he is correcting the interviewer on her Italian language.

I think to be honest me moaning about a modern F1 driver being dull is a bit like moaning because it's dark at night. Rosberg comes across really well in terms of politeness and humility and I genuinely hope that, if he wins the title, he manages to win over some of those other "fans" who think they're ever so clever by abusing him all the time.

I have to admit that Rosberg looks like the kind of guy whom it is easy to make fun of. Still my only issue with him is that he cannot make a clean campaign. One without some sort of shenanigans happening in which he always (or almost) looks a bit guilty. In some of these he even reeks of desperation. And that, in the end, is what makes him an easy target for jokes.

Still, if he wins, he will certainly deserve it.

[mario]

I'm not a fan of Rosberg, I personally find him dull, dull, dull.

When he gives interviews to the Italian tv he is always joking, being genuine and natural, especially when he is correcting the interviewer on her Italian language.

I think to be honest me moaning about a modern F1 driver being dull is a bit like moaning because it's dark at night. Rosberg comes across really well in terms of politeness and humility and I genuinely hope that, if he wins the title, he manages to win over some of those other "fans" who think they're ever so clever by abusing him all the time.

The impression that Will Buxton gave of Rosberg was that Rosberg's attitude very much depends on the person he is talking to, as if he is always seeking to try and present the image that he thinks would create the best impression with the person he is talking to.

He gave the example that, after the clash between Rosberg and Hamilton in Belgium a few years ago, Rosberg would completely change his attitude when giving interviews with journalists from different countries. He watched how, when he spoke to journalists from the UK, he spoke in a very humble manner and his body language was such that it made it look as if he was embarrassed about what had happened, presenting an image of contrition to soften the questions from those journalists.

As soon as the German journalists came to speak to Rosberg, which was just a few minutes later, his attitude changed completely to what seemed like the polar opposite response. Gone was any sense of contrition, and he came across very forcefully, almost boastfully, about how he had shown that Hamilton couldn't push him about on track. He played humble to the UK press to try and soften their criticism, but he played up the image of being a tough guy to the German press to counter their criticism that he was being too passive on track.

It does feel as if, at times, there is a slight falseness to him, as if he is sometimes being "the nice guy" not because that is how he would normally act in that situation, but because he thinks that it is what you want him to do in those circumstances.

[Ataxia]

Today, I would like to rant about Lewis Hamilton's antics in the Thursday press conference, followed by his subsequent antics after qualifying. I try not to rise to his egotistical exploits, but his attitude today has really got my goat. Let's call this rant...I dunno...Lewie Lewis and the News.

All drivers will have to do a pre-weekend press conference at some point. That's just an inevitability of F1. Regardless of what you think of them, they're not for fans, they're for the press...uh, hence the name. A top F1 driver lives an incredibly charmed life, earning a shedload of money for driving a racing car; isn't that just the childhood dream? In exchange for having these wonderful doors open for them, all a driver has to commit to is doing a few PR events a year and attending the press conferences. Pretty good deal, right?

So, Hamilton gets the call up to do the Thursday press conference this weekend. Instead of paying attention for twenty-or-so minutes, he decides to pull out his phone and arse about with Snapchat like a bored teenager at a family dinner. Meanwhile, you have journalists and members of the press trying to do their own jobs. A lot of the time, F1 journalists have to pay for their own education, FIA accreditations (and in the case of freelancers, their travel and paddock pass). They flirt with the breadline in order to follow a career they love, and when a multi-millionaire with an ego so inflated that it could float effortlessly in the middle of the Pacific decides that he's too good for their questions, they are naturally going to take a dim view.

Cue the papers the next day, vilifying Hamilton for his actions. Whilst the pitchforks were certainly out in full force, he had certainly been disrespectful to those journalists, and their annoyance was perhaps justified. Then, Mr. Hamilton decides to go one better. In the post-qualifying press conference, he accused the journalists of being disrespectful themselves before leaving. This just...beggars belief.

