YellowCar

Perez maybe? Think they need someone younger than JB

I think 2SkodaFamily was being a wee bit sarcastic...

I won't change lanes at a roundabout if I've made a mistake unless it's empty, I'll generally suffer the mistake and curse myself and find somewhere to double back. I definitely wont use roundabout lanes to merge in turn. I will push the rules (by doing the right round the roundabout thing for example), but rarely break them.

They were. That was his bad patch no doubt. There was one time he was drawn to Massa in particular like a magnet. But he came through it, as top drivers do, as Max will also do I expect.

Some surprising results there. Lewis' DNFs probably account for the deficit. And I certainly wouldn't call 15 points advantage over 3 years 'outperforming'. And it's probably the wins and poles that people remember.

I used to do it loads when I lived in the West Mids, now there's hardly any roundabouts where I live.

Pretty marginal. And I won't be reading too much into that as I expect Lewis had more podiums and more memorable performances over that period?

It is tricky to get them in. When I did mine I took the charge pipe section out and kind of went in from behind. Took a lot of fiddling and manoeuvring to get it in but it did go quite easily once I'd got the sweet spot and got it lined up. New tensioner and genuine belt solved my misalignment issue, but it wasn't that bad for me. If the belt is out of line it may wear excessively and generate too much heat which will increase wear rate. It could be that your existing tensioner is locking occasionally, which mine was, so when loading changed using heating and so on, the tensioner arm didn't move to take up the slack so the belt would wander off that pulley a little. Plus there was a tiny bit of play in the bearing.

And that's partly what set people like Prost, Senna, Alonso, Lauda and Schumacher apart from everyone else. The ability to galvanise a team through having an intricate knowledge, appreciation and awareness of just about everything and having a massive amount of talent.Just relying on ability will only get you so far for so long. Alonso is still one of the best all round drivers on the grid, I now forgive him for his year of questionable attitude and approach when he had freshman Lewis for a teammate.

I don't remember him out scoring Lewis at McLaren particularly well? I do remember Lewis getting a few podiums and points when their car was ****, more so than Button.

Vettel's not that old is he? Certainly not old enough to question whether he should be on the grid. Just seems he can't handle frustration particularly well, something he never really had to deal with in the Red Bull glory days, unfortunately for him it's a common theme for Ferrari at the moment. I get your point about Kimi though, although his radio comms are tv gold. Kimi is actually outperforming Vettel by and large, and he is one of the 'old boys'.

A pit lane start is arguably preferable, by the time you've caught the pack everything's up to temperature and there's more space to race and get through. Avoids turn 1 madness. Choosing Spa to take his penalties was entirely tactical as safety cars are highly likely, and it worked. What's that? Well done you say?

Like I said earlier Mr. Angry (Vettel) drove like a plumb all race, was at fault for turn 1 lap 1, and for a man of his experience was very sketchy and nobody has said naff all about it.

Good to hear a reach-around doesn't do any harm... Must admit though I can't bring myself to look at their faces when I do it... Just can't abide waiting for a pump just because it's on the same side as the flap. Especially at Tesco Metro type stations where people do a weekly shop and leave their car at the pump. Life isn't that short, but it's too short for that ****.

Quick question though (only slightly off topic). Is it considered queue jumping and rude if you choose not to wait in a queue for a fuel pump on the same side as the car, and instead drive straight up to the empty pumps on the other side and do the old 'reach-around', or is that just common sense?

That's it, that's exactly why I leave space, I fully accept that it's a merging zone and not a single lane queue we should all join politely. Yes I move over in good time and don't take liberties as some do but that's just down to advance planning. Traffic would actually flow better if people merged and kept average speed up, rather than join one long queue and sit bumper to bumper. But if then someone does leave it late I allow them to merge but try and keep the queue moving for everyone's benefit.

Not worth the stress, getting wound up or fighting them over it will solve nothing. They will learn nothing, just let them in. In that instance I drive with around a 2 car gap in front so people can merge without anyone slowing down, everybody is happy. Someone might push their luck but that's life. If you plan it right and time it well you often find its less likely to happen when doing this anyway.

Don't worry I fully understand what happened at turn 1, and as you say you don't blame Max I'm not sure why you actually still are. What Max did was not a problem until Vettel turned in, and he turned in too much. You need to move on from turn 1. Yes he finished 11th due to damage incurred in a racing incident that wasn't his fault. Bad luck. It happens to them all at some point and us no way a negative reflection of his overall talent. Can't blame him for not staying back, he was alongside Kimi, I don't know many drivers who would have backed out of that. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry Christmas. Don't forget it's often the drivers who are branded as aggressive in their early years that go on to be multiple champions and the drivers we all remember. Apart from Max's weave in the braking zone he didn't actually do much else wrong. Certainly no worse than Vettel. Be careful not to start being over critical and scrutinising his every single turn of the wheel. Yes he shouldn't have moved late, but the stewards overlooked it. Give the young guy a bit of a break.

I'm not saying it's not risky to weave in the braking zone. He made his one move, albeit late with an extra twitch. But no harm was done and the stewards cleared it. Seems we both agree that he will look at it and learn from it as I said earlier. 1) and 2) aren't 'rules' of racing, they're approaches. FIA make the rules, and they didn't even investigate turn 1 lap 1. Check the replay again, it wasn't Max's fault anyway, it was Vettel's. Who let's be honest drove like a real plumb for most of the race and nobody is saying anything about that. Let's not jump on the young aggressive driver who still has a lot to learn, but is no doubt extremely talented and smart enough to learn sooner rather than later. I say again, you can't punish someone for something that might happen, or hasn't happened yet. Races are dynamic things with many variables, I suppose there always has to be a scapegoat, Lewis also went through a phase of being branded too aggressive and wreckless and the stewards took action when something actually happened. None of the punishments were based on prediction or assumption and nor should they be. Somebody else could easily do something more dangerous next race and Max does nothing, what will we talk about then?

So what pray tell do you ban him for? Pushing the limits and being aggressive and competitive? He's a racing driver, it's a dangerous sport by definition.Grosjean didn't get banned either did he? And he actually caused more than one serious accident...something Max is yet to do. Monaco was a fair shunt but that was his misjudgement, nothing to do with weaving in braking zones or being inherently dangerous. You can think of the early years of many a driver and there has been worse. For all of his (near) mistakes and over defending he's definitely a driver worth having on the grid. While we're here why don't they not start the next race just in case someone causes an accident? It just can't work like that can it.

And Ralf Schuntmaker

Well the first article isn't off to a great start because lap 1 turn 1 wasn't his fault, but yes, he's not the first to drive in a risky fashion and he won't be the last. He is very young and in a maturing phase, he will learn. If course I hope that his learning curve isn't at the expense of a big accident, but by the same token you can't punish someone for something that might happen. Have to allow people to race so they can develop. Grosjean came through his year of shunt making just fine and caused a lot more damage than Max has ever done. I think Max will reflect on his late defensive move and take it on board. Like I said earlier it was marginal, but the stewards took no action.

It was good to see Kimi back on form with radio communications, I think he was my driver of the day.

The cheers for Lewis compared to Nico crack me up.

They do seem to neutralise things with tyres sometimes, disappointing, but they could have been more aggressive with Lewis' strategy without threatening Rosberg's position.