[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by arvi86

That's precisely why I'm saying he needs to be appreciated rather than being foul-mouthed all across the internet. BBC has an article titled "Does Nico deserve the 2016 world title?" I mean, come on, where were these guys when the championship went from Felipe Massa to Lewis Hamilton in a span of few corners in 2008, not because of something Lewis did but because of something Timo couldn't. BBC may be supporting their countryman but for such a credible site to even ask this question on Nico's 2016 title is unnecessary, I think.

Andrew Benson and the BBC F1 crew are Hamilton fanboys and seem to have taken it personally. Pretty much the entire BBC F1 section is full of articles posted overnight that deride the newly crowned champion in some way, some of those downright insulting, and none too subtle.

BBC are publicly funded, so they're surely duty-bound to present a balanced view? Guess not!

[ACM]

Superb race.

Lewis drove as ONLY he can among the current crowd and possibly Alonso.

If Senna can drive into Post, this was very very minor and perfectly legal tactics, that should be applauded. What did Mercedes have to loose? Can't figure why they asked Hamilton to go faster. Once was fine but to ask repeatedly was not fair.

He ignored them and rightly so. Rosberg should have driven faster and overtaken Lewis if he felt he was capable enough. Lewis would never have taken out Rosberg as that would have meant an end to his championship aspirations as well. Rosberg on the other hand actually could have taken out Hamilton (Like Sena did years back) and won. Lewis demonstrated who has the guts. Also he won more races in the year and suffered on account of the team and car failures. Vettel did demonstrate good sense in not trying to overtake Rosberg though he could have. Vettel is another driver who has won his championships only leading the pack. Guys like Alonso, Lewis and even the Force India guys make F1 exciting.

That said Rosberg did deserve to win but people don't really watch F1 to watch drivers like him, but rather to watch guys like Lewis.

[Turbo_Charger]

Firstly congratulations to Nico for winning the World Championship. He truly deserved it for he has been consistent throughout the season and clawed back Hamilton's lead mid-season. True Hamilton suffered some reliability issues but they are part & parcel of racing. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't. If I'm not wrong Nico too had his shares of reliability issues in the previous seasons while Hamilton didn't but nobody made excuses for Hamilton like they are doing for Nico.

Secondly, after hearing the commentary of David Coulthard and company on Star Sports all season long, am not surprised by the outbursts of Hamilton supporters. When Hamilton was backing up Nico, Vettel & Max, they were coming up with new explanations that Saint Hamilton was justified to do whatever he pleases, be it not accepting Team Orders or any other way to win the WDC by hook or crook. The reason Nico wasn't venturing to overtake Hamilton was that he was scared if Hamilton did his World Famous pushing of the track moves on him which would end Nico's WDC dreams and Hamilton would escape unscathed as it would be classifed as a racing incident like he has many times in the past few season with reasonable success. Hamilton was provoking him to make a rash move but he didn't lose his cool and in the end triumphed.

It's another matter that if the conditions were reversed, Hamilton would be the first one to ask Mercedes Team to make Nico give up the place to him. Just to clarify am not against Hamilton's move and he was trying his best to win and am fine with it. It's just the hypocrisy that saddens me when Hamilton asks Team to tell Nico to let him pass it's fine but if Nico does the same thing Hamilton will simply not reciprocate in the same manner, whine and defy team orders.

Lastly, a big Thumbs up to Vettel who didn't do a Kamikaze move on Nico fully knowing that he would have yielded very easily just to make sure he was still racing and in third place. If it was Max, am not sure he would have driven as maturely as Vettel did.

2016 is the year of shocking surprises, first Brexit, then Trump and now Nico. I can understand the pain of everyone. But let's be fair and honest in our judgement. None of these people or events won by cheating so let's not bash them up for no fault of theirs.