First of all, how lacking in self-awareness is Hamilton that he decides to throw all of these people under the bus when they'd not really done anything wrong? He took to Twitter to moan that "press conferences should be asking questions from the fans". Erm, it's called a PRESS conference for a reason. He later defused (unwittingly) his own argument by leaving the post-quali session to go to the fan Q&A. You know, the one where the fans ask the questions?

You cannot have your cake and eat it, and you cannot expect to race cars, win races, enjoy all of the perks of being a F1 champion without experiencing the less interesting events. It's not good form to sit and fiddle with your phone to put a cat filter on your own face. Lewis, you're a f*cking 31-year-old man. Act like it.

Bringing me back to the bit about journalists working hard to get to where they are, I get the feeling Hamilton doesn't really know what that's like. He talks about his working-class upbringing, but it was his dad who worked to give his son a better life. He then got into McLaren, living on his racing talent, and after reaching F1 kicking his dad to the curb later on. The guy's got the empathetic capacity of an indifferent limpet, seriously. He's paid $30M+ to represent Mercedes. DO YOUR F*CKING JOB.

[Aguaman]

Well the Press Conferences are dull. Nothing wrong with snapchatting them. Maybe the media should ask better questions or not make crappy news out of something so small.

[mario]

A lot of the time, F1 journalists have to pay for their own education, FIA accreditations (and in the case of freelancers, their travel and paddock pass). They flirt with the breadline in order to follow a career they love, and when a multi-millionaire with an ego so inflated that it could float effortlessly in the middle of the Pacific decides that he's too good for their questions, they are naturally going to take a dim view.

To be brutally honest, if I was a motorsport journalist right now, I would probably be more worried about my job due to further consolidation of the remaining press titles in the motorsport journalism sector than Hamilton's indifference.

I'm surprised that there haven't been any comments about this given it will affect one of the big names in the motorsport press, but it has been announced that the Haymarket Media Group, the company that owns Autosport (and all of its spin off events), as well as a number of other motorsport publications and motorsport photographic agencies, has sold their entire motorsport division off to Motorsport Network, the company best known for motorsport.com.

I know some posters here had been complaining that Autosport's journalistic coverage seems to have been declining, and it seems that was as a consequence of Haymarket trying to squeeze down on costs (and the headcount) within Autosport as a way of trying to keep profits up. However, it seems that it hasn't had the desired effect - as some have noted, it seems as if people have tended to drift away from Autosport given that it doesn't offer anything especially different from other publications these days - so they are now cutting all ties with the world of motorsport journalism.

Although there are reports that around 70 people will be transferred from Autosport across to Motorsport Network's offices, there is still an expectation that there will be what is euphemistically called a "rationalisation of costs" - basically, that they'll cut the number of journalists and reuse the same story from just one journalist across multiple different sites and print publications.

To a certain extent, I wonder if it is a reflection of growing disinterest in motorsport as a whole - it is true that the increase in competition and the rise of some more sensationalist outlets has eaten into their profitability, but equally there is the issue that a number of those organisations are struggling to draw in new young readers to replace an ageing demographic. It feels like there is a trend to try and stretch the same story out as far as possible, or to go for more "click bait" stories to create more surges in attention, hence we end up discussing stories like this.

Whilst what Hamilton did was foolish and, in many ways, a bit childish, at the same time it is, in the grand scheme of things, not really that much of a story - quite a few drivers have complained about the behaviour of the press and done things like walk out of press conferences or lash out at the press (sometimes physically as well as verbally). For example, you could make a similar argument for the photographer that Kimi pushed over when he complained that he was disrupting his preparation for the grid was just doing his job at the time, and nobody really cared about that story after a few days.

It feels like this whole incident being stretched into a bigger story than it is because, in many ways, there has been little else of interest to discuss this weekend and the press needed something - anything - to create some headlines to draw in more casual readers. I mean, a headline like "Kimi tries out new front wing" is only going to attract the interest of a few of the more hardcore readers, but "Hamilton causes uproar in media conference" is going to attract a lot more interest from more casual readers.

