Quote:
Originally Posted by ReynardMuldrake
I would take Tsunoda over Gasley, and Hadjar over Ocon. Aside from that I agree with your rankings. Right now Hamilton is sitting in the Gasley/Albon tier, which is a pretty sad thing to say.
|
Hadjar is still awfully green but as a pure 'prospect' I'd take him over Ocon, for sure. He's quick.
As for Tsunoda -- I've just never had a feel for him. I think he likes aggressive cars and wants to be able to attack. He just doesn't seem very good at it. Sunday was a clear example of it -- Racing Incident my ass; he took Gasley out. Tsunoda was way too aggressive and just turned the guy.
And he's prone to those sorts of mental errors.
Put him and Hamilton in equal equipment and I think you may get an extra podium or two from Tsunoda, but you'll also get 2 or 3 more DNFs. Hamilton doesn't make silly mistakes -- he just doesn't take any chances at all. He'll drive around in that soft spot in between 7th and 8th most weeks because his car is faster than the other 6 teams on the grid but he's the most ordinary driver of the top 4 teams.
So there's a big ol' gap back to 9, Tsunoda probably takes himself out somehow and so you have a 20 second gap to 6th and another 20 second gap to 8th and Hamilton just drives in circles all day without anything of note taking place.
And if Tsunoda doesn't take himself out, you just have big gaps on either side of him in 8th.
He's just not a premier driver right now. And it may just be that he's simply never going to be again. He might have gone past his sell-by date.
When you have LeClerc in the same equipment blastting past Russell like he's standing still then you have Hamilton staring at the back of Antonelli all day, you can see that the problem isn't the car. It's the wheelman. The Ferrari, on balance, is still the 2nd best car on the grid, IMO. McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.
And Hamilton routinely underperforms the car. Even if you figure that Red Bull is two teams (Max and Tsunoda) there's no reason for Hamilton to not be routinely in the mix for 4th/5th.
He just isn't.
And the next race will be the same thing. He'll struggle to get through to Q3, never be within a 1/2 second of pole, start in 7th or 8th place and end within a grid position of where he starts absent a DNF, penalty or strategy error by someone around him.
On track he's a complete non-factor.