lewis hamilton on top gear - conclusions

- he's not very tall
- he wants to be a rap star ("i drive a mercedes GL 420 on 24 inch rims, it's a pimp wagon"
- by fuck that boy can drive O_o

F1 drivers are usually boring as shit, but he seems to at least have a bit of personality.

and yeah, as if this season didn't tell you he can drive already, jesus. but then look how relaxed he was in the car, being relaxed and comfortable with your machine is the first step...

oh and most f1 drivers are pretty small, a consequence of having to fit in the cars, look how even hamster found the renault cramped.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OyfdyJDiqjk

oh and i found it a great episode overall. no really ott challenge, just cocking about with cars. found the old cars bit really interesting too. amazing that they let them drive the old benz, that thing must be worth a very large fortune.

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by BBC Worldwide Ltd.

It's actually not that, it's because many of them came through carting - where size/weight matter a lot.

Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Pedro De La Rosa, Alex Wurz, Jensen Button are all 5-foot-10 or over.

R

Seeing the time he posted, in the wet, was something like 0.2 of slower than Mansell's time in the dry shows a lot... and not how good Hamilton is either... it's how variable the car performance is.

Basically, unless you get drivers in the same car on the same day their lap times can't really be fairly compared. I've already read people claim his is the best overall lap ever driven - but tire technology along would have improved the car by over a second in lap-time since the late 90s. Likewise, they could have taken the back seat out or recently replaced the shocks to improve times by a second.

Hamilton beating Mansell - who has a long history of sportscar racing (car's with closed bodies) after his F1 career - there is no way Hamilton could better Mansell's time with only ten practice laps.

Once again - the UK media having a field-day of promoting their new wonderkid.

I've heard that McLaren engineers had a bit of time to 'inspect' the car before Hamilton drove it. (My bet is the emptied the fuel-tank and put in better fuel, removed anything not visible, and added a couple of torsion struts and changed the brake pads - all invisible but massive performance enhancing moves)

R

The british press are loving hamilton soooo much it almost makes me sick. Living in the uk makes it worse. Don't get me wrong. He is a fantastic driver, and I really like him....just not the amount of sunshine blown up his arse over here.
The big thing for people (who are british) to talk about over here if you even mention formula one, is that they wish Schumacher was still racing cause Hamilton could take him.
I've had the conversation multiple times now. People saying that if you put them both in the same car Hamilton would take him because apparently hes more of a 'natural' driver than Schuey.
I find that laughable.

It's like music - the people who least qualified to make any comment on the finer workings seem to have the most extreme opinions.

That comment above it laughable. There are other variables such as "the same car". Do you set it up for the clearly different driving styles or give them the same average set-up? If that was the case then even Schumy wouldn't be the fastest, Alonso would. And they'd both be faster than Hamilton.

Then you have to consider how many laps they get - one, five, 20? The less laps, the more in favour of Schumy it'd be surely. If they had to get in the car and practice for two hours then whoever did the single fasted lap in that period - Hamilton would possibly be the guy.

FYI,, Alonso resigned with Renault to drive with Nico Nelson Piquet Jnr. Kovalainen would seem to therefore be going to McLaren and Fisi maybe to Force India.

R