PS : I can understand the fascination and attraction some fans have towards Hamilton because of his talent, personality and wild style whereas Nico who's more consistent, subdued and docile is seen as below par compared to Hamilton. A similar comparison closer home can be about Tendulkar and Dravid. Most people only watched cricket just to watch Tendulkar bat but it was Dravid who consistently won us many matches at home & abroad. Who is better, well there's no clear and definite answer but both are important in their own way. Same for Hamilton and Nico.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by Turbo_Charger

.

PS : I can understand the fascination and attraction some fans have towards Hamilton because of his talent, personality and wild style whereas Nico who's more consistent, subdued and docile is seen as below par compared to Hamilton. A similar comparison closer home can be about Tendulkar and Dravid. Most people only watched cricket just to watch Tendulkar bat but it was Dravid who consistently won us many matches at home & abroad. Who is better, well there's no clear and definite answer but both are important in their own way. Same for Hamilton and Nico.

While I understand that both are important in their own places, the consistency piece is a little off.

Nico Rosberg*

Entries:*205

Wins:*23

Podiums: 56

Pole positions:*30

World titles:*0

Lewis Hamilton

Entries:*187

Wins:*52

Podiums:*103

Pole positions:*60

World titles:*3

Before Abu Dhabi 16.

I think that says enough about Tendulkar and Dravid . This has been a good year for rosberg, yes. But you can't draw consistency conclusions even with this season, when the final deficit was what, 5 points?

[arvi86]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Andrew Benson and the BBC F1 crew are Hamilton fanboys and seem to have taken it personally.

Some of the articles they have come up with overnight are ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

BBC are publicly funded, so they're surely duty-bound to present a balanced view? Guess not!

Absolutely, they lack class and hardly come up with a neutral mindset when it comes to F1 reviews.

Originally Posted by mayankk

While I understand that both are important in their own places, the consistency piece is a little off.

I do not quite agree. Nico didn't have a race-winning car from his rookie season like Lewis did. He had to fight his way up the order and since 2014, when he finally had a pace-setting car, has been constantly improving. Unlike Felipe Massa or Mark Webber who were just a shadow of their dominant teammates when they had race-winning cars, Nico proved his consistency, grit and determination. That he did it against Lewis, who he openly acknowledges as one of the all-time greats in F1, is remarkable.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by arvi86

I do not quite agree. Nico didn't have a race-winning car from his rookie season like Lewis did. He had to fight his way up the order and since 2014, when he finally had a pace-setting car, has been constantly improving. Unlike Felipe Massa or Mark Webber who were just a shadow of their dominant teammates when they had race-winning cars, Nico proved his consistency, grit and determination. That he did it against Lewis, who he openly acknowledges as one of the all-time greats in F1, is remarkable.

If anything, nico is more inconsistent than lewis in the same car in the same years. This is 2014 and 15. Its the same story in 2013.


This takes nothing away from Nico's championship, since he has broken through his limitations to beat the reigning champ, and that too in probably the most accomplished grid of all time.
But please.

[deetjohn]

I am with Lewis on this one! He was fully entitled to do what he did. The car in P1 controls the pace. If the guys behind have a problem, they should claim P1 and control the pace. As simple as that. Racing is all about pace and strategy put together to maximize the returns on the track. And what Lewis did was properly legal and within rules too.

Mercedes shouldn't have interfered in my opinion. They had sealed both constructors and drivers title before Abu Dhabi. And a DNF would have affected Lewis more than Nico. They really should just let their drivers race always as they claim.

Besides, this gave us a proper finale instead of a boring procession.


Edit:

A Pipe Dream if Mercedes follows this up with more idiocy. Lewis to get a title for Ferrari! Schumi has a hand in making Mercedes the unbeatable force that it is today. And it's about time for Lewis to return that favour.

[sgiitk]

@deetjohn; Lewis was within his rights, but I am sure he understands this term very well 'It aint cricket'. What I fail to understand is that Nico had to finish FOURTH for Lewis to retain his title, fat change for that.

