Quote:
Originally Posted by Razzzor
Considering the Mercedes is a second a lap, at least, faster after than everyone else, and Mercedes were running their new parts (weren't they?) which claimed to give them ANOTHER second, Lewis should have been a minute ahead of everyone else (except Rosberg). He wasn't. He was only 23 secs ahead of Alonso who was held up by Vettel for most of that gap and then battled with Rosberg briefly.
Going by that, Lewis was surely just cruising all race long and couldn't really be considered DOTR. You've got to outperform the car for that. Even Rosberg seemed to be taking it easy, pushing only when necessary and apologising to the team for accidentally throwing that 1m 40.4 in there, almost 2 secs faster than Vettels fastest lap.
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I think it was Fangio who first said that you should try to win at the slowest possible speed. That's really what Hammy was doing. He gave himself just enough lead to allow himself an unexpected pitstop if necessary. He used less fuel than anyone else, so he had a bit of extra safety margin there too. He kept his pace below the ultimate so he put less strain on every bit of the car. He still has the ultimate pace that he had from Day 1, but he now shows a more controlled and intelligent side to his driving as well. It's not his fault if no-one else can keep up.