[Rob Dylan]

This race is a good summation of why I dislike Hamilton. The holding up of his teammate into the other drivers was not sporting, though we all knew he was going to do it, because Hamilton does that kind of thing. However, one can argue that Nico may have done the same thing had the roles been reversed in a hypothetical situation. What irked me about Lewis was his complete grump-fest following the race. He had spent the entire race trying to deliberately (I want to say 'sabotage' but that word has had other subtexts since 2014 ) sabotage his teammate's race, and when his tactics failed and Rosberg won the championship anyway, he behaved 'like a five-year-old who's just dropped all of his sweets'. It was like a compete denial that he could have lost. The guy is just far too entitled and up his own arse, and I'm even more glad than I thought I would be today to see him lose the title today.

But that's just my opinion...

[CoopsII]

This race is a good summation of why I dislike Hamilton. The holding up of his teammate into the other drivers was not sporting, though we all knew he was going to do it, because Hamilton does that kind of thing. However, one can argue that Nico may have done the same thing had the roles been reversed in a hypothetical situation. What irked me about Lewis was his complete grump-fest following the race. He had spent the entire race trying to deliberately (I want to say 'sabotage' but that word has had other subtexts since 2014 ) sabotage his teammate's race, and when his tactics failed and Rosberg won the championship anyway, he behaved 'like a five-year-old who's just dropped all of his sweets'. It was like a compete denial that he could have lost. The guy is just far too entitled and up his own arse, and I'm even more glad than I thought I would be today to see him lose the title today.

But that's just my opinion...

Because if Hamilton had just disappeared into the distance and made Rosberg look slow that would've made for a better race? I think it's a pity Hamilton didn't employ the same tactic in Brazil.

I couldn't believe Vettel and Verstappen couldn't catch the Mercs when they were going slow.

[yannicksamlad]

This race is a good summation of why I dislike Hamilton. The holding up of his teammate into the other drivers was not sporting, though we all knew he was going to do it, because Hamilton does that kind of thing. However, one can argue that Nico may have done the same thing had the roles been reversed in a hypothetical situation. What irked me about Lewis was his complete grump-fest following the race. He had spent the entire race trying to deliberately (I want to say 'sabotage' but that word has had other subtexts since 2014 ) sabotage his teammate's race, and when his tactics failed and Rosberg won the championship anyway, he behaved 'like a five-year-old who's just dropped all of his sweets'. It was like a compete denial that he could have lost. The guy is just far too entitled and up his own arse, and I'm even more glad than I thought I would be today to see him lose the title today.

But that's just my opinion...

Because if Hamilton had just disappeared into the distance and made Rosberg look slow that would've made for a better race? I think it's a pity Hamilton didn't employ the same tactic in Brazil.

I couldn't believe Vettel and Verstappen couldn't catch the Mercs when they were going slow.

Does it depend what you mean by 'better'? There's more drama in a football match if the defender pushes the attacker over , gets sent off and there's a penalty that may or may not be scored after 90 seconds of arguing with the ref...as opposed to the attacker having a chance of scoring. But is pushing people over really football? Or taking the ball into the corner to waste time at the end of a match? Is driving slow really racing, when its not attempting to get the best result possible by preserving tyres etc and its just to spoil someone else's race And if that other person is your team mate..its worse.

It was tense because of Lewis. If Lewis and Nico had just cleared off it would have been less tense. But I didnt like seeing Lewis doing that; its not motor racing. If Nasr spent the middle of the race trying to back Marcus into a Renault , or something , in order to be able to finish an extra place ahead of his team mate ( and look better compared to him) --we'd think that was wrong, wouldnt we?

[CoopsII]

^ Not sure Hamilton's driving style could really be described as 'fouling' in the football context you give. Had Rosberg lunged and there had been contact then that could be different. I'm glad that didn't happen not least because it would have certain areas of the media working themselves into a frenzy over it even more than they are now ("Lewis could be sacked from Mercedes!!!" He will be one day, but not for a while). The time-wasting example is, perhaps, closer to what Hamilton did except it was his own time he was wasting too.

