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Unlucky misses, and no mention of Coulthards 1995 season?

Led Argentina - gearbox issue dropped him to third. He recovered to lead, only for the gearbox to fail terminally.

Led Belgium - gearbox broke whilst leading.

Led Monza - wheel bearing broke whilst leading.

That will kill Vettel...

why would it? I guess you are refering to last year when Vettel only managed to score 12 more wins than his teammate.

All very true but he also made a fair number of mistakes that season, most of which are understandable considering he was in his first first full season. The "idle" excuse following his Australian GP accident was unacceptable though. It's a shame in some ways he wasn't in the Williams in 1996, either in the place of Hill or JV, as he would have probably and easily been World Champion that year.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

DC made a fair few mistakes, but so did Damon really. The Australian GP one confuses me, because DC said soemthing about the idle. Meanwhile someone at Williams muttered on TV about an oil leak (which Murray Walker points out in the highlights show iirc), which can be seen, but that still doesn't make sense.

I kinda get the impression that DC fucked that up, but the car was probably about to break anyway. But DC beat it to it, by breaking it against the wall.

DCs performances in 1995 are why I don't value Damons 1996 title much. Damon spent an entire season trying to lose the title. Had JV been more experienced, had DC been in the car, or had Schumachers car not been a dog, Damon wouldn't have had a chance.

That's not entirely fair on Damon. The Williams team never truly got behind Damon and his departure at the end of 1996 was a direct result of his performances in 1995. Damon fought a lone battle within Williams to be correctly recognized as the team leader from the moment Senna passed away. In 1994 for instance there were times when Williams screwed up and Patrick Head basically came down on Damon like a ton of bricks. The suspension failing minutes into practice at Silverstone that year is a prime example. Damon did a great job during 1993 through to 1996, but during 1995 and 1996 there were errors as well as reliability issues.

DC did great in 1995 no question, but made mistakes. That season is comparable to Damon in 1993 against Prost, which is part of the reason why I don't really rate that title of Prost's.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Damon gets underrated quite a lot. He may not have had the raw speed of other drivers but he was always said to be a very good tester and it was only when those stupid hard grooved tyres came in that he really fell away.

the beauty of races where front runners stopped with mechanical issues. even though Williams was one of the best of all time at that day, you couldn't win with anyone at the wheel. Damon struggled and deserved the title for his williams years

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Damon had bad luck in 1995 as well. Lost a certain win in Brazil, dropped from 2nd to 4th in Spain on the last lap, and lost a likely 2nd in Canada, pretty much all due to gearbox failure, plus it seems eminently possible it was a failure that pitched him off on lap 2 in Hockenheim - certainly he was convinced it wasn't his error. After those, he was always playing catch-up and it's probably what led to him making stupid mistakes at Silverstone and Monza - the "Schumacher pressure" criticism only works when you consider he was behind him in the championship due to circumstances outside his control

Coulthard had misfortune in 1995 but I don't believe it distorted the final outcome in any way, because it pretty much balanced out in the end

Hadn't Herbert and Alesi also had problems with the pit lane entry earlier in the race?

In Australia it was DC, then later one of the Forti Corse's

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Was Roberto Moreno, who spun at the corner and hit the same wall. I think there was oil down - someone had blown up there early in the race

I've watched and re-watched that a BBC broadcast of that race on VHS so many times. Can confirm. Martin Brundle had a nice (elongated) engine failiure towards the end of the race. Not so bad that he had to retire, but the engine note and blue mist coming from his engine was quite a sight and sound to behold.

Nice to see Damon getting a little credit for his '96 title for once, by the way. Most discussions I see on this subject pretty much discount him as a world champion altogether, always with hectoring comments about all the mistakes he supposedly made and how little he deserved to seat in such a good car.

Damon is no exception. I've already seen people bashing other drivers with only one title just because they didn't gave too much effort to win another

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Australia 1995 -

Herbert went over the concrete on the inside of the corner. Moreno went backwards into the pit lane wall. Alesi went sideways into it at low speed and made contact with the wall, but square on and caused no damage. So 4 cars had issues in 1 race. DC was just the most famous because he was leading.

So what was Coulthard's excuse for the Monza warm-up lap then?

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Hate to bring this back to 2014, but Kobayashi has all but confirmed the Renault problems
http://www.f1zone.net/news/kobayashi-co ... als/27260/

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I had never noticed this before, but I did always think Kevin looked 'familiar', and not only in terms of his dad.


(courtesy of Badger GP twitter)

He really does look like him.

Bomber jacket, low cut jeans and sneakers? There's nothing McQueen about him, other than perhaps some facial features.