Bahrain Grand Prix (Outer Loop) | December 4-6, 2020

stormybadger8 said:I can't believe I actually 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I put my money on a Perez win combined with a DNF Max and Leclerc 😍

Charles Leclerc got rich; now he's probably hung up a picture of Toto Wolff on his wall.

Amanda Kelly said:No offense to our esteemed moderators, but this discussion has drifted way too far off course.

Yesterday, the argument was that Hamilton is only the most successful driver in Formula 1 history because he got lucky sitting in the most dominant car ever built.
Today, it’s all about whether the 1994 Benetton was the best car on the grid.
Tomorrow? Some other crackpot theory will take its place.

You've been around here for nearly 15 years now. You know how this works.

"It all comes down to the race car; anyone could be a champion if they were driving a Mercedes-Benz."
- If that's true, why does Lewis Hamilton have 42 wins and 4 titles over 4 seasons, while Valtteri Bottas only has 9 wins and hasn't managed a single title—just a 5th and a 3rd place finish in the standings?
"That's because they aren't driving identical cars. Hamilton's is faster."
- LOL.

copperdrifter26 said:You honestly can't put Lewis Hamilton in the same breath as Diego. That guy was basically 90% of the soul behind Napoli and Argentina; he’s the one who carried them all the way to the top of the world in the greatest sport on the planet (and he did it as part of a team, too!). Meanwhile, Lewis is just out there enjoying life driving for the most dominant team in history against damn Valtteri Bottas.

Even though both are arguably the GOAT of their respective sports, I completely agree with that sentiment.

stormybadger8 said:I can't believe I actually 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I put my money on a Perez win combined with a DNF Max and Leclerc 😍

Nice one. 👍 👍

How much did you pull in?

Amanda Kelly said:Fine by me.
I was just building on the criteria ruggedhawk20 laid out. He pointed out 1991, for instance, where Mansell and Patrese had 10 DNFs while Senna only had one. Back then, car unreliability was even more brutal than it is now.

Most of Mansell's DNFs in '91 were basically just him being sloppy.

In Canada he dropped out because his RPMs tanked—purely due to him losing focus. And in Suzuki? He just blew it.

So yeah, he threw away at least 16 points just by being classic Mansell.

Jason Campbell70 said:"It all comes down to the race car; anyone could be a champion if they were driving a Mercedes-Benz."
- If that's true, why does Lewis Hamilton have 42 wins and 4 titles over 4 seasons, while Valtteri Bottas only has 9 wins and hasn't managed a single title—just a 5th and a 3rd place finish in the standings?
"That's because they aren't driving identical cars. Hamilton's is faster."
- LOL.

Even though both are arguably the GOAT of their respective sports, I completely agree with that sentiment.

Let's be real, Bottas is just a mid-tier driver. Even Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button aren't really in the same league as Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, or Daniel Ricciardo, let alone Bottas. Now, if we're talking about Luxury, sure, one of the best—and if you look at the last 7 years, that Mecca has been by far the most dominant force in the sport, and that's just a fact. Honestly, it’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison anyway; I’m pretty sure Lewis would go down to the very last race fighting against Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, or that trio mentioned above. So, regardless of how George Russell finishes against Lewis Hamilton, nobody can take anything away from him, though I know people are definitely getting tired of those robot-like performances.

mellowtiger83 said:It is truly quite embarrassing how they have to go to such lengths just to justify Russell's performance alongside Lewis Hamilton, haha.

A shame it didn't last another two laps so he could overtake Bottas once more.🙂

If they let George Russell win, their whole seven-title hype train just derails completely.

They built this massive propaganda machine around a fake GOAT, and now it's all falling apart.

Unless someone shuts up. Then Toto will pull some strings through Flavio

Sadly for Toto, Flavio's got better connections.

Amanda Kelly said:I’d throw 2005 into the mix too.
I've always felt the McLaren was actually faster than the Renault that year.
Alonso beat out two massive talents at McLaren (Kimi + Montoya), which makes that title pretty damn impressive.
IMO

Give me a break... Klien got unlapped by him in the Red Bull because Alonso was just playing it safe—he clearly didn't want to get into a real scrap with Kimi on the track.

Jason Campbell70 said:"It all comes down to the race car; anyone could be a champion if they were driving a Mercedes-Benz."
- If that's true, why does Lewis Hamilton have 42 wins and 4 titles over 4 seasons, while Valtteri Bottas only has 9 wins and hasn't managed a single title—just a 5th and a 3rd place finish in the standings?
"That's because they aren't driving identical cars. Hamilton's is faster."
- LOL.

Even though both are arguably the GOAT of their respective sports, I completely agree with that sentiment.

