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Sakae

Silly Season

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I agree 100% monkey, look I love stand up comedy but your spot on when you watch the likes of dave chappelle, Eddie murphy just to name a couple and the way the carry on about white people, it's racism when we do it. Yeah I watched a talk show when Lewis referred to nick as "the golden child" yet he won't admit it when he is trying to do the same thing. I believe Lewis will use the racial card again or say it's punishment for his away from track actions but don't realise it's his own actions that cause the issues. I read somewhere that apparently merc behind closed doors are livid with Lewis's behaviour.

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I've often speculated Hamilton to be this: someone troubled, even if not aware that it troubles him, by the fact all his successes are in F1, yet that he's encountered so many difficulties in the things that mattered more—his relationships, for example, with his dad and with Nicole.

He's been trained his entire life to think the only thing that matters is F1 because that's how you have to behave to get to F1, and getting to F1 was what was in the cards for him from the start. Yet in doing that, he never got to be young. He was a McLaren driver at, what, 12? He's never been able to be anything but focused on F1. It's not a surprise he gets distracted once all sorts of things are available to him when he's had to be so F1-centered, and yet has made it clear in his own public reactions that the areas he hasn't be successful (again, his relationships) actually mean more to him.

My guess: Hamilton seeks to be successful at anything other than F1 because he feels something is missing. He doesn't realize—or doesn't want to accept—that what's missing isn't celebrity friends, being seen in the spotlight, partying, making music, etc. But he turns to it because it's available, because it gets to break a pattern of dedication that has been unbreakable from childhood, because it lets him feel like he's more than F1. The more than F1 he really wanted to be was a good brother to Nick, a good son to Anthony, a good husband to Nicole, a good father to some future children. Not achieving that, he's doing what he does to try to be more than F1.

And if there's some attention-seeking in that, I wouldn't be surprised—and I don't mean that judgmentally. I mean to say that seeking attention is another thing you're trained to do when you're a kid trying to go racing. You need the attention of team bosses, of sponsors, of investors, of the media, of your own crew relative to your teammates. And when you grow up with that attention, you come to rely on it, not because you have an ego, but because it becomes normal to you—you don't know how to process things without it.

This, for what it's worth, is a pattern of behavior seen in many, many, many young athletes—including white ones. Their entire lives have been their sport, and their entire lives have been being placed above everyone else for their skill at that sport. But inside, there are things not reconciled, things never allowed to come up into the open because they show weakness, because they break the focus, because you have to be so singularly minded to succeed in sports. And it never manifests in finding balance, but rather in swinging in the opposite direction and losing all focus on the sport.

Hamilton's not anywhere near a severe case. Hamilton's not bankrupt or in jail. And he's not headed that way, either. But he's starting to appear unfocused. And frankly, I feel sympathetic toward him for that.

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But it's the same for every driver coming into the sport, why any different for him? He wants to be different and that's why he is so persistent at trying to do it, I feel he was babied to much as a child when he was defeated instead of accepting it for what it is. I have a cousin who got whatever he wanted and behaves very similar to Lewis, quite rebellious against regular protocol. Lewis is the same and it seems he is on the verge of crying when he looses, that's how babied he was IMO. How would Lewis cope with real confrontation? Because he doesn't like it in f1 as Felipe showed in the past, crashing Lewis's interviews and such to get his point across, Lewis would just cowl over out the way.

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I've often speculated Hamilton to be this: someone troubled, even if not aware that it troubles him, by the fact all his successes are in F1, yet that he's encountered so many difficulties in the things that mattered more—his relationships, for example, with his dad and with Nicole.

He's been trained his entire life to think the only thing that matters is F1 because that's how you have to behave to get to F1, and getting to F1 was what was in the cards for him from the start. Yet in doing that, he never got to be young. He was a McLaren driver at, what, 12? He's never been able to be anything but focused on F1. It's not a surprise he gets distracted once all sorts of things are available to him when he's had to be so F1-centered, and yet has made it clear in his own public reactions that the areas he hasn't be successful (again, his relationships) actually mean more to him.

My guess: Hamilton seeks to be successful at anything other than F1 because he feels something is missing. He doesn't realize—or doesn't want to accept—that what's missing isn't celebrity friends, being seen in the spotlight, partying, making music, etc. But he turns to it because it's available, because it gets to break a pattern of dedication that has been unbreakable from childhood, because it lets him feel like he's more than F1. The more than F1 he really wanted to be was a good brother to Nick, a good son to Anthony, a good husband to Nicole, a good father to some future children. Not achieving that, he's doing what he does to try to be more than F1.

