Monaco GP 2015

Gary Palmer8 said:It is truly fascinating how much Lewis Hamilton seems to affect people. 🙂 It appears everyone is desperately searching for any way to shift the blame onto an incompetent pit wall, who were ultimately responsible for making that final call to bring the driver in for a stop.

An incompetent pit wall, perhaps, but we must also consider a driver who seems to use his head solely as a convenient place to perch a racing cap and hang his earrings upon.

graniteharbor502 said:an incompetent pit wall—plus a driver who clearly uses his head just to hold up his hat

Man, you're definitely listening to that clown Novak too much--it's pretty obvious at this point.

Gary Palmer8 said:you clearly listen to that clown Novak too much, obviously

I find myself wondering, what exactly are you talking about here? Which Novak are we even discussing? My focus remains entirely on the unfolding drama from yesterday's race. It was quite evident that Lewis Hamilton was operating in a completely different dimension, especially while piloting such a dominant machine. To secure first place at the Monaco GP—a circuit where one could possess a car five seconds faster than the field and still fail to make a single overtakes on track—is truly remarkable. I honestly cannot fathom why there was even a consideration of a pit stop in the first place. Even after the team advised him to stay out on the track, he ended up complaining about the tires later on. Honestly, if the team makes a blunder of that magnitude on their end, you are left dealing with nothing but a complete mess.

Gary Palmer8 said:Man, you're clearly listening to that clown Novak way too much.

Honestly, why bother listening to any journalist spewing nonsense? Just check the data on FIA.com. It’s staring you in the face: this was Lewis Hamilton's mistake, and his alone. He's the one who really screwed this up.

He didn't lose time in the pits or coming out of them—he lost it during the lap itself, right before he even hit the pit lane...
And he should've known better. There was zero breathing room to lose another 10-15 seconds in the pits and still come out ahead of the pack.

Regardless of what the telemetry says or if the screen tells him everything is fine, he's got eyes. He knows he's running a lap that's roughly 10-15 seconds slower than the last one. 🤦
Bottom line: if Nico Rosberg hadn't slowed down so drastically right before Lewis Hamilton pitted, he wouldn't have even been in the same zip code as Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg. He would've been trailing them by maybe 5-10 seconds at best.

So, what's got Toto Wolff acting so incredibly full of himself lately?

cosmiccyclist8 said:Why is Toto acting so high and mighty?

Probably because he gets a cut of the cash Mexico pays out for every single Lewis Hamilton win. 😬

neonpuma7 said:It’s pretty funny how nobody seems to notice that the odds on Nico Rosberg were sitting right around 3.5 to 4 at the sportsbooks🙂 , especially considering all the noise about Lewis Hamilton pitting, but yeah, totally suspicious, just a complete staged farce if you ask me.

Before the weekend even kicked off, I had Nico Rosberg pegged as the clear favorite, honestly, since he crushed it in Barcelona and that obviously gave him a massive confidence boost, plus he always seems to find his groove in Monaco.

But during the actual race? Lewis Hamilton absolutely DESTROYED him.

stormybadger8 said:I guess that’s just because he gets a kickback from whatever cash Mexico pumps out for every single one of Lewis Hamilton's wins. 😬

I don't know what his deal is, but the guy is just incredibly slippery. 😁

Roger Wright94 said:And there he is!
The guys on the pit wall have a much better vantage point and more data than the drivers do. They see things that just aren't visible from the cockpit. Honestly, they should have stepped in and stopped him.
Honestly, it seems like they’re just gripped by pure terror over there. It's like if Lewis Hamilton so much as sneezes, they start shaking, and if he actually coughs, they lose their minds and panic—which I guess explains why people are acting this stupid.

I agree, absolutely—they really should have stepped in to stop him.

I mean, yeah, in a way, Lewis Hamilton kind of paid the price yesterday for the sheer level of status he holds within the team. 😁

Look, that was all just for show, I suppose. Next time they'll hopefully be a bit smarter about it. And honestly, maybe Lewis Hamilton will finally learn not to play guessing games about where Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg are, and just ask properly instead. Because, well... If you ask me, there's no point in making a fuss about boxing. It's just not worth the effort. 😁

Gary Palmer8 said:I guess it's pretty obvious how much people love Lewis Hamilton. 🙂 Everyone seems to be trying to shift the blame onto some incompetent pit wall official who made the final call to bring the driver in for a stop.