I must say that the idea for Vettel to go to Super Soft for the last stint was excellent. All others were on Soft. So he could cover his lack of horses by this finesse. Reminds me of Ferrari of old. Not the wooden approach of the more recent lot.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I must say that the idea for Vettel to go to Super Soft for the last stint was excellent. All others were on Soft. So he could cover his lack of horses by this finesse. Reminds me of Ferrari of old. Not the wooden approach of the more recent lot.

It certainly helped and made the last part of the race interesting, but he was also helped greatly by Hamilton who was controlling the pace of the leading pack, so he didn't lose much time in the long middle stint than he did. This is true for Verstappen as well.

On the topic of Lewis's tactics - although he didn't do anything illegal or dangerous (like crashing into his team mate), the reason his team were urging him to improve his pace to cover the threat from Vettel. At one point Vettel was leading by about 5 seconds with a pitstop due and a safety car at that moment would have given Vettel an advantage and effectively the race win.

[Cyborg]

Lewis did nothing wrong in doing what he did, there are always chances anything may happen under pressure.

In fact, the team did him a disservice by unnecessarily butting in on the radio distracting him for no real reason. The constructors title was already in the bag and it was simply either him or Nico becoming the drivers World Champion.

In doing what they did Mercedes definitely showed they were keen on Nico becoming the WC, German team and German driver is really great for publicity. If the team was totally clean and unbiased there was no reason for them to be so uptight about the win unless they favored Nico to be WC. Perhaps we will see the PR machinery coming out with some advertisement harping on this aspect in the future.

I also feel after the first time, Vettel made a pretense about his tyres, in reality he did not try really hard at all. He wanted another German to win the WC versus say giving Lewis a hand as such. In the interview Lewis mentioned "he said his tires were giving him trouble" (motioning towards Vettlel) or something to the effect that perhaps he did not believe it too.

Cheers

[jaygeetee]

Congratulations to Nico and I absolutely agree with what Lewis did. You don't become a champion by just being a nice guy and giving up. He did nothing illegal and if Nico wanted it easy, he should have taken pole.

Kudos to Nico for the overtaking on Vestappen when the engineer asked him. Very risky move but he made it stick, that was a defining moment in the race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XIVlwOBHVo

(turn down the volume, commentary not in English)

Originally Posted by sgiitk

@deetjohn; Lewis was within his rights, but I am sure he understands this term very well 'It aint cricket'. What I fail to understand is that Nico had to finish FOURTH for Lewis to retain his title, fat change for that.

Sir, Lewis could also win if Nico "didn't finish". With Verstappen and Vettel's record this year for running into other cars, that's not too much to expect.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

What I fail to understand is that Nico had to finish FOURTH for Lewis to retain his title, fat change for that.

Yes, it was very difficult, given the reliability of the #6 car and the relative performance. But it was not an impossible task. And you really cannot give up when so much is at stake. Try till its mathematically impossible! That's the norm for any professional.

And I have a feeling we would have seen a closer battle had the RBR boys been following Nico.

[asr245]

Originally Posted by jaygeetee

Kudos to Nico for the overtaking on Vestappen when the engineer asked him. Very risky move but he made it stick, that was a defining moment in the race.
(turn down the volume, commentary not in English)

That was probably the first time all season Nico made a good, clean overtake on any RBR car. Definitely a first with MV. That's how he should be doing it all the time.

Originally Posted by jaygeetee

Sir, Lewis could also win if Nico "didn't finish". With Verstappen and Vettel's record this year for running into other cars, that's not too much to expect.

I think that is what LH was really hoping for. A scrappy battle behind him with Nico falling off.

[abhishek46]

Nico Rosberg has announced his retirement!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/s...w/55753836.cms

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by abhishek46

Nico Rosberg has announced his retirement!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/s...w/55753836.cms

Hindsight shows his demeanor post race looked like someone who was satiated. That's the best way to retire, no, on a high?
And the silly season just became arkham asylum!