And if there's some attention-seeking in that, I wouldn't be surprised—and I don't mean that judgmentally. I mean to say that seeking attention is another thing you're trained to do when you're a kid trying to go racing. You need the attention of team bosses, of sponsors, of investors, of the media, of your own crew relative to your teammates. And when you grow up with that attention, you come to rely on it, not because you have an ego, but because it becomes normal to you—you don't know how to process things without it.

This, for what it's worth, is a pattern of behavior seen in many, many, many young athletes—including white ones. Their entire lives have been their sport, and their entire lives have been being placed above everyone else for their skill at that sport. But inside, there are things not reconciled, things never allowed to come up into the open because they show weakness, because they break the focus, because you have to be so singularly minded to succeed in sports. And it never manifests in finding balance, but rather in swinging in the opposite direction and losing all focus on the sport.

Hamilton's not anywhere near a severe case. Hamilton's not bankrupt or in jail. And he's not headed that way, either. But he's starting to appear unfocused. And frankly, I feel sympathetic toward him for that.

You are right, he's not a criminal or in jail. For sure he is unfocused.

I can't imagine why Nicole stayed with him for so long. But show biz "relationships" are so often never real. Her profile is alot bigger now, she doesn't need Lewis in the picture. And she doesn't need his cry baby attitude and demeanor either. And big question, was Nicole his first girlfriend I wonder?

Did Lewis goto a public school? Private school? or was he home schooled on the road traveling around? This can for some children be a very important part of growing up. In school you learn so much. You get bullied, you have to deal with strict things you don't like doing and so on. You also develop your sense of relating to other people and the ups and downs and disappointments of friendships and relationships. If he was home schooled or did correspondence he would have no had any exposure to that at all. And thus would have in some way lived a sheltered life until he became famous. That's like the child movie stars that go off the rails totally with drugs, booze, bad relationships and so on and few ever recover to reclaim their lives.

Honestly what Lewis does in his private life should be private. But he's making it so public, wanting the attention, look at me look at me look at me. So we are then free to discuss and be critical of him.

Notice how Kimi, Vettel and Nico are all so massively private about their private lifes, their partners/wifes, children. I think that's awesome. They have a maturity and respect. We laugh how Kimi is so cold in interviews, on the podium and so on, but it's been said so many times in the past, that is his public persona. Privately, with his team and friends, he's incredible and an awesome guy to hang with.

The very nature of showoffs is that they are missing something in their life and want to show everyone how amazing or rich they are. Case in point, the Rich Kids of Instagram. They couldn't just be happy living their ridiculous lives with money they never earned or worked for, that had to showoff about it. The truly happy people just live their life, they don't tell everyone how happy they are doing it. Thus Lewis, by showing the world all the parties he's doing to, all his rich rapper friends and acquaintances, he's showing us to be shallow I feel. Are they really his friends? They have appeared over the last few years. Doesn't he have any real proper friends? Or just the show ponies and mooches and clingers on?

I hope Mercedes are p**sed off majorly at him. And if they are, it adds further fuel to my thought that why would Nico leave at all? He could stay and become the clear #1, and Lewis will burn out, or get shown the door. I think he's only one incident away from being not renewed anyway. Like a drink driving, smacking a girl around or something horrible like what the soccer players or here in Australia, the Rugby League players all seem to get caught up in. Mercedes tolerated his BS because he was winning. And as we all know, winners can act like total d|ckheads in any sport and be "loved". But he's no winning, he's crying, complaining, wanting answers to his car breakdowns. Sure car breakdowns suck, but his own personal attitude and dedication is severely lacking now too. That has to come into play at some point.

Mercedes are not sabotaging him by any means, but I think will have no problems getting behind Nico if he's got a real chance of taking the title.

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Mercedes might take a second look at their drivers, should someone, now behind, begin to emerge as a contender, while Hamilton continue to falter. Problem Mercedes seems to have is pretty straight forward, namely, for them to squander Rosberg's point lead in favor of Hamilton, while taking risk that WDC goes elsewhere, or start supporting Rosberg, who is on fire at the moment. Hamilton has his work cut out for him, despite the fact that he is sitting in the one off two vastly superior cars in the field. I am not really convinced that it is too early to worry about it. There are at least 6 cars ready to pounce. This is not 2014 or 2015 anymore. Interestingly enough, we need to watch Ferrari as well, while Kimi has points lead.

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Mercedes says Lewis will be racing in Monaco.

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According to the latest paddock gossipp, Daniil Kvyat could be heading for the exit of Red Bull’s F1 programme after being demoted from the top team to Toro Rosso.