Look, I’m not trying to pin the whole blame on Lewis Hamilton here. I think it's more about just analyzing how this entire fiasco actually happened. 😁

And even though he’s never really been my favorite driver—mostly because of his personality—I still have to say... 😁I have to admit, though, it looked like someone finally gave him a crash course in PR yesterday. He actually seemed to know what to say and how to carry himself, especially when things started getting stressful. 👍 Kudos to Luigi's psychologist. 😁

I was reading through those diplomatic responses he gave at the press conference last night; I guess he handled himself pretty well. It seems like everyone is finally getting on the same page. It’s about time we saw some sort of united front. I guess you could say he deserves some credit for his dedication to the crew. Though, let's be honest, there's zero doubt he didn't actually mean any of it. 🤣

stormybadger8 said:I honestly don't think this is accurate at all. Not even close. 😳

Lap time:
Kod:

44 PIT 2:11.321
19 PIT 1:59.733
11 PIT 2:00.310
12 PIT 1:59.948
3 PIT 1:59.200

It’s completely unclear why Lewis Hamilton's lap time is about 11 or 12 seconds slower. 😲 Compared to everyone else who hit the pits—even though his pit stop was basically just as fast as the rest of the field—...

Pit stop time:
Kod:

Lap 44 results:

Lewis Hamilton: 25.495
Felipe Massa: 24.395
Sergio Perez: 25.119
Felipe Nasr: 26.420
Daniel Ricciardo: 24.244

It’s pretty obvious that Lewis Hamilton is the one who messed this up. That lap time coming into the pits was painfully slow. Either he went wide somewhere or he ran straight into the path of a Safety Car.
It’s hard to pin the blame on the crew when he delivered such a drastically slower lap than what was required. Honestly, he had to know he was hemorrhaging massive amounts of time right before that pit stop...

There was clearly enough breathing room there for him to dive in and pull away with a massive advantage.
It’s highly likely that’s exactly why he didn't lash out at the crew. He was incredibly self-aware, knowing full well that he carried a massive chunk of the responsibility himself.

He knows he messed up. And honestly, my take from yesterday still stands—I’m the one to blame here.

graniteharbor502 said:The pit wall was totally incompetent, but let’s be honest—the driver wasn't much better. It’s like he uses his head exclusively as a hat rack.

It wasn't a pit crew error. Lewis Hamilton messed up, plain and simple. Now the PR teams are acting like he’s some flawless saint and the undisputed king of the track, but let's be real—he isn't dominating like that. He just completely blew his own lap time.

graniteharbor502 said:What are you even talking about? What does Novak Djokovic have to do with this? I’m talking about how yesterday's race actually played out. Lewis Hamilton was clearly in a league of his own, especially in that dominant car. Taking first place at the Monaco GP? That's huge. Monaco is one of those places where you could be five seconds faster than everyone else and still struggle to make a pass on track. I honestly don't get why he even considered pitting. His team told him to stay out, and then he ends up complaining about the tires anyway. Seriously, if the crew messes up the strategy on their end, it just turns into a complete disaster.

Not at all. Just look at who had the best lap time. See how much better everyone else was than him. He wasn't even that dominant, and with a track like this, there’s basically zero overtaking anyway. Nothing particularly special about Lewis Hamilton's driving here...

stormybadger8 said:There’s no point listening to some journalist spouting nonsense. You just need to check the data on FIA.com. It should be obvious to anyone that this was Lewis Hamilton's mistake—his mistake, primarily. He's the one most to blame, without question.

Dammit, he didn't lose time in the pits, nor on the pit exit. He lost it during that exact lap right before coming in for service...
And he really should have known better; he didn't have enough of a gap to drop an extra 10-15 seconds during his stop and still come out ahead of the pack.

Regardless of what the live telemetry shows, even if the screen tells him everything is fine, you simply have to know when you're running a lap that's roughly 10-15 seconds slower than your previous one.🤦
In reality, if Nico Rosberg hadn't slowed down quite so drastically before Lewis Hamilton pitted, Lewis wouldn't have come out anywhere near Sebastian Vettel or Nico Rosberg. He would have been stuck about 5-10 seconds behind them.

Something like that...

cosmiccyclist8 said:So why did Toto Wolff go off on such a rant?

