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So do a lot of other drivers and drivers that aren't in F1 at the moment.

Give Hamilton the challenge to drive 5 laps of Barcelona in only 6th gear and see if he can average less than 2 seconds off the pace

swoosh

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I shagged a couple of loose balls for her in warmups.

I don't mean he is not good enough, I mean his Sauber and the Toro Rossos and others he was fighting, are not good enough. They have less grip, are not on rails like the Ferrari and Red Bull. So I think a driver with the balls to do those passes, will have less chance in a perfect car to try and pass another perfect car.

Personally I think Kobayashi just like Hamilton is just a risk taker alongside being v. good at overtaking. At times it will go wrong, as we have seen with Lewis and Kobayashi, but there will be plenty of spectacular moments. Lewis has passed more cars than anyone else this season I believe including passing the RBR's, Ferrari's e.t.c. His move around the outside of Rosberg in Australia is one of the moves of the season. Whilst Kobayashi has made plenty of good moves, even on some big names [Alonso in Valencia] as well as stuffing up [Lap1/2 Canada]

It's all well and good saying it's easier to pass in the midfield but there have been plenty of occasions where faster cars have been trapped behind slower midfield ones and never looked like overtaking. Kobayashi has the tenacity and balls to do so. He was braking later than anyone else into that hairpin. What I will admit is that the fallout from a collision is much different in the midfield than at the front. Look at the criticism Vettel has had his way and still does for Spa. Alongside this there is still plenty of honing to do in his racecraft, it was only two weeks ago he was poleaxing Schumacher off the road and crashing into the chicane in Singapore.

I see no reason why he can't be in a second Ferrari or second Renault in time if the likes of Massa want to continue underperforming and crashing into others and then blaming it all on other people.

However there is no need to rush. Kamui is only 24, and Sauber is a proven breeding ground for young talent. Kubica, Massa, Raikkonen, Heidfeld e.t.c. have all benefited from Peter Sauber's stewardship. There is no reason Kamui can't continue to do so in a slightly pressure free environment before being stolen by a big team in a season or two.

He certainly has the potential to be the best Japanese driver ever though, and especially after his interview on the BBC Forum I'm a fan.

Kobayashi is fantastic to watch, brave, and pretty quick.

But don't forgot that he only finished 5 seconds ahead of a team mate who has barely raced anything all year.

He did lose time because his team left him out on old tyres for too long after the others had switched to fresh rubber.

Nick did do a very good job (faster relative to everyone around him on the same strategy), but Kamui would've done even better had he not braked too late into the chicane on his final Q2 lap (which would've put him into Q3 and almost certainly into Rosberg\Rubens territory) and had Sauber not left him on the hard tyres for about 3 laps too long. I was watching his laptimes and he went from low 44s to high 44s\low 45s; he would've come out ahead of Buemi, possibly ahead of Alguersuari, and would have had enough time to catch and pass Schumacher as well.

For a good 20 laps Kamui was at most .8 of a second behind Button on the same tyres. It's his race pace that gets him the majority of these results, not the overtakes. He did it at Abu Dhabi, he did it at Valencia, he did it at the Hungaroring and he did it again last weekend.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Stalled at first set of traffic lights I came to. FAIL. xD

I have tried once, and I could start in any of my 5 gears in an old petrol car. My dad was furious, seems it is bad for the clutch

lol it's terrible for the clutch.

To be fair, Hamilton didn't have to stop at traffic lights, which going on past form is actually good news.

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Just watched the highlight reel of the race and FujiTV had quite a lot of more angles of the start incident that were not shown during the actual race broadcast. They had two angles from behind and one of them was a close-up shot focussing on Petrov and Hulkenberg. There were no alternate angles of Rosberg and di Grassi. Sutil's spin was shown from the camera at the chicane but this one only caught the end.

not a chance in hell.

Are you also going to give Hamilton all the aids and advantages afforded to Schumi by Benetton that same year?

But surely Schumacher's Benetton got traction control?

Some nice videos about the hero of this race

It's proven Benetton got Traction Control that year. Onlt they couldn't prove that they used it.

But traction control doesnt have much effect in 5th gear, right?