Speculation suggests the young Russian might now be in the frame for a move to Williams for 2017, replacing the experienced Felipe Massa.

This sounds plausible.

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It does but I heard massa wants to stick around another year and if it's not Williams then who? Williams said they would retain him.

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This sounds plausible.

Unless Kvyat is bringing some money, I can't see how having him at Williams would be better than Massa. And that kind of ruins my hope Button goes there.

Maybe Kvyat will be the first STR driver to carry on in F1 out of the Red Bull family, but I doubt it.

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Unless Kvyat is bringing some money, I can't see how having him at Williams would be better than Massa. And that kind of ruins my hope Button goes there.

Maybe Kvyat will be the first STR driver to carry on in F1 out of the Red Bull family, but I doubt it.

My interest in Russian affairs is near non-existent, but since you raised it, recently I read, that a one off get-rich-quick-painlessly Russian citizen is into potential sponsorship of Kvyat, so, who knows what will happen. Kvyat's body language and rhetoric suggests, that he is not worrying about his future.

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Unless Kvyat is bringing some money, I can't see how having him at Williams would be better than Massa. And that kind of ruins my hope Button goes there.

Maybe Kvyat will be the first STR driver to carry on in F1 out of the Red Bull family, but I doubt it.

No that was liuzzi, he spent a few seasons with force India and at hrt remember?

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Rossi won the US race - will his stock go up in F1?

Perez managed in Monaco to refresh some people's memory that he is still driving. Good stuff.

On some sites I do occassionally frequent they are already asking for Vettel's head; such is life. (Apparently it was decided that he is wasting good seat).

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Lol. Vettel s head already??? . Ferrari fans doesn't know abt f1 I guess. It's not the driver that needs changing(at least not vettel). It's the technical team that has to design the car and engine.

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Vettel does need to remember but that other drivers are aloud to have a look or an attempt up the inside of him. Not for him to have an anurism like arnie out of kindergarten cop. It was the first time in four races he didn't loose it over the radio and ask are they racing or playing ping pong.

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Winning in Indy gives you ZERO chances in F1. A completely sad reality, but F1 hasn't looked at Indy seriously since JV and Monty. I know Bourdais got a shot, but they didn't really give him anything other than a half chance.

As for Vettels head lol. Ferrari aren't in trouble, but they are also not progressing as I had hoped. Seeing Kimi go out of the race was enough for me to fall asleep. When I woke up my stream had stopped, so that's about as much of the race as I saw.

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Winning in Indy gives you ZERO chances in F1. A completely sad reality, but F1 hasn't looked at Indy seriously since JV and Monty. I know Bourdais got a shot, but they didn't really give him anything other than a half chance.

As for Vettels head lol. Ferrari aren't in trouble, but they are also not progressing as I had hoped. Seeing Kimi go out of the race was enough for me to fall asleep. When I woke up my stream had stopped, so that's about as much of the race as I saw.

Not mean to debate the issue in any depth, but JV claimed just last week, that his win of Indy got him a phone call from Williams.

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Yeah back in the cart/champ car days I think the series held more credit than it does now on a world stage.

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Not mean to debate the issue in any depth, but JV claimed just last week, that his win of Indy got him a phone call from Williams.

That's when Indy/Champcar actually meant something though. I did say since JV and Monty :). Times have changed. Monty was the last to get a genuine crack and both JV and Monty went to Williams. Thus it was Frank/Patrick who had an eye for looking.

Since then nothing. Bourdais is a factual yes, but he didn't really get a chance. Considering he was a 4x Indy Champ, he got shafted.

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Indy champ means jack, all you have to do is look at zanardi. Back to back cart champion in 97/98 and couldn't even score a point for Williams in 99 and he was fresh of back to back titles, and to top it of he had a bit of prior f1 experience aswell. Can't say his car was crap because schumi jr in the sister car was doing a pretty good job,It's like comparing apples to oranges.

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Rossi won the US race - will his stock go up in F1?

The rumor I'm hearing is that John Booth is still very high on Rossi from his time at Manor. Booth, of course, is now at STR. And STR will certainly have an open seat in 2017, with Kvyat out, and may have two open seats if Ricciardo leaves (promoting Sainz) or Renault swipes Sainz away.

And they'll be looking outside their program, I suspect, as the only driver they have in GP2 is Pierre Gasly, who will be dumped by year's end. Gasly ran seveteen FR3.5 races and scored zero wins. In thirty-one GP2 starts so far, he again has zero wins. Red Bull have already made it public they need him to win races or else he's done.

