Hamilton gets second McLaren seat

doubledown

Current GP2 Champion Lewis Hamilton has been given the opportunity to be Alonso's team mate at McLaren next year. Very unlike McLaren to give a rookie a shot like that. They must have a lot of faith in him. I think it's a great move. He's a real talent.

http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=37994

Jonny Arson

Absolutely delighted McLaren have made the right decision to give him a race driver rather than a test drive. Ron Dennis has guided his career for the past 10 years so he knows him better than anyone and after this years GP2 season there's no question that Hamilton is more than ready. After a few races to shake off been green, if he has a competitive car, I can see winning races this season and giving Alonso a very good run for his money.

For me, Alonso and Hamilton is going to be the best driver lineup since Hill and Villeneuve in 1996.

doubledown

Yep, I agree. The guy has serious talent. And luckily Setanta showed the entire GP2 season this year so it was possible to chart his progress. I'm delighted for him and hopefully McLaren can give him a reliable car so he won't have a horrible rookie season like Rosberg did. 2007 is shaping up rather nicely!

pburns

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

For me, Alonso and Hamilton is going to be the best driver lineup since Hill and Villeneuve in 1996.

You cannot be serious citing this as the best driver line-up of the last decade??! That wasn't even the best team-linup of '96!!

Hill - gritty, determined, great development abiliities & top bloke. But not a top-drawer talent...
Villeneuve - moderetly fast, very brave, accident-prone. Made a meal of winning the WDC in by far the best car (so says P.Head) . Left F1 under a cloud. Twice.

Both were flattered by a vastly superior car and won their WDCs quite unchallenged. I thought Alonso/Fisi would be an awesome line-up but look what happened there.

BTW - how is Hamilton going to cope with Alonso's much-discussed set-up preferences. If we are to believe everything we read the new McLaren is being built around his driving-style...

steviec

Good performance in GP2 doesn't automatically translate to F1. No GP2 or F3000 champion has ever been Formula 1 champion and only very few have been race winners.

Not to say Hamilton won't be the one to break the trend but it's impossible to say until he's actually got some decent F1 mileage behind him.

Jonny Arson

pburns wrote:

You cannot be serious citing this as the best driver line-up of the last decade??! That wasn't even the best team-linup of '96!!

Go on, throw up a better partnership during the 1996 season. Schumcaher/Irvine - Not a chance... Berger/Alesi - Very disapointing... Hakkinen/Coulthard - Messed up alot that year...... the rest???? Badoer/Montermini?

pburns wrote:

Hill - gritty, determined, great development abiliities & top bloke. But not a top-drawer talent...

2 time world champion. 1996 World Champion with 8 wins and in 1994 we all know he was cheated out of it. Consistently challenged for race wins from 1993-1998. Gave Prost a run for his money in his first season 1993. Damon Hill, proven to be one of greatest driver of the 90's, that's more than a top drawer talent in my book.

pburns wrote:

Villeneuve - moderetly fast, very brave, accident-prone. Made a meal of winning the WDC in by far the best car (so says P.Head) . Left F1 under a cloud. Twice.

Moderately fast? I don't think you win a F1 world title, dominate the 1995 Indycar championship and win the Indy 500 if you're moderately fast. He wasn't far off winning the world title in his first season which was an incredible feat and BAR were a disaster of a team, any world champion would have struggled with them. I thought he did very well with Sauber and BMW never wanted him there and he did an excellent job under all that politics. If Villenueve had made better choices and had a bit more luck he would be held in higher regard as a race driver than he is now.

Both were flattered by a vastly superior car and won their WDCs quite unchallenged. I thought Alonso/Fisi would be an awesome line-up but look what happened there.

Williams dominated the 1996 season not because they had an all conquering car (it was the best car but not by the massive margin some people think) but because they had 2 drivers on the top of their game and unfortunately the opposition were not up to much that year. The fact Williams let Hill and Villeneuve race other made for an exciting 2 horse duel, they put on a great show. That makes them the best driver lineup and partnership in the past 10 years, they raced each other and there was little between them. No other lineup has touched them since. 1997 the gap closed, Ferrari were on it and Benneton and McLaren found impressive cars compared to 1996. Villenueve won his title in the most competitive season I can remember. I can't see how Villeneuve won it unchallenged when it went to Jerez.


If McLaren treat Alonso and Hamilton equal then I believe we could have fireworks. Alonso has Renault putting most of their efforts into his car over Fisichella for the past 2 years and I can't see McLaren doing this when they have backed Hamilton for 10 years with the belief that they have a future world champion in their hands. Hmailton will keep Alonso on his toes this year which will benefit Alonso, Hamilton and the team. I haven't been this excited about a driver lineup since 1996.

pburns

Well I'd put Schumi/Irvine ahead of Hill/Villeneuve for a start... I think I'm on pretty safe ground with the following statement: Michael Schumacher was a far, far, far better racing driver than Damon Hill:rolleyes:

Villeneuve - Where do I start!? I don't have time for a statistical breakdown of driver errors, performances against team-mates etc. However this page provides some interesting stats. Plus it refers to the comment from Head i referred to:
'Villeneuve lost a lot of points through non-finishes, leading to suggestions that he didn’t make the most of the Williams-Renault package. Even Patrick Head said he’d made “heavy weather” of winning the title.'
PH is referring to the fact that the Williams was on a different planet to the Ferrari that year. A driver other than MS would have had no business even thinking about the title...
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/statistics/1997-formula-one-season-statistics/
In my OPINION Irvine was at least a match for Villeneuve - similar speed, far fewer mistakes...

Hakkinen was recovering from his accident in '96 & wasn't up to par for the first part of the season. But I think if you look at Hill/Vill/Hakk/DC subsequent careers the latter two did pretty OK... MH won 2 WDCs & I'm sure if I scoured the net Schumi has said he was his greatest competitor - at least up until the Alonso/Kimi years. And last time I checked DC hasn't been rejected from F1 like JV and during the McLaren years was tantilisingly close to the super-swift Finn in terms of raw pace.

2 caveats: Hill was superb in the Arrows in '97. OK, Diniz was a no-hoper team-mate, but I think Damon made a huge technical contribution & they were almost giant-killers.
JV whipped HHF who - in my opinion - was a more naturally gifted driver. Psychologically though, I think HHF was extremely weak. Just like Fisi today. Credit to Villeneuve though - he is a tough little b*****d.

Ooops...didn't intend to spend this much time on the post!! I don't mean any disrespect, you obviously know your stuff re. F1 - I just totally, utterly, strongly disagree with your opinion!:)

Kalina

Good sign, hopefully he can play a good support role to Fernando next year and bring McLaren back up to at least winning races regularly again.