If you didn't enjoy the race then you're not alone but I would still argue that the race Mercedes wanted it's drivers to have yesterday would've been much more straightforward - Hamilton wins race, Rosberg wins title, see you next year.

[DemocalypseNow]

Let's face it, Mercedes gave the order because they wanted to avoid this exact PR disaster. They wanted people to be talking positively about a clean cut world championship victory, without controversy, so they could instead focus on sculpting positive headlines around the brand. Lewis and his ego usurped that. He made the story of Abu Dhabi about the drivers rather than the team. This is not what they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.

What Hamilton did on track is fine. He did not cross the line from tactical driving to outright cheating like others in 1990, 1994 or 1997. What bothers me is he did not have the magnanimity to simply say he played his hand and it wasn't enough, and give credit where it was due to Rosberg. Nico found himself boxed in, on a highwire, and balanced the situation deftly to deliver the championship.

The only issue I see here is Hamilton's lack of decorum. Sure, disappointment I can understand, but it's unsportsmanlike not to congratulate the winner in the case of a fair fight, which this certainly was. Rosberg's win was not an unethical one. He won this by the book. If you can't respect that, you can't respect anything.

[Meatwad]

The only issue I see here is Hamilton's lack of decorum. Sure, disappointment I can understand, but it's unsportsmanlike not to congratulate the winner in the case of a fair fight, which this certainly was. Rosberg's win was not an unethical one. He won this by the book. If you can't respect that, you can't respect anything.

Hamilton did congratulate Rosberg. They hugged in parc fermé and in the podium interviews he said:

And a big congratulations to Nico, of course, his first world championship. Good job, man.

I don't think he wanted to do either, but he did.

[mario]

Let's face it, Mercedes gave the order because they wanted to avoid this exact PR disaster. They wanted people to be talking positively about a clean cut world championship victory, without controversy, so they could instead focus on sculpting positive headlines around the brand. Lewis and his ego usurped that. He made the story of Abu Dhabi about the drivers rather than the team. This is not what they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.

On the other hand, it could be argued that Mercedes had already damaged the chances of people talking about a clean cut victory before then by the actions of their own senior management.

The way in which Wolff tried to lean on Max Verstappen a few weeks earlier not to interfere in the title battle - such as by phoning Jos Verstappen to get him to tell Max to "wind it in" - lead to rather negative headlines and a bit of an unseemly exchange with Horner, who was understandably a bit aggrieved to effectively be told "we don't want your drivers trying to compete with our drivers on track".

Before that phone call, he had been publicly criticising Verstappen for "banging wheels with the championship leader" - i.e. with Rosberg - and complaining about his "ruthless" attitude. By then trying to lean on Max to take it easy so soon after making remarks criticising him for fighting on track with Rosberg, it gave the unfortunate impression in some quarters (not just in the UK press, but also in some quarters in the German press) that he was intervening on Rosberg's behalf in the title battle. Some of that negative sentiment was still lingering in Abu Dhabi, and I think that would still have coloured the attitude of the press towards Rosberg irrespective of how the race played out.

[razta]

I've been having this very rant about Hamilton's behaviour/insubordination towards his employers on facebook and twitter.. fact is..

dude, you're forgetting one major overriding factor.. who pays Hamilton's wages? Exactly, and like any other job, he has to do what he is told to do.. and as I've said before regardless of weather or not the team already has the constructors title or not, he has a responsibility to do the main objective and fulfil the responsibility as an employee. And he's not doing this free of charge, also what do you do when you don't like a job? Yes that's right.. nothing is stopping him leaving. What makes it doubly worse is articles like that where by he's literally bad mouthed his employer and expects to be treated like a king. Can you imagine someone like that working for you?

what makes it worse is the bathplug short term memory hammy fanboys have.. talking about reliability... Schumacher 2006 literally lost the title in Japan that year when his engine blew up, what did he do? exactly took it like a man. something that hammy said he will do, but never did..
Also since 2013 to now, Nico has had TWICE the amount of DNFs than Hammy 8-4 yet just cos hammy had 1 this year at Malaysia it's a biblical tragedy... what's more is that hammy's motto "we win together, we lose together" try losing with dignity mate, cos you don't have none.. even JYS said it..