Neither of Red Bull's European F3 drivers have won a race this year, either, so they won't be promoting them the way they did Verstappen—while Verstappen did not win the European F3 title, he won so many races that there was at least a logic to sending him straight to F1. You won't do that with guys nowhere near the championship picture, and guys who aren't even on the podium often, let alone winning races.

Back to Rossi, he danced around the F1 question. He simply said he was ready to go kick a## at Detroit (the IndyCar round this weekend). But he absolutely was unwilling to talk about his future plans beyond that.

Whether or not the 500 raises his F1 stock may depend on how he won the race. While some "fans" (real fans understand all the elements of auto racing, but goobers who can't comprehend how they all combine to form the beauty of this sport...) will downplay the win because it was on fuel strategy, the fact Rossi went 36 laps without pitting (typically, you needed to pit every 28–32 green flag laps) to win the race, and did so with sheer precision, actually looks better to the F1 paddock than winning by making some last-lap, only-on-an-oval slingshot kind of pass.

Rossi did what you'd want your F1 driver to do: he took orders, he understood how to apply the instructions even though he is very unfamiliar with the car and what it does/doesn't do, he executed a nearly impossible strategy that the best veteran drivers like Bourdais and Scott Dixon tried but could not manage to accomplish, and he handled himself with grace as a winner.

In fact, overlooked is the fact Rossi actually set the fastest lap of the race. He had a very, very quick car, and many drivers his age (he is still just 24, despite first driving an F1 car six-and-one-half years ago) would not be able to manage a complex strategy (you can knock oval racing all you want, but you must know that a 500-mile race with unpredictable safety car periods is one heck of a mental task) because they could not resist the temptation to push very, very hard, knowing their car was that fast. Some of the runners-up, Carlos Muñoz and Josef Newgarden, are also in their early 20s, and basically said, "When you have a car as good as mine, you have to go for it." Yet Rossi had a car just as fast, and understand when to use that speed, and when not to. It was a very mature drive that exemplifies the role an F1 team, in this era of no refueling and tire management, would want from a driver.

In fact, Villeneuve got called to F1 after his 1995 win, and Rossi's win wasn't dissimilar. While Rossi did not come back from two laps down like Villeneuve, Rossi did fall as far back to 25th when the team screwed up a pit stop. Rossi was unfazed by that—extremely calm, extremely mature, extremely trusting of his team and in himself. A quiet confidence.

It should also be noted that his adaptation to ovals is a good sign. Nigel Mansell, Takuma Sato, and Tomas Scheckter are all on the record as saying the oval racing in IndyCar is much closer to F1 than the road/street racing; the ovals demand smoothness, mental patience, and complex race management. They have big, sweeping turns, not unlike the fast parts of flowing European road courses. The road/street circuits in IndyCar are very, very different, simply because you have a ton less aerodynamic grip, so driving styles are nowhere near alike.

Finally, he is Manor's third driver, as everyone here knows. If the Haryanto funding rumors are true, he may slot back in that way.

(I must concede I am biased for Indy and have followed Rossi closely since Formula BMW. I'm pulling for the kid).

Winning in Indy gives you ZERO chances in F1. A completely sad reality, but F1 hasn't looked at Indy seriously since JV and Monty. I know Bourdais got a shot, but they didn't really give him anything other than a half chance.

Bourdais, of course, was from the "split" era, so he only ran the Indy 500 as a one-off in 2005. He got to F1 without Indy entirely.

Does Indy have pull in the paddock? I'm not sure. Michael Andretti and Jacques Villeneuve didn't race in Europe prior to F1, but ties to Mario and Gilles made them much less than complete strangers. Montoya was only in America on loan from Williams in an exchange for Alex Zanardi from Chip Ganassi (Montoya then got recalled to Williams in a swap for Bruno Junqueira, who never got recalled. Williams' relationship with Ganassi then saw Scott Dixon test with the F1 team after his first IndyCar crown, and just this year, Williams development driver Lance Stroll drove for Ganassi in the Rolex 24). Even Bourdais was an International F3000 champion (did he ever test for Prost? I want to say he did).

So, to go IndyCar to F1 without any ties to Europe, I think, is just never going to happen. But Rossi has plenty of those. His whole career, save a couple years (and even then, that was FBMW USA, where he won the World Final against the European series drivers and got a BMW-Sauber test, so he wasn't exactly disconnected), was in Europe.

I've probably written a lot of words to say that the Indy 500 or IndyCar alone will not get you to F1, but it is a nice plus-factor, I think, for otherwise qualified candidates, like Rossi.

