planetf1.com

Sorry for the poor video quality, but this was all I could find.

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel start at 2014…: http://youtu.be/c7CiJXcjyH4

I won't deny that Hamilton's my fav driver, so I wanted to know what neutrals thought.

Anyone else think that was a bit too aggressive?

PS. That Mercedes can take a good beating.

I think we should let the racers race.

Yes, he was too aggressive. Everyone knows the start is prone to problems and contact, and to attempt an outside pass is excessively aggressive. Hamilton knew he had the better car and would eventually work his way up to second, especially with such a disparity in top end speed. He could have been a little smarter.

I voted yes, Hamilton was too aggressive.

If that's too aggressive, then both Vettel and Alonso should be banned for the rest of the season for their driving later in the race. Nothing wrong with Hamilton's overtake, he took the initiative because Vettel had a poor start, didn't put his car anywhere particularly dangerous, and gave plenty of space. Merely two cars jostling for position, nothing wrong with that.

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"You are the universe expressing itself as a Human for a little while..."

That makes sense. I hate when drivers try and overtake other drivers. If only there were more David Coulthard's or Max Chilton's. I mean, why the rush?

All sarcasm aside, do you actually believe that?

I think as was pointed out on the other thread about Alonso/Vettel the top guys have a huge amount of trust in eachother, Hamilton knows he needs to give Vettel no more than an inch of space & he doesn't.

Aggressive move? arguably should have waited (considering the top speed advantage)? these things can be debated but the move was fair so I voted no.

I think we should let the racers race.

I was talking about Vettel! Was Vettel too aggressive?

@blinky and all. I assumed you were taking the gherkin, and now I'm confused. I've been a little sleep deprived recently so apologies for any confusion.

It was a bit Seb to make that contact. He's okay on track mostly, but those little sideways moves when the place is lost always seem a bit spiteful to me.

It was beautifully set up by Lewis, over 3 corners. It was as though Vettel resented being outmanoeuvred, like he resented Nando's brilliant pass and defence later.

It's clear enough, don't worry . Just some tee hee humour.

Because it went wheel to wheel no problem at all and good racing.

Without the wheel to wheel contact he probably would have ploughed into Hamilton and left even less room, probably would have been a silly move then.

Hey, just a misunderstanding in communication, the internet is famous for that. Since the original question did not name which driver you believed was too aggressive, after viewing the video I came to the conclusion that between's Hamilton attempt to pass on the outside and Vettel's fight to defend his position, it was Hamilton who was more aggressive.

This is how I reached my conclusion. It is lap one, the drivers have not driven their cars in anger since the day before in qualifying (and the conditions were slick), and the tires were not up to temperature. In fact they may have not even ever driven with a full fuel load. This is when they are learning the traction limits of the car, and to attempt to force a pass on the outside is no guarantee Vettel is familiar to the car's handling, or that the tires will work as expected. Once the car has a couple of laps and the tires are up to temperature, then a driver can be confident the car will work as planned, and push to the limit.

But that's neither here nor there, it was just racing, and any contact would be considered a racing incident.

Thanks for taking time to explain. I'd not thought of it like that before.

Its was a racing bang of wheels but Vettel hit Hamilton not the other way around.

Hey, he made the pass work and nothing came of it. It's all good.

He stated Vettel on Hamilton. Not Hamilton in Vettel. Was more than obvious what he meant and watching its more than obvious who initiates the contact.

but then again I've seen your other post over the last 8 days.

its called racing, not driving quickly around tracks. I consider "elbowing" part of racing.
Mind, I consider overtaking back markers as part of racing and as most on here are probably sick of hearing, think the blue flag rule should be dumped along with drs.

Seriously, I don't see how that was any bit aggressive. Hamilton misjudged how much speed Vettel was carrying and they touched. Big deal. I want to see more close action.

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"Always believe you will become the best, but never believe you have done so"

If it had been a move with a realistic chance of keeping Hamilton behind by running him wide I wouldn't mind, but he'd been fending Hamilton off and knew where he was, and IMO knew that Lewis had too much speed.

So that little straightening of the wheel after he'd corrected the slide was just a bit of resentment I feel, in the same vein as at Austin in 2012 when Lewis passed him at 300+kmh and Seb had a pointless but highly dangerous little dart at him.

I'm taking Vettel as extremely good of course, especially on the first lap, that's why I don't think it was an error.

He just left him no room. He didn't run Hamilton off track, similarly Hamilton didn't back off in the slightest, they are two of the best & they both know they can place a huge amount of trust in eachother.

It's a non issue, I don't even see why it's being debated, they raced hard but fair, what else would you expect from two world champions?

I can guarantee if the roles were reversed no Hamilton fan would have said it was too aggressive.

Pointless comments like that aside, I don't even see why this needs a topic. It was a nothing incident.

I mean, people want the drivers to race yet want to talk about small things like this? Make up your minds.

It's only a debate if someone like you keeps disagreeing

IMO another top driver than Seb wouldn't have banged wheels. They banged wheels because Seb briefly took some lock off, when he didn't need to, and when he didn't have a realistic hope of keeping the position.

I'm just going by what's on the video.

We're in between races, time for these minor issues; if you don't want to discuss something, just don't discuss it. You're not claiming every single thread has to suit you, are you?

Personally my only - minor - complaint is that the contact seemed gratuitous.

Alonso & Hamilton banged wheels/wing at Canada last year, they know they can because the other driver won't do something stupid.