And when i use these facts, and logic.. apparently I'm anti ham

[Ataxia]

Don't get involved in arguing with the Illewminati, it's pointless. It's best just to ignore what they have to say.

[razta]

Don't get involved in arguing with the Illewminati, it's pointless. It's best just to ignore what they have to say.

what's dumb about it all is that I just post my own stuff on my own timeline.. for some reason, they feel that's wrong

[CoopsII]

It's funny how sharp peoples moral compasses become in situations like this, isn't it?

[watka]

I've been having this very rant about Hamilton's behaviour/insubordination towards his employers on facebook and twitter.. fact is..

dude, you're forgetting one major overriding factor.. who pays Hamilton's wages? Exactly, and like any other job, he has to do what he is told to do.. and as I've said before regardless of weather or not the team already has the constructors title or not, he has a responsibility to do the main objective and fulfil the responsibility as an employee. And he's not doing this free of charge, also what do you do when you don't like a job? Yes that's right.. nothing is stopping him leaving. What makes it doubly worse is articles like that where by he's literally bad mouthed his employer and expects to be treated like a king. Can you imagine someone like that working for you?

what makes it worse is the bathplug short term memory hammy fanboys have.. talking about reliability... Schumacher 2006 literally lost the title in Japan that year when his engine blew up, what did he do? exactly took it like a man. something that hammy said he will do, but never did..
Also since 2013 to now, Nico has had TWICE the amount of DNFs than Hammy 8-4 yet just cos hammy had 1 this year at Malaysia it's a biblical tragedy... what's more is that hammy's motto "we win together, we lose together" try losing with dignity mate, cos you don't have none.. even JYS said it..

And when i use these facts, and logic.. apparently I'm anti ham

I totally agree with all and sundry that Hamilton finds graciousness beyond his grasp. Even when he does congratulate Rosberg and others it comes across as insincere. However, to say that Hamilton wasn't unfortunate this year and that he should have effectively not tried to win the championship is going a bit far.

Your DNF stats are completely off from what I can see. If by "since 2013" you mean the Mercedes championship seasons of 2014-16 then Rosberg had 5 DNFs (includes 1 classified finish, but was effectively a DNF) to Hamilton's 6. If you take out DNFs due to crashes/accident damage, then it's Rosberg 4, Hamilton 4; was the two taking each other out in a 50:50 incident in Spain this year and Rosberg causing damage to Hamilton's car in Belgium in 2014. So Hamilton hasn't exactly had the rub of the green over Rosberg, or vice versa for that matter.

What made the retirement in Malaysia so damning was that it was on the way to a fairly routine looking victory, in a race where Rosberg was set to finish 4th; this in a season where Mercedes 1-2s were by far the norm. On top of this, he had just been making his way back from a big points deficit and the win would have been a big one over Rosberg, who'd won the previous 3 races. Whilst Hamilton would have had the championship lead coming away from that race, the championship was far from settled, but what it did create was a scenario in which Hamilton could afford zero error. Japan was that error and from then on even with 4 races to go, it was game over.

Yes, Schumacher is the model in this scenario for dealing with mechanical issues as the 2006 failure was similarly, if not more, soul-destroying. But you cannot blame Hamilton for thinking he was at the least equal to Rosberg this season and then doing all he can, within the rules, in an attempt to win the championship when the numbers were set against him. What's more, we can look back now and say that Rosberg dealt with the unique challenge that was thrown at him incredibly well and thus took the title maybe even more deservedly than otherwise.