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Just a friendly remainder, that some transplants have not worked out, so, people are aware of the risk. Not sure why. Could be that car weight difference, and handling had something to do with it, Champ car being more stable of two. Most spetacular miss which was really painful for me was Alex Zanardi. Brilliant in one series, not so much in the F1. Bourdais and others do come in mind as well.

Haas might have something for Rossi.

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That is absolutely true—and many F1 drivers, or products of the European ladder., have been pretty underwhelming in IndyCar (Barrichello, Sato, Tomas Scheckter on road courses, Luca Filippi, Giorgio Pantano, Stefano Coletti, Max Chilton, Ryan Briscoe in most of his career, Franck Montagny, James Jakes, E. J. Viso, and more come to mind from the last few years). They're a lot more distinct than they appear, and the lines only blend where money buys seats (with IndyCar being cheaper, it follows that more F1/GP2 drivers land in IndyCar than the other way around). Otherwise, I doubt team bosses in either series do any recruiting in the others' talent pools. In fact, even Max Chilton and Nelson Piquet, Jr., ran Indy Lights, rather than IndyCar, despite F1 experience, and others like Esteban Guerrieri and Carlos Muñoz did the same out of European ladder series.

IndyCars had steel brakes until 2012 (and no one has made the switch to F1 since then), rely more on mechanical grip than F1 cars (according to Sato), are heavier, have different adjustments the driver can make in-car, etc. And the strategies are quite different due to the propensity for safety cars in IndyCar, even on road/street course races—you don't get the same chances to erase gaps or go off-sequence on pit stops (not as many pit stops in F1, period) as in IndyCar racing. So, the mindset isn't really the same—but the way Rossi won the 500 shows a time when they might intersect.

And it must be noted Rossi's not really a transplant. He isn't Villeneuve or Andretti, neither of whom raced outside North America before F1. Rossi's an ex-F1 driver who came up the European ladder (GP2, FR3.5, GP3, Formula Master, and Formula BMW). I concede Zanardi would fit that bill, but Zanardi was made to look much, much better (as was Vasser) by Ganassi, Reynard, Honda, and the inferiority of most of the CART field. He was never as good as he looked in those few years—and he and Vasser proved that in all their CART runs with teams other than Ganassi. Bourdais, too, had European racing experience, but was just toying with a horrible, horrible, horrible Champ Car field (look at the guys he beat 2004–07; Paul Tracy at the end of his career, Will Power at the very beginning, and Bruno Junqueira in 2004 before he broke his back/left Newman/Haas are the only ones worth remembering) in the only quality team left in that league. Bourdais is pretty good, but not exceptional—he makes a lot of dumb errors in IndyCar, even still, that would've cost him championships had Champ Car had any kind of depth. The IndyCar field is a little better in 2016 than it was in 1997–98 (in those years, there were deceptive names, but many of the big ones were either at the end or very start of their careers and not their primes, and again, there was no parity among the teams—Ganassi had everything), and it is substantially better than it was in 2004–07.

Rossi's something different from Zanardi and Bourdais, too, in that he's younger. They were 32 and 29 respectively when called in from America. And he's driving for a smaller team. I don't think Rossi's return to F1 will be because of IndyCar success, but I also don't think it will be in spite of it. It's a thing to remind those he already has ties to of where he's been, what he's been up to, and why he deserves another shot. (This is the SparkNotes of my too-long-for-consumption, pro-American-racing nonsense).

As for Haas, Rossi would need funding to replace Gutiérrez. Especially if the 2017 rules change, Haas will need a paid driver. Rossi would still be at Manor this year if he had the dollars. His GP2 sponsor was a coffee shop with two locations in the entire world, both in America. If this helps him get investors, great.

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Well haas did say they eventually want to run an American driver so who knows. Ian kinda suprised he didn't get the call up over Gutierrez. Maybe haas see something in Esteban that I don't.

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@Massa - To advance his standing, Rossi needs a team like TR (Kvyat is probably gone), despite all difficulties it takes to get it, but his marketing potential could be attractive to DM. It was said once, that DR was taken on to improve sales in Australia, so, I am not sure what is all that noise about we hearing these days. I think it's all nonsense, but, whatever.

Haas should be Rossi's second choice. Problem is, there are more names than seats available. Palmer is utter waste of space (I do like his father however), so here and there is some tiny hope, but one needs a NEGOTIATOR in this game. Vettel had initially Schumacher behind him, then Sabine finished the job, others had Briatore, and names like that. Fact is, Rossi, in very long time, is at the moment best (maybe the only) America's hopeful in the series.

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Ricciardo to increase sales in Australia? Lmao, most people here still don't know who he is because he doesn't play cricket or football. Dan was hired for doing as well as he did in the feeder series.

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