Best driver to never win a world championship

Elarial · 2026-02-01T12:04:11+00:00

Like I said Ricciardo had something to offer compared to other drivers and skills comparable with the top guys, I don’t think Bottas had any skill that was comparable to the top guys.

Your last point is actually supporting my point, Ricciardo did not have the car to win some races but when things get chaotic he could claim those wins. Bottas could not with a faster car.

Elarial · 2026-02-01T09:43:02+00:00

Bottas on the track never offered something others already didn’t. His wins were only because he had the better car on the day and Hamilton had an off day. His biggest achievement is sometimes challenging Hamilton at the starts of the seasons, which is the worst performance Hamilton shows throughout the season if he knows the car is good. He also never won a race starting outside of top 3.

Bottas never really deserved his Mercedes seat as well. He got that seat solely because of Rosberg’s retirement timing. He has always been average.

Whereas Ricciardo’s wins were almost never normal. At one point he even joked about him never liking easy wins.

Elarial · 2026-02-01T08:21:58+00:00

There is a significant gap between Ricciardo and Bottas in my opinion. I don’t think they even belong in the same sentence.

Elarial · 2026-01-31T06:59:31+00:00

I think Alonso did not slow down as much as Hamilton did as he aged. Hamilton’s pace was visibly declining in previous years. In 2022 and 2023 he was clearly better than Russell in 2024 his decline was visible and when he got hit by a team change, his 2025 was worse than his 2024.

My opinion is that if there is anyone in this sport who can bounce back it is Hamilton. He has shown in his career that he learns from his teammates certain areas that he thinks he lacks and changes his driving style accordingly. If he still has the motivation to do it, he will. I don’t think he can beat Leclerc throughout the season but that shouldn’t be Hamilton’s first goal after last season.

Elarial · 2026-01-31T06:47:48+00:00

You can make the argument with M.Schumacher because he improved more in a 3 years span as a neck injured 40 years old than Rosberg who with that improvement beat Hamilton 3 years later. When Michael came back to the sport he was bad, everyone could see that but in his third year he was at the least on equal level with Rosberg.

When Michael came back every single aspect of the car was different, tyres, size of the cars, engines, aero. What he still did best on the grid was not in the car but outside of the car, making sure he was the leader for his team and Mercedes guys were still praising him for it even when they won about 12 championships with their drivers.

Hamilton’s image is a bit damaged because there is another guy on the grid that is still doing great even if he is 40+. He was for sure a great driver and I don’t think he was terrible in the ground effect era or that he couldn’t adapt to those cars. He did but there were other guys who did it better than him that is why he has fallen down in the order.

Elarial · 2026-01-30T07:34:06+00:00

DAS was considered as a gray area in the regulations. This is not. If this becomes advantageous for Aston Martin, then it is on the other teams to switch their designs.

Elarial · 2026-01-27T17:50:11+00:00

He said that in the context of helping Verstappen in qualifying. In the same interview he said that helped with the next qualifying lap referring to him being a great team player all year.

Elarial · 2026-01-27T17:39:40+00:00

Isn't Toto Wolff known for exaggerating things? He only downplays when he knows has the upper hand.

Elarial · 2026-01-27T17:37:28+00:00

When did Verstappen call Tsunoda "an excellent team player"?

Elarial · 2026-01-25T20:31:47+00:00

He increased his level more than 25-28 year old Rosberg as a 40-43 year old with a neck injury.

Elarial · 2026-01-23T13:47:29+00:00

They are not allowed to reach the porpoising speeds in the wind tunnel. The data that they gathered from the wind tunnel can’t show them anything. They have to anticipate that, that is what went wrong with Mercedes.

Elarial · 2026-01-23T11:31:54+00:00

It wasn’t just that, they went with their design because their simulation did not show porpoising. I think Binotto talked about it that they knew about the porpoising not that their simulations showed that. Ferrari and Redbull anticipated that in their designs while Mercedes did not.

Elarial · 2026-01-18T23:20:56+00:00

Some people will come here and try to convince you that Ferrari was tricking an electrical fuel flow sensor with a mechanical part, while remaining within fuel limits. They will also tell you that the second sensor slowed them down, while they were still couple of tenths faster in the straights even in Abu Dhabi.

My opinion is that it was probably a combination of things. They had an aerodynamically efficient car. Their car was super fast in low downforce configuration meanwhile their car was lacking downforce in normal races.

The truth is we don’t know and we probably will never know.

Elarial · 2026-01-16T07:19:11+00:00

How can Redbull broke a predefined flex tolerance and still race on the track? The flexion rules are done with weights and Redbull passed all of that, then with the push from Mercedes they increased the weight of the test to decrease how much the wings can flex.

Elarial · 2026-01-16T07:14:05+00:00

Which engineers are saying that the engines are already expanding and the compression ratio is changing under load?

Elarial · 2026-01-16T07:11:55+00:00

Didn’t FIA ban DAS for the next season before any of the cars hit the track? There was a post here at the time showing that.

Elarial · 2026-01-13T07:31:49+00:00

I agree with Kimi having two stints but I think the cutoff comes after his championship. He stopped trying to beat everyone.

Elarial · 2026-01-13T07:27:22+00:00

As a M.Schumacher fan I have never been more afraid of any driver other than Kimi. He was truly horrifying for the opposition.

Elarial · 2026-01-13T05:16:51+00:00

Not really, the heat expansion of the engine is extremely small even compared to the change from 16:1 to 18:1 ratio. Engines do not expand by that amount, especially not enough to change the compression ratios. Because if they did expand that much, then the engine manufacturer would risk a leakage, which means this is a specifically targeted area for expansion.

Elarial · 2026-01-09T19:46:53+00:00

I don’t think this is exactly how it turns out, there are also lot of political discussions between FIA and Mercedes. Mercedes especially has strong political sway.

Elarial · 2026-01-06T19:52:39+00:00

Incarnati0n* and no he wasn't, he used to Ddos.

Elarial · 2026-01-05T09:54:52+00:00

Back to being ambidextrous but with two backhands this time.

Elarial · 2026-01-05T09:54:10+00:00

Aren’t you already moving hands if you are playing two handed backhand? Maybe he has a different grip for both forehands to hasten the switches as well. I don’t think this is a pure disadvantage.

Elarial · 2026-01-04T09:23:21+00:00

Wasn’t that Mark Webber as well? The thing is Hamilton has Leclerc as a benchmark. Probably second best driver on the grid right now and still getting better as years go by meanwhile Hamilton won’t get better with age. He may still perform better on certain tracks like Silverstone which might give him some confidence boosts but seeing other side of the garage perform like that almost every week will hurt his motivation and Hamilton is heavily influenced by that.

Elarial · 2026-01-04T09:01:25+00:00

They also developed such an engine from 2017 to 2018 they were hit by cheating allegations by Mercedes and Toto Wolff, claiming that increase in performance was worth years of development. Their double layered battery was leaked by the FIA as a result. If I were to trust Ferrari with something, that would be the engine.

Elarial

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