I don't see why Mercedes were getting so het up about the scenario, surely the best way to generate negative publicity for your brand is to tell your drivers not to race in this era of open radio?

[razta]

oh on the Malaysia point.. Nico effectively started from the back after getting spun round by Vettel..

[watka]

oh on the Malaysia point.. Nico effectively started from the back after getting spun round by Vettel..

I counter that with the help from the safety car and that Hamilton started from the back in China and Belgium.

[Nuppiz]

I counter that with the help from the safety car and that Hamilton started from the back in China and Belgium.

Where Hamilton received a massive help from a safety car as well...

Fact is, Rosberg scored more points and is thus the rightful champ, Hamilton is a whiney crybaby, and I've had enough of this subforum.

Good night.

[Wallio]

Hamilton is becoming the new Webber.

[mario]

Schumacher 2006 literally lost the title in Japan that year when his engine blew up, what did he do? exactly took it like a man.

Mind you, that was the same season where Schumacher had also been extremely heavily criticised after the stewards ruled that he was guilty of blocking Alonso's qualifying lap in the Monaco GP in an attempt to secure pole position. Schumacher's behaviour that season was multi-faceted - whilst there were times in that season when he may have acted in a laudable manner, there were also times when his behaviour brought him nothing but shame and disgrace.

[Wallio]

The thing that got me most about Suzuka 2006, is on the season review DVD. Schumi goes back to the pits, after as has been said, just losing the championship, and shakes the hands of all the mechanics, and says Thank you. One mechanic replies with "I'm Sorry" to which Schumi says "Don't Be". And from his face, it was clear he meant it. That always stayed with me.

I'll be honest, with Button retired I can't imagine any current driver doing that.

[dr-baker]

I'll be honest, with Button retired I can't imagine any current driver doing that.

I could imagine Massa doing the same, but as you implied, he too is retired and no longer current.

[CoopsII]

Regarding Hamilton-driving-slow-gate, I think the upset people should just calm down. I'm sure there will be a new rule put in place soon to make sure what happened last Sunday NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.

That'll make things better, won't it?

[Rob Dylan]

Regarding Hamilton-driving-slow-gate, I think the upset people should just calm down. I'm sure there will be a new rule put in place soon to make sure what happened last Sunday NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.

That'll make things better, won't it?

You can be so cruel when you're sobre

[CoopsII]

You can be so cruel when you're sobre

I'm liking the spelling of sober as "sobre" and I hope that's a form of the word I'm not aware of rather than a typo. I intend to start using it immediately and extensively over the holiday season. When people ask if I'm drinking I will shake my head condescendingly and say..

"No, no, I am, in fact, sobre"

And execute a low flourishing bow.

[CoopsII]

My rant is that I hope everyone on here has a great Christmas and if you don't celebrate Christmas then have a great weekend!

[Ataxia]

On Autosport (and motorsport.com) today, you may have seen an article about former LMP2 racer Danny Watts coming out. Luckily, most responses have been quite tolerant and accepting, and it's a shame that someone's sexuality has to be a news story in this day and age. Unfortunately, a lot of the world isn't quite as accepting, and it's taken a lot of guts for Danny to do this.

As you might imagine, Joe Saward's been a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. Now, you may agree with him and you may not care. However, there will be people who do; people who currently race may be encouraged to come to terms with who they are, and this can only create a more inclusive, more accepting environment. Saward's dug himself into a little bit of a hole over this. Creating a motorsport environment that caters to everyone doesn't just happen overnight, and to shake the rich-straight-white-man's club image will take time.

Someone said in chat earlier "well, him being gay shouldn't affect his driving", but something like this weighing you down? How do you keep a straight head when you don't know how to approach something which could potentially be so life-changing? There MAY be a follow-up piece on this in Autosport soon; I can't really say too much more at this stage.

I think most of us are "lucky" and haven't had to realistically face anything of this magnitude. Just remember to put yourself in their shoes and imagine that things aren't as clear cut as they are in our own lives.