"A tough hit for Hamilton" by Heikki Kulta

A tough hit for Hamilton 

25.9.2012 

The retirement was a tough hit for Lewis Hamilton's championship-hopes, but McLaren has such a fast car that I wouldn't yet count him out of the WDC-battle. If Hamilton could drive evenly the rest of the season and be on pole each time, then he still has chances although he has had such a fluctuating year. 

It could be that McLaren has taken out a bit more from their car. Now their gearbox failed. It takes a few millseconds to change gears with them. You can easily get a few hundreths advantage in laptimes through that by changing gears a little faster, but it's risky. I'm sure that they will now fix the problem with the gearbox, however what will fail next? 

The power relations at the moment are following; McLaren is fastest and Red Bull second fastest. Third place is completely out in the open, and depending on the track anyone of the following can take it: Ferrari, Williams, Sauber or Lotus. 

Red Bull's floor and suspension works well on Singapore's bumpy track and Vettel drove really well compared to Webber, who was quite miserable the whole weekend. For example Sauber and Lotus had problems with the bumps in Singapore. The car didn't work there that well. 

Ferrari will have to be busy. McLarens and Red Bulls are at the moment so fast, that Ferrari already have four cars in front of them. Then there will be races where Saubers and at least the other Williams and hopefully also the Lotus-cars will surprise. 

Singapore showed already a bit of direction that Lotus seems to have fallen out of the game. They haven't yet fallen off completely but the situation got once more difficult when thinking of the championship. If the improvements that Lotus is boasting so much about don't work in Japan, then they are out of the championship-battle. 

Lotus had a problem with not really getting to drive at all the duble-DRS they have developed. I think it's likely that Lotus has concentrated so much on the double-DRS that they have forgotten many other things and that has slowed down everything. If the double-DRS would absolutely be good, then they would already had used it, hence it has it's own risks. 

Schumacher's rear-end collision probably happened because his car didn't have the heat of brakes and tyres in place after the SC. The situation also made me think that maybe he didn't empty KERS during SC and that pushed the car a little. Last year Schumi had a similar accident on the track where he drove in the rear with full tilt. He got away quite easily with only a 10-position -grid penalty to the next race. I think that the decision was too mild. Of course we don't know what kind of discussion took place between Schumacher and the judges. Maybe Mercedes showed from their data that something special had happened and that's why they got a smaller penalty. 

Hamilton leaving McLaren looks more and more certain all the time. There the relations are so tense that he doesn't enjoy being in McLaren, although he has a winning car. I know many mechanics from McLaren and other employees also and they are really nice people, hence it shouldn't at least be up to personal chemistry, but maybe Hamilton has problems with the higher management. 

Fonte: Turun Sanomat / Tradução para o Inglês: Nicole

Mais um excelente texto de Kulta. Análise perfeita de como as coisas estão no momento do campeonato. Red Bull e McLaren são os carros mais rápidos, em especial a McLaren, então não tiro Hamilton da briga, como Jenson fez ontem. Não mesmo.

A Ferrari e a Lotus estão enfrentando um pouco mais de dificuldades com seus carros, a diferença é que a equipe de Maranello está na liderança do mundial de pilotos e tem todas as condições de se manter onde está, é equipe grande, com staff que pode trabalhar em cima disto sem se preocupar com mais nada e tem um piloto é sua melhor forma, Alonso.

Já a Lotus, apesar de ter Kimi fazendo um excelente trabalho, precisa jogar todas as suas fichas na próxima corrida se quiser sonhar com algo. O carro teve sua última prova realmente competitiva na Hungria, de lá para cá, Kimi carregou o E20 nas costas. 

Além disto, equipes como Force India, Sauber e Williams estão sempre no meio do caminho agora, atrapalhando tanto Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus ou McLaren pelos pontos ou até mesmo pódios. Ou seja, até o final do mundial, a briga vai ser intensa.

Para encerrar, o último parágrafo do texto de Kulta, uau!!! Definitivamente, a nuvem pesada se instalou em Woking. Temos que esperar pelas cenas dos próximos capítulos, porque se as relações entre Hamilton e a McLaren estão tão tensas, só o tempo vai dizer se o inglês deixa o time ou não.

Beijinhos, Ludy