F1 » Whitmarsh: Lewis drove a great race

The way I see it is this.
At the moment Ferrari has the best, allround cars on the grid and they also have an experienced driver lineup in the form of Kimi who is the reigning WDC with extensive experience as well as in Massa who has been trained by Michael Schumacher who is also the test and approval driver for Ferrari.
McLaren has a good car, but a sophomore driver lineup both of whom although fast lack experience.
BMW-Sauber has an experienced driver in Heidfeld who is being outclassed by Kubica who himself is a newcomer to F1.
Both McLaren and BMW-Sauber are suffering drastically from the lack of a fine tuning setup race driver to get them past the Ferraris.
Status quo at present.

Kubica isn't exactly a newcomer and Heidfeld is not being outclassed.

Sorry HAMILTRON, but I agree with Reno. RK has pretty much NH this season. He qualifies better and races with greater pace than Nick. I'd love to see NH bounce back, though. I think he's steady and consistent, but he doesn't have that ability to be blindingly quick - something guys like KR, FA, LH and RK have.

As a sidenote, I've come to believe that if you give Lewis a quick car, then he's as good as anyone. If the car is even slightly below par, his performance falls away. THAT is the difference between him and say... KR or FA. Those guys could take a sub-par car and wring every ounce of pace out of it, make it punch above it's weight.

I dont think LH can do that yet...

Sounds like they were affraid of attempting to pass Fernando on track. It seems a little hard to believe that their goal was third place.

"During the second and third stints, he was as quick as the Ferraris and able to catch up, but trying to pass a rival car at the Circuit de Catalunya is another matter altogether."

Is he serious?? He's actually implying that if they were racing on a track with overtaking opportunities that Lewis could have challenged the Ferraris for 1st and 2nd??
What a complete joke....

Considering he did only finish 4 or 5 seconds behind at the end, I think during parts of that race he could well have challenged, don't know if he would have, but he could have.

Yes, I believe that if their were opportunities to pass that Lewis would have attempted to pass Massa and Kimi. My fear is that Ferrari were just running as fast as they needed with some in reserve. In equal cars I think the top 3 (Fer,McL,BMW) teams would all be on top of each other on a track with passing opportunities. So the comment that he would challenge for 1 or 2nd are valid. At this time I do not see the cars as equals. Ferrari still has the edge.

I think Ghost makes a good point about Kimmi and FA ability to get every last drop of performance from a car that may not be the best. I think experience is telling in this aspect of F1 maybe LH will gain this ability with experience we'll have to wait and see.

I don't think anyone would have beaten Kimmi this last GP to be honest, he seemed to have that little bit extra pace over everyone else but I think Massa's pace wasn't so good considering he's in a Ferrari and RK or LH could have got closer to him on another circuit.

Does anyone else think as I do that Massa appears to struggle for pace and make mistakes when he's put under pressure in a race?

No way, MB. The Ferraris stayed tantalizingly within reach of him for the simple reason that they didn't want to go any faster.
They stayed between 2-5 seconds in front of him, but it might as well have been 30 seconds... he couldn't close up to Massa. Both the Ferraris could have gone faster if they wanted to, and don't forget the SCs artificially bunched up the field twice.

Robert has a better opinion, in my book. The Ferraris have the edge, and only went as fast as they needed to, but LH had the pedal to the floor. If the Ferraris had done the same thing, they would have pulled away into the distance.

I agree with you, Lex. Massa buckles under pressure. I remember posting in another thread a month or so ago that he's not up to the mark when it comes to going wheel-to-wheel racing with another top driver in a comparable car.

MB, I don't agree with your post. Ferrari could have pushed much harder if they wanted to. They stayed *just* as far ahead as they needed to, but if LH started to close the gap, they would have pulled away. Robert is right when he says the ferrari had performance in reserve.