He took some lock off because he wanted as good of an exit as possible to perhaps fight back in the next corner, I highly doubt Vettel would have got that close to say Maldonado (unless he was very brave/stupid). Point is he only got that close because he knew he could trust Hamilton, and Hamilton didn't back out because he knew he could trust Vettel. Top quality racing.

That's pretty much how I called it. It looked a bit naughty from Seb, but I do accept that maybe Hamilton was being naive in overtaking around the outside when tyres aren't up to temp.

I am not a Hamilton fan (far from it) but I see nothing wrong with that and I agree with moby.
I would dump drs but I begrudgingly agree with the blue flags because I believe, for example, a Toro Rosso may not fight to stay ahead of a Red Bull the same way as a Merc.

I'm no Vettel fan and I see no wrong done by Vettel. I watched your video and remember that exact wheel contact during the race. I liked the wheel contact and thought it was great racing.

Vettel should have got a penalty for "causing an avoidable collision".

He tried to run his car run out to the left as if Hamilton wasn't even there. Glad that Hamilton didn't back down and showed him who's boss.

Yeah, though personally I think Lewis had to go for it, for his 'relationship' with Seb. All the drivers get to know who'll back off and who won't, and then drivers push or get pushed accordingly. Also Seb is fair most of the time, I think he just has this petulant streak that comes out occasionally.

@Black_Flag if you watch kind of frame by frame you see that Vettel corrects the rear with one big left movement, goes back to right lock, takes a bit off, goes back to right lock, then straightens up to as you say free the car to launch out of the corner. It's that 'takes a bit off' that's naughty, for me, because it's inviting a wheel-bang but he's not going to keep the position with it. And it was enough of a bang to raise a concern about damage with Lewis and his crew.

Not at all. I wasn't trying to suggest people have no right to talk about it, I was just expressing my surprise that people actually found something to talk about.

I mean, I don't see people talking about 3 second pit stops. Or a driver hitting the apex of a corner. Slightly exaggerated examples maybe, but that's basically how I saw it. A regular race incident.

They both seemed to fight fair to me, and slight contact at the first few corners isn't exactly abnormal. That's where my comment came from.

But of course, if some people did see something to talk about they are free to. Just trying to understand what that was.

Okay cool. I agree it was minor, though iirc on Sky there was some discussion about the chance of damage.

vettel has nothing to lose this year

Or maybe he didn't want to scrub off any speed increasing the rotational angle, or maybe he was carrying too much speed that he could not rotate his car anymore, or maybe he didn't want Hamilton to get a good line into the next corner? It was a minor touch of wheels, not an avoidable collision. Kobayashi used to do this a lot, and we praised his unique approach. We saw Bianchi touch him a few times in Monaco as well. Did we complain about those incidents? No, in fact we praised them.

Lewis was given enough space to put two wheels onto the track, and I can tell you that Vettel was entitled to give him little room. Looking at the replay, actually, it was Lewis who was the person most in fault (but of course, it would be complete rubbish if he did get a penalty). Lewis turned into Seb, when Vettel was already committed to his exit (also entitled to the line as he was in front). What Lewis should have done to avoid such a minor incident would be to drive a wider line , rather than already turning his car while Seb was straightening his up still. Hamilton had enough room to run his left wheels onto the curb without touching the AstroTurf.

By the way, I'm not stating the fact that Hamilton should have gotten penalised, nor am I a Hamilton hater. I was even cheering for him in the race, so don't think that this post was biased. Oh, and I'm not a Vettel lover, either!

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"Always believe you will become the best, but never believe you have done so"

Hamilton was alongside him. Vettel didn't give him enough room. In that situation he should be leaving at least a car's width on the exit. All Vettel's fault and he should have got a penalty.

except his reputation (which he is already starting to lose).

And Vettel did give him the width in order to both be still on the track and not go on the AstroTurf. Lewis did not have to keep turning his car into Seb, he should have stopped turning it when he was able to continue the overtake and still be on the track. We can see that, when they touched, Hamilton jerked wide to correct his oversteer and still remained on the track.

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"Always believe you will become the best, but never believe you have done so"

They only have to leave a car's width on corner entry, if they've previously moved to cover the inside.

It wasn't a penalty situation, for me. Just that the extra little steering-wheel movement that Vettel made to cause the contact I thought was a bit petulant.

Which is quite similar to what Hamilton did to Rosberg in a more agressive fashion in Bahrein in 1 occasion(if not 2)... "as if Rosberg wasnt there", and the only difference being was the fact that Rosberg "wisely" left the track in order to avoid any incidents while Hamilton stood firm in his fight with Vettel.

No penalties in both cases IMO, but I presume you`d have wanted Hamilton as well to be punished for not leaving a car`s width space to Rosberg and forcing him off the track in Bahrein!

These are meant to be the best drivers in the world. They have been driving the car all year with full fuel loads and should know the limits of the car. He racing against vettel a driver he can trust also. By your analogy do you think senna was dangerous at donnington in 93 by passing a driver around the outside? Should he waited a couple of laps to get a feel for the track? He hadn't driven on the circuit in wet conditions with a full fuel load.

Hamilton knew he had to get to second place as quickly as possible otherwise Rosberg would be to far ahead. If he had waited a couple of laps he could have been 10 seconds behind Rosberg instead of 5 which would have meant the race was over (obviously without knowing Rosberg would eventually retire).

Pest - Look through his recent post history. Wasting ya time.