The pit stop was unfourtunate but McLaren just didnt have the pace and in reality Hamilton only lost 8 points today, the tyres were gone like Kimi in Malaysia, Pastor, Michael and Mark wouldve sailed through before the flag. They really need updates to the rear and to the front jack of course
I beg to differ, Hamilton would have been a sitting duck towards the end of the race. So the pitstop has no relevance.
If Hamilton was ahead of Alonso he would not have to tried to chase. He could have controlled the pace a bit more. May not have affected the ultimate result but the incident with Maldonado would never have happened. Indirectly, McLaren screwed up his race more than it looked at the time.
Maybe Lewis should sign with McLaren again but this time the extra money that would! of been spent on Lewis should be spent on pitstops alone! The six million jack! [video=youtube;HofoK_QQxGc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HofoK_QQxGc[/video] Though it might just end up like this: [video=youtube;kse0MG5n9wI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kse0MG5n9wI[/video]
It's weird they had a stand-by jack ready, don't remember ever seeing that before. If they knew it was faulty, then surely they wouldn't use it... Common sense says I'm wrong, but Mclaren don't always seem to use that. Would his race have been different? Nobody will ever know... So let's speculate: If everything went ok, he'd have been infront of Alonso, behind the two Renault failures and would have inherited 1st. From here all the other cars around his seemed quicker, so it would have been tough keeping them behind. Not sure they would have tried a Maldanado, and perhaps Maldanado would have cruised up to him anyway, such was the degradation. Overall, Eddie Jordan appears to be talking ****e when he says the McLaren is the fastest. No it isn't, it just has qualifying pace. Then again, Jordan talks mostly ****e.
Haven't had chance to watch the race properly since we had family over, so need to watch it again when I can fully focus on it.. but didn't the second jack drop the car too? Looked like they struggled keeping the car up with both jacks. I may not have seen that correctly though.
The second jack seemed to struggle too, but having the front wheel guys wrestling with their wheels at the same time as he was trying to place the jack without damaging the front wing probably accounts for the problems. Lewis does seem to have more problems in this area than Jenson, but that might be down to the fact that since the first 3 races, Lewis' sops have "meant more" than Jenson's, and they fluffed Jenson's when it mattered this year in China too. There was talk about Lewis not being as accurate at hitting his marks, forcing the guys to move slightly, but I don't think that that's true. The front jack guy at Red Bull often takes a pummelling from Seb when he comes in for a stop, being sent reeling back. Lets not forget that McLaren weren't the only ones to mess up a stop, as pointed out above, Massa had an even more strange issues with his stop, having the wrong tyres on which could have lead to a disqualification. Also, we never seem to see too much from other pits stops down the pitlane, which makes matters seem worse, and it seems that this is one of those snowballing problems that is feeding on itself. The McLaren crew fel the pressure, make a mistake, which then gets them more attention on their stops so more pressure, which leads to more mistakes..... Fingers crossed that they can sort this out. Lewis has lost too many points this season because of this. I don't tend to agree with Eddy that Lewis would have won the race at the weekend without it, but you never know. He got stuck in dirty ar when he shouldn't have, which never helps tyre life, so perhaps he might have been able to hand on like Alonso did in the end. Ultimately tho, he was only ever in with any chance because of Sebs mechanical issues, as he was "ominously" walking away with the race, lest we forget.
I cannot remember a team making so many mistakes (which includes choosing to use new equipment which is ultimately found to be faulty), so consistently. When one considers the relative wealth and resourcefulness of McLaren, it is quite unbelievable that they seem so determined to be their own worst enemy! (Note to self: I think there is another thread where I can post this comment)
I must admit I suffered a cold shudder when I heard Sam Michael was going to McLaren, not convinced he's the full ticket somehow.
I see McLaren are congratulating themselves regarding Lewis's first pit stop. They say it's the fastest pit stop in motor racing history.
