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Absolutely Bottas would be worse than Senna, and that statement alone pretty much shows how little people know Senna. 17th Senna's pure pace? That's pure rubbish. He was pretty decent in FP despite his scrapes and was on for a similar performance to Hungary.

Senna hasn't had the best F1 career but he's always had things against him...

- HRT, signed by Campos but not wanted by the new owners or management, so given second fiddle treatment throughout the year
- Renault, signed as test driver and given seat "vacated" by Heidfeld and despite almost no track time scored a couple of decent quali and race results
- Williams, signed as stop-gap before Bottas comes onboard, very good races (largely forgotten) in Malaysia and China and then scored good low-end points throughout the season despite continuous questions about his pace versus Maldonado

In F3 and GP2 Senna was always highly regarded and seen as a talent for the future, Maldonado despite being in the junior ranks for many years prior wasn't. They are both very good drivers.

One day people will realise that to be fantastic, you need to have an end product to prove that. Those drivers are Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton. In his junior racing days Maldonado was quick but utterly reckless. In his F1 days he is exactly the same.

Now if Maldonado was dominating Senna in races as well as quali, I'd have a different opinion. Maldonado has scored 30 points in his F1 career, across just three points scoring finishes. That strike rate is anything other than fantastic. Williams will have to soon realise (which I'd be surprised if they haven't) that Maldonado's investment needs to show some serious returns (points mean $$$) or they'll have to reassess whether his Venezuelan $'s are worth the seat time.

And yes, Senna does seem to have kicked a black cat under a ladder, while cracking a mirror in terms of luck. Both career wise and in 2012. I mean, he got run into in Valencia and somehow got the penalty. He was also the only one whose garage exploded this season.

When you say inconsistency, what do you mean?

He's finished in the points 7 times out of 13 races, that's hardly inconsistent. Inconsistent is his team-mate...

Q. (Ian Parkes - PA) Lewis, we've not seen too much emotion from you when you've got out of the car, either here today or following the victory in Italy. I'm just wondering if there's any particular reason for that.

LH: No, I'm pretty happy.

Q. (Ian Parkes - PA) Really? Because you don't seem to be.

LH: I am.

Maldonado, no mistakes?

No mistakes (so far) this weekend.

They could just turn it into an ordinary 90-degree bend so that it sorts the men from the corpses.

I don't disagree with the first part, but I do with the logic behind the second.

One day people will realise that to be fantastic, you need to have an end product to prove that. Those drivers are Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton. In his junior racing days Maldonado was quick but utterly reckless. In his F1 days he is exactly the same.

Now if Maldonado was dominating Senna in races as well as quali, I'd have a different opinion. Maldonado has scored 30 points in his F1 career, across just three points scoring finishes. That strike rate is anything other than fantastic. Williams will have to soon realise (which I'd be surprised if they haven't) that Maldonado's investment needs to show some serious returns (points mean $$$) or they'll have to reassess whether his Venezuelan $'s are worth the seat time.

The sling is unique, but a bit silly, because just a couple of cm's off and you get launched over kerbs. That would be forgiveable if it was a corner you had to attack to get right, but it isn't, it's all a bit worthless. But as Brundle said, there's no run off there, so it's a difficult one to fix.