The Singapore GP saw all possible incidents that usually happen in an F1 race with Michael Schumacher losing control and hitting Perez’s car and Hamilton clipping his front wings onto the rear of Felipe Massa’s Ferrari among a lot of other incidents where drivers either had to retire from car issues or crashing out on their own accord. Hamilton has since moved on after his infamous crash with Felipe Massa and also concedes Jenson Button has been a better driver than him so far this season.
Hamilton was in Bangalore as part of a promotional event arranged by Vodafone. Hamilton flew straight from Singapore to Bangalore to enthral F1 enthusiasts and displayed his skills on an MP4-23 F1 car, the same car that gave him the title in 2008. Skills demonstrated included smoke-filled spins, incredibly fast runs along the NICE (Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises) road. Hamilton seems to have left the incident involving Massa behind and is looking ahead to the next race.
When questioned about his approach strategically for the remaining races this season, Hamilton says at the moment he has to find his form and continue to improve on results from the last 4 races. He goes on to say that teammate, Jenson Button’s done a fantastic job, and he feels he’s done better than him throughout the season. Lewis feels even if he does better in the remaining 5 races, it doesn’t really outweigh Jenson’s contribution to the team this season.
Hamilton since his inception to F1 has been welcomed as an aggressive driver that loves overtaking. Though he displayed a few very good and safe overtaking manoeuvres in F1, there have been some bad overtaking manoeuvres that’s casted an element of doubt among F1 fans. The controversies surrounding this aspect of his driving are numerous to put forth for a discussion, and Lewis has not claimed a podium finish since the Nuerburgring race win in Germany.
Teammate, Jenson Button, whose move to McLaren wasn’t welcomed by many as they still doubted his skills to drive a race winning McLaren car, nonetheless has proved his critics wrong by some impressive driving performances notably being on the podium for last 4 races, and his best being the Canadian GP where he won a thriller. At a point, Jenson Button was jobless when Honda announced their withdrawal from F1, but ever since Brawn GP took over from Honda for a place in Formula One to the time he’s been with McLaren, he’s shown what he can do given a good car. Button incidentally was crowned the F1 Champ of the 2009 season.
Jenson Button is older compared to Lewis Hamilton and is the only driver who could stop Sebastian Vettel from getting his 2nd title next week in Suzuka, Japan, though it’s quite impossible to achieve that as Vettel needs just a point for the 2011 Championship. It’s an impossible task, yet Button is the man challenging Vettel and not Lewis Hamilton that proves he’s been the better driver for McLaren this season.
Button is now 17 points ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton with 5 races to go this season. This would make Button the 1st driver finishing ahead of another Brit driver as teammates in the Championship.
Hamilton’s latest aggression was seen in Singapore where he clashed with the Ferrari of Felipe Massa damaging his front wings and also causing a puncture to Felipe’s rear tyre.
It may be noted that Lewis Hamilton won the thriller 1-point title in 2008 by beating Massa, however, has faced 5 drive-through penalties this season for various incidents.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa looked clearly agitated when Hamilton clipped his front wings thereby causing damage to Massa’s rear tyre. During interviews after the race in Singapore, Massa did pat the back of Hamilton congratulating him sarcastically saying he did a very good job and even gestured a thumbs-up. Hamilton soon packed off without further commenting on the incident.
Hamilton told he could ignore the incident and carry on, though he still has respect for Felipe Massa.
Organisers of the event in Bangalore did estimate around 40,000 fans to have made it to the event to witness Hamilton drive his MP4-23 McLaren car. The event also promotes the upcoming Indian GP scheduled to be held in Delhi in October 2011.
McLaren Mercedes has to forget this season’s drivers’ or constructors’ title with Red Bull clearly dominating the tracks from day one of the season and hopefully would be clinching both the titles this season. McLaren, however, has been competing hard with other rivals in Ferrari and Mercedes GP and seem to look good in certain tracks, but performing not so good in other tracks. Consistency is the key to win in F1 and Red Bull has clearly demonstrated how to do it. Moreover, Massa’s sarcastic remarks on Hamilton saying he wasn’t mature enough to be racing in F1 adds concern to the troubled Brit driver who seems less concerned about the incident or the already 5 drive-through penalties imposed on him.
Hamilton has found support in the form of David Coulthard. David is an ex-McLaren driver who now works for Red Bull and plays an important role in its development. David says Massa is frustrated as he’s not driving better than Alonso and looks concerned about a Ferrari berth the next year. This sure looks encouraging for the Brit, but he has to stop driving aggressively and unnecessarily getting involved in controversies. Button is for sure the better driver for McLaren this season, perhaps Hamilton hard to accept the fact, drives so carelessly nowadays.
Aggressive driving was also criticised by Alain Prost, the former F1 legend, who says drivers are taking unnecessary risks while overtaking, and also made a comment on Michael Schumacher saying he should help Mercedes GP rather than going for a title.