It's pretty simple: Bottas is just a much worse driver than Hamilton...☕

Also, the idea that any random guy on the grid would rack up championships if he swapped seats with Hamilton is a total lie. That definitely wouldn't happen. Bottas isn't even in the same league of drivers required to pull that off. ☕

But, to be fair, it's also true that almost any driver on the grid would grab a few wins a season if they were sitting in Hamilton's seat.
And honestly, a true GOAT would absolutely crush both Bottas and Nico Rosberg too. 🙂 Between the two of them, they wouldn't even hit 5 pole positions or wins combined, let alone a single championship, 31 wins, and 44 poles. 🤦

Mercedes-Benz with Lewis Hamilton—just routine wins.
Mercedes without Lewis Hamilton—landing in eighth or ninth.

Black Catholic, you’re a legend.
The GOAT.

Perez definitely deserves to stay in F1.
I wonder if he'd actually take a seat at Alpha Tauri if Kvyat moves on.

frozenheron7 said:Comparing an elite athlete like Lewis Hamilton to a criminal, a con artist, a coke addict, a cheat, or some mob lackey is honestly just tasteless.
That handball goal and that dribble straight from the center circle? That basically sums up his entire career—both on the field and off. One word: fraud. Two words: selfish egoist.

Back to the topic at hand:
I assumed George Russell would perform well, but I definitely wasn't expecting him to clock such impressive times. Unless he ends up getting caught in a collision or a podium battle (which is looking way more likely now that Romain Grosjean isn't driving), it's almost a given the kid will pick up some points. I’m genuinely curious to see if he can carry this momentum into qualifying and if he'll manage to keep a clean sheet against his own teammate.

What kind of drugs are you on??

Diego wasn't the tiebreaker in a fair fight; he was just dead weight that allowed a mediocre team to skip ahead without breaking a sweat.

Your favorite influencer "proved himself" plenty of times when he actually needed to win and failed; he only took titles when he was handed a convincingly superior car. Even with a machine like that, he still lost the championship to Nico Rosberg, which tells you everything you need to know about his skill level. He's average. He just got incredibly lucky to sit in the best car ever made. It's easy to be a champion when everyone else does 90% of the work for you.

stormybadger8 said:I can't believe I actually 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I put my money on a Perez win combined with a DNF Max and Leclerc 😍

Well then—go invite the President over for a BBQ.

That'd be about right.

Gary Palmer8 said:Give me a break... Klien got unlapped by him in the Red Bull because Alonso was just playing it safe—he clearly didn't want to get into a real scrap with Kimi on the track.

So what?

He just proved he’s a smart driver who knows how to stay in the game and rack up points.

Maybe Max Verstappen could learn a thing or two from him—like, say, staying clear of Leclerc instead of forcing it at the finish line.

copperdrifter26 said:Lewis Hamilton is a brilliant driver, no doubt about it, but there’s always an asterisk hanging over his career. Back from 2010 to 2014, he was driving cars that were arguably better than what Fernando Alonso had, yet he somehow looked less impressive on track. He even lost out on points to Jenson Button for three straight years, and he struggled against Nico Rosberg too, even though he stayed incredibly close to him in qualifying throughout that whole Mercedes-Benz era—I’d say he took about 55% of those sessions.

So, yeah, a huge chunk of that success definitely comes down to the car. People started calling him greater than Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher once he grabbed that seventh title, but if you look at what George Russell is doing lately—and keep in mind, he's mostly just been testing that dominant W10 from last year—it really feels like a massive part of that legacy was just having the most dominant car in history under his feet. That being said, I still think he's absolutely the better driver compared to Sebastian Vettel.

A realistic summary of the situation.

If everything that happened to George Russell today had gone down to Lewis Hamilton instead, he would've sent them all packing by 3 PM and jumped ship to Red Bull Racing after this season...

bluepuma9 said:Perez definitely deserves to stay in F1.
I wonder if he'd actually take a seat at Alpha Tauri if Kvyat moves on.

Seriously, why the heck do you have "Steinlager 2" on your avatar?

Jason Campbell70 said:"It all comes down to the race car; anyone could be a champion if they were driving a Mercedes-Benz."
- If that's true, why does Lewis Hamilton have 42 wins and 4 titles over 4 seasons, while Valtteri Bottas only has 9 wins and hasn't managed a single title—just a 5th and a 3rd place finish in the standings?
"That's because they aren't driving identical cars. Hamilton's is faster."
- LOL.

Even though both are arguably the GOAT of their respective sports, I completely agree with that sentiment.

Correction: any SERIOUS driver in that Mercedes-Benz would cruise to a championship. Bottas isn't a serious driver, and even he managed to rack up a decent number of wins and pole positions.

Honestly, it’s time for Lewis Hamilton to just call it quits and head into retirement. As for Valtteri Bottas, he should probably jump ship to some random backmarker team in the States. Then, come next season, we can finally see Sergio Perez and George Russell in the Mercedes-AMG seats. Or, if we want to get really wild with it, put Bottas back in there, swap Russell for him, and stick Perez in instead of Alexander Albon.

ruggedhawk20 said:Seriously, why the heck do you have "Steinlager 2" on your avatar?

Why wouldn't I?😁
The most successful guy at the Whitbread, and the only one to sweep every single leg of the race.