Fred, I realise your antipathy towards Lewis is a very personal issue but saying that Alonso "only just lost out" is plain silly, as you can see: 1 Lewis Hamilton GB Mercedes 384 2 Nico Rosberg Ger Mercedes 317 3 Daniel Ricciardo Aus Red Bull 238 4 Valtteri Bottas Fin Williams 186 5 Sebastian Vettel Ger Red Bull 167 6 Fernando Alonso Spa Ferrari 161 Fernando himself praises Lewis and says he's the best. Given their difficult history, if he can put all that aside, why can't you even acknowledge that you were wrong about Lewis?
Also, anyone can win in the best car. Someone has to have the best car, it doesn't detract from their achievements, especially when they were so generally dominant in it. Alonso, Vettel, Schuey etc could all win multiple WDC's when driving the cream if the crop, however on their day their teammates would still beat them, as Rosberg has done this year. Hopefully next year MERCEDES will have more competition as it will be good for the sport in general. Doubtless if he won again, it would still be best car syndrome.........
Me too I'm also chuffed for Williams, glad Bottas secured 4th place and Felipe is having a renaissance.
That doesn't make sense, Alonso 'only just lost out'? You've also forgotten that in 2007 the then rookie Hamilton finished ahead of Alonso in the same team, so I doubt he would've been 'WDC months back'.
Seems someone's taking a panning here. I wonder if it's my drinking buddy secretly on here because he hates Hamilton with a passion too? Lewis thoroughly deserved this Championship. Credit to Nico for being gracious in defeat.
I preferred Alonso that day but it didn't work out. Was that the race of Vettel's storming comeback from last on lap one?
I think Eddie meant that he had the support of his team mate, he didn't have him as a rival. I was hoping Fernando would win that day too.
To give Hamilton all the credit for building Mercedes into the force they are is mightily unfair on all the team back at Brackley, and equally to blame Alonso for Ferrari's failure to produce a title-challenging car is harsh. With that said, it's hard to argue that Alonso would have done a better than Hamilton this season. His record speaks for itself: 11 wins 3 Second Places 2 Third Places (both after starting from the back of the grid through no fault of his own) 3 Retirements (Engine failure ,Brake failure and Collision damage) Just where does Alonso improve on that? For all his strengths, he's not going to produce a 100% flawless season, which would be required to top that. Hamilton may have had a dominant car, but he's had a worthy adversary in his team-mate, which is more than Vettel's had for the last few seasons. That's the only reason he didn't wrap the championship up sooner. If he'd had the advantages afforded to Alonso (pliable, weak team-mates for example) then he would have had this wrapped up with several races to go.
Yes, I didn't explain that very clearly. Also, if we are looking at previous years for precedent, then 2007 gives us a more direct comparison of Alonso and Hamilton. Thirdly, I was also rooting for Alonso that day.
I also don't think you can't compare performances across seasons. Team mates competing directly is the only meaningful comparison. For instance, Rosberg generally used to beat Schumacher in his Merc days, but Hamilton has just beaten Rosberg. So does this mean Hamilton is now better than 7 x WDC Schumacher? No. Because this is F1, not conkers. Is Fernando the same driver he was in 2011 or 2012? We don't know. We can only compare him to Raikkonen, and he certainly isn't the driver he was.
