In Australia they looked pretty even and in Shanghai Lewis was definitely pulling away.
Nico had a suspension problem in Shanghai and later in the race it failed completely. In Australia he retired too soon to tell whether or not he was going to jump Hamilton but you can't say Hamiltin outraced him either.
Um, yeah, he pretty much did. The B194 and B195 were streaks ahead of the rest,
Were they "illegal" though? You'll probably say yes because it's the only excuse you can think of to give to Damon/Williams.
and the Ferraris he drove to the next five titles in were completely untouchable. 2003 was a bit closer than the rest, but look at how fast Barrichello was too, the amount of double podiums they got together was staggering.
From 1998 to 2001 the Mclaren was much faster than the Ferraris. He almost took 1998 but he got unlucky in Japan and Coulthard took him out in Spa. He broke his leg in 1999, points per race he would've won it if you consider his performance. In 2000 he still didn't have the fastest car and won it fair and square. 2001 he did get a little lucky Mika had his engine blown up every race, but he still didn't have the fastest car. 2003 was close like you said. He got a little lucky again this time it was Kimi whose car retired a few more times than usual.
2002-2004 are the only two seasons where Ferrari was faster than everyone by a considerable amount. You can say he had a couple of Vettel seasons there.
And the Ferrari he was driving was of virtually equal pace to Lewis' McLaren. Both cars we're clearly faster than the BMW Sauber's and Toyota's etc.
Equal, maybe. I still think had it not been for Singapore's incident Massa could've easily won.
He comfortably beat Liuzzi and Bourdais whilst at Toro Rosso. Just look at there lackluster performances compared to his stellar achievements in those cars. He did 25 races with Toro Rosso, and scored 41 points. Bourdais and Liuzzi collectively scored 7. In the 10 years prior to that the only other driver to have won a race in a car that was arguably not one of the four fastest was Fisichella in a Jordan at Brazil 2003, in rather fluky conditions at that.
Didn't I say not to bring up his Toro rosso days? Of course he'll stand out against those two. I never said he doesn't belong to F1, he's just overrated and never been put under a true test like, say, Alonso.
You say he couldn't anything in the first half of last year, but in the first 10 races he scored points in eight of them (It would have been all ten without the puncture and and the alternator failure), and got a race win and two other podiums. He would have been fourth without the puncture at Malaysia, lost an almost certain victory at Valencia, and podium at Germany due to that penalty. He scored 100 points, which would have been 142 without those misfortunes.
He well-deserved the penalty in Germany. Wasn't that when he passed Button from outside the circuit? Certain victory in Valencia yes, but so what? Webber had his kers failing half those races and he was still ahead in the points.
Schumacher's 2005 car was a dog. The rule changes that year were probably done to try and stop Ferrari's dominance, and it worked.
That's what I said.
All but three races in 2006 were won by either Alonso or Schumacher. Alonso was fortunate that Schumacher lost several points in the last two races, but prior to that it was pretty much neck and neck between them, and between their respective teammates.
It was neck and neck between drivers but Renault always looked faster. There were 3 races, if you choose to change how only two of them should've ended, Michael would've won the title. Monaco, where, let's face it, he got screwed. Even if he purposely parked the car to impede Alonso he shouldn't have started from the very back. Give him a 5 grid place penalty ffs. Had he started anywhere near the top 5 he would've won the race. The other two races are Brazil and Japan, for obvious reasons.
Anyway having watched the TV version of the race I can confirm and change a few things.
*Grosjean drove an even better race than I originally thought. My driver of the day now.
*That caterham wasn't being lapped, that's why Nico actually had to overtake it putting him right in the fight with Button which further ruined his tyres. All in all, he defended far too hard in head-wind, on the dirty side and with a heavy car for far too many laps. Add Webber's blatant cut which he should've gotten a penalty for and the fact that he had to start saving fuel from halfway in the race, he really did have everything against him. I still think he should've have defended though, he was driving by heart, not by his brain which is unusual for him. Even with an extra stop, he was only 6 seconds behind Hamilton. Take all of these things into account and you see how good he was doing.
*Ferrari cost Alonso the race
*Perez is doing what he did with Sauber the second half of last season. If he keeps doing that he's not going to finish many races.
*Hamilton, although in clean air, suffered as much as Nico did in the first half of the race. Imagine if he had to defend faster cars on the dirt with head-wind. That said, that was a sweet move he put on Webber in the end.
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PS: In the only laps Nico Rosberg was in clean air, somewhere from lap 9 to 11 I think, he posted the fastest lap.