Max looked good, but doubtful he's had given Lewis that much trouble, just a shame that RB put him on the inter's as he was ahead of Rosberg and would have stayed that way. As a Hamilton fan, it was disappointing that nobody was able to challenge Rosberg who was clearly struggling in the rain. Each time a safety car was deployed he seemed to have a Force India or torro rosso behind him who couldn't challenge.

In terms of race pace, had things panned out differently I am pretty sure Max and Ric and most likely Vettel would have finished ahead of Ros.

It seems Rosberg has likely done enough win the title and history will soon forget HAM reliability issues etc, so hats off, you can only beat what is in front of you, however it pans out. Hamilton likely to walk away with more race win and more poles than Ros, but the DNF's cost him.

Max looks good for the future of the sport though.

 

Hamilton has only had one mech DNF this year. The other DNF he had was his coming together with Rosberg.

Rosberg was only ever going to get out of the way of Max. Max has nothing to lose and has demonstrated his race or crash trying many times. You only have to look back to Monaco in the wet where he was rubbish and then crashed. Again, Red Bull cocking up the pitstops though.

And it's not like Rosberg hasn't had his own issues. He has be bashed off the track several times and his BBW failure in Austria meant Hamilton could get past him.

 

You can play 'ifs' 'buts' and 'maybes' until the cows come home....'if Lewis hadn't driven like a newcomer in Baku....'if Lewis had bothered to turn up in Singapore....'. The only stat. that matters at the moment is that Nico is 12 points ahead of Lewis going into the final round.

I also think you are somewhat harsh in your assessment of Max's performance - it was pretty spectacular by any measure, even the one you choose which ignores the fact he spent the afternoon following and overtaking other cars without the aid of blue flags. We saw precious little of Lewis at the front, but I suspect he had a rather more serene time of it.

Unlike in Malaysia

Smoke and flames2 by Whyone, on Flickr

 

And without that, Hamilton would have 25 more points and Rosberg 3 fewer.
Currently 367 vs 355. Would be 364 vs 380.

You've conveniently forgotten China, Russia, and Spa where he started much lower on the grid than he would otherwise have done. Admittedly, Rosberg had his own problems in Austria (gearbox) and GB (brakes), so those are reasonably even.

There's a reasonably balanced article here, detailing it all: http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/241...en-this-season

Agreed, on the ifs and buts, certainly Rosberg would have been much closer to Hamilton in previous years without similar problems, but he still wouldn't have beaten him.

I think "quite something" is pretty fulsome praise for Verstappen. The comparison with Ricciardo is the most important one here.

 

I don't think I've ever seen Rosberg fighting for a position and winning it, think that pretty much sums up his season. He's good at qualifying and he's good at staying in front when he starts up front. He's got no creativity and had a few attempts but got penalised because he got too desperate and pushed people off the track.

 

^^^ what he said

take the personality out of it and I think anyone would find it difficult to paint ROS as the better racer here... or even better driver.

Hamilton is simply faster around a circuit and has been the case throughout their careers where ROS has played second fiddle to HAM... he's in the fastest car on the grid by some margin so was always going to compete with Hamiton, however the reliability issues have cost HAM the title in what was only ever going to be a 2 horse race. Had the other teams fielded competitive cars, I suspect Hamilton would be leading the championship as Rosberg would struggle and not pick up the automatic pos2 every time Ham was away in the distance.

 

You don't see Hamilton fighting for a position much either. The fact they're at the front means they don't have to.

I'd be pleased to see Rosberg win. Yes it's fair to say that Hamilton is better overall, but then there's been plenty of races where Rosberg has quite simply beaten Hamilton and that's why he's winning. The fact is with that car in all probability with almost any other teammate Rosberg would have been a triple world champion by now. And every great champion benefited from someone else's unreliability.

 

I forsee a long winter of Lewis Hamilton fans bleating, whingeing and whining if Rosberg becomes Champion.

Hamilton, when he's in the car, is one of the most complete and probably fastest drivers on the current Formula 1 grid. But he doesn't have a divine right to win yet another title if he's suffered from unreliability, for whatever reason, while his team-mate has had a more consistent season. Speed is only part of the equation.

When he's out of the car, however, and particularly if there's a microphone and/or camera in his vicinity, he has an unfortunate habit of portraying himself as an attention-seeking self-obsessed knob. The Royal Box dress code fiasco at Wimbledon was an example of a situation which was, from a PR perspective, a disaster. Maybe it's the social media obsessed age we live in, where the vacuous and moronic seem to vie with the genuinely talented for column inches, or whatever the digital equivalent might be, but he does himself no favours.

His public persona polarises opinion. Good or bad, there aren't many who don't have an view about him.

 

So then... is a mechanical DNF for Nico the only chance for Hamilton.

It aint gunna rain in the desert that's for sure, but to be fair to Rosberg he did all he needed to do last time out in the rain. It's just F1 I know, but it's a shame none of the other teams have mounted a challenge, but then a dominant team has won the last 7 years, so no real surprise there.

I'll be watching that's for sure.