What a sleazebag...

cosmiccyclist8 said:He's some unknown guy, but he's incredibly slippery.😁

Sleazy... just sleazy...

darkmarlin16 said:Before the weekend started, Nico Rosberg was the clear favorite for me. He won in Barcelona, so his confidence was up, and he's always good in Monaco.

But in the race, Lewis Hamilton DECIMATED him.

NO, he didn't. He didn't win, and he doesn't have a better time than him. He's being completely outclassed by Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, and Daniel Ricciardo...

MMP said:Could the reason his lap time was so slow be because of the Virtual Safety Car? Like, maybe they were forced to limit their speed?

Nah...

Michael Diaz4 said:Hell no, he didn't win and his lap time isn't even close to being better. He’s getting absolutely smoked by Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, and Daniel Ricciardo...

So I guess by your logic, if someone pulls a massive 21-second lead, they haven't outclassed the other guy—it's actually the other way around? Makes perfect sense.

For those of you lucky enough to have access to Max TV, I'm curious—how did the race play out through the lens of Blažić's commentary?

Nobody really had a clear idea of what was going down... I didn't either—I only finally woke up once Maksić slammed into the wall 😬

We’ve actually started calling it "Max's massacre" here on the forum.

Drew Bennett68 said:For those of you watching on DirecTV—how did you handle Smith's take on the race?

In that pre-race show, he actually claimed the drivers don't even touch their own clutches—that the pit crew controls them via the pit wall instead.

I muted the audio immediately. Then, after a bit, I just turned off the TV entirely. Honestly, by lap ten, I was ready to just go out for a bike ride.

Mercedes-Benz was straight up criminal yesterday

MMP said:Maybe his lap was that slow because of the Virtual Safety Car limiting his speed?

No way, absolutely zero chance.😉
A.) If that were the case, everyone would be slowed down equally, not just Lewis Hamilton being about 12 seconds slower than the rest of the pack.
B.) The actual Safety Car was already out on track long before Hamilton even started that lap where he pitted.

darkmarlin16 said:So basically, if you build a 21-second gap, you haven't demoted the other guy—he's demoted you.

And who exactly built that 21-second lead, and why?
Maybe try watching the race again... 😉
or at least run some analysis before dropping claims like that. link Just click on the history chart.

Lewis only pulled ahead because of traffic. Until Pascal Wehrlein, Daniel Stevens, Max Verstappen, Romain Grosjean, and Carlos Sainz Jr. got involved, that gap was pretty much negligible...
Plus, for some inexplicable reason, Lewis was pulling laps about 7 seconds faster than Nico Rosberg under the Virtual Safety Car. Now, whether Rosberg was told to hold up Sebastian Vettel just to let Hamilton pit or not, I have no clue, but it’s damn weird that under VSC, Lewis is running a 1:33 while Rosberg is sitting on a 1:39. 🤔

Autosport driver ratings:

Nico Rosberg 7
Lewis Hamilton 9
Daniel Ricciardo 8
Daniil Kvyat 8
Felipe Massa 7
Valtteri Bottas 5
Sebastian Vettel 8
Kimi Raikkonen 5
Fernando Alonso 6
Jenson Button 7
Sergio Perez 10
Nico Hulkenberg 6
Max Verstappen 6
Carlos Sainz Jr. 7
Romain Grosjean 6
Pastor Maldonado 7
Daniel Stevens 6
Pascal Wehrlein 6
Marcus Ericsson 5
Felipe Nasr 8

stormybadger8 said:There isn't even a remote chance, none whatsoever, 😉that
A.) if that were actually the reason, the gap would have been applied to everyone equally, rather than leaving Lewis Hamilton sitting there roughly 12 seconds slower than the rest of the pack.
B.) The actual Safety Car had already deployed well before Hamilton entered that specific lap where he eventually made his pit stop.

If you watch one particular replay, you can see Hamilton was actually trailing behind the Safety Car just before he peeled off into the pits, which I suspect provides the real explanation for that 12-second discrepancy.

And frankly, Hamilton absolutely dismantled Nico Rosberg during both the race and qualifying; if I were in Rosberg's shoes, I wouldn't have dared to celebrate nearly as much—it felt more like celebrating out of pure spite. He himself clearly knew just how badly Lewis had neutralized him on track.