Hey everyone! Words cannot express how excited I am to see that this thread exists on here. My first day on the message boards and I already feel at home
My 2 cents:
As far as Hamilton and pit stops, can we talk about Catalunya for a second? Hamilton gave up the lead to pit and he had one more pit stop than everybody else... he didn't seem to mind placing under Rosberg then. In my opinion, the pit stop at Monaco was perfectly understandable. Even though it's hard to pass someone with worn tires, Hamilton did have a brake bias issue (imagine re-starting after the safety car, under those conditions: Cold/worn tires, bad brake bias, fast guys behind you)... all that combined would have him slipping all over the course, looking like Raikkonen did at Catalunya. Bye bye 19 second lead. Which, speaking of Catalunya..Bottas did play a very good game and kept it cool, but Ferrari is blaming Raikkonen for a car that is obviously poorly set up. It's pretty impressive that Raikkonen can stay right on Bottas' tail even with his car slipping everywhere, in every turn....but I digress.
Every time Rosberg gets a win, all the Hamsters (Hamilton Fans) act like he's nothing more than a back-marker with some good luck. Fact is: The dude is fast. People can preach all they want about how the race was stolen from Hamilton, but let's be real. It's Monaco. Even if he didn't pit, he would have been choosing the lesser of two evils. Either driving on worn tires with a bad brake bias (For example, 2014 Brazil spinout) or risk losing the lead to be on fresh tires. Rosberg's lap times are consistently on par with Hamilton, and ROSBERG was the one to set THE fastest lap time during that race. Nobody is looking at Rosberg, and they never have because his teammate is either World Champion Lewis Hamilton or Multiple time World Champion Schumacher. Every time he wins, he deserves the win. How people can consistently look over the fact that he is one of the fastest drivers in Formula One is beyond me.
I'm not bashing Hamilton by any means, and sometimes he is incredibly impressive to watch. I'm actually a pretty hardcore Hamilton fan, but people should recognize talent for talent. Rosberg isn't lucky... he's fast.
Speaking of people to watch. Max Verstappen. Holy Senna re-incarnate, batman. He's going to be fun to watch.
I'm bad at quoting one post in separate bubbles so you'll have to put up with me responding while reading down your post.
Regarding Catalunya, he was never in the lead of that race so are you thinking of a different year? He should have been ahead of Vettel after the first stop but his stop was botched and he was stuck behind Vettel again which meant Mercedes decided to change him to a short 2nd stint in order for him to get clear track ASAP and make up a pitstops worth of time on the track since the pitstops were unreliable and slower than Ferrari's. The pitstop at Monaco was foolish from an outsiders perspective and you could tell Hamilton had a similar opinion of the choice which you feel wouldn't have been his attitude if the car was struggling before he stopped. Also even if he's worn his tyres out (he stopped later than both cars behind him) with his horsepower its going to be virtually impossible to pass him unless he goes off the circuit. Going back to Spain, its a deceptively difficult track to overtake on especially when you're unable to go flatout on the final corner. So Raikkonen not being able to overtake was no surprise and when you consider he was on the softer tyres he was always going to lose more grip compared to Bottas at the end of the race.
I'm not a Hamilton fan (I'm a Button fan and was very happy with the Monaco result) but I think Rosberg is a good driver. However he's not champion material for me in the same way that Webber wasn't and frankly Button isn't (perfect car plus average teammate = win). His pace is slightly off Hamilton's on average and he never wins if Hamilton starts ahead of him. I'd almost compare it to Ricciardo and Vettel last year, Vettel never made much progress in races while Ricciardo would frequently finish higher than the car deserved to. But back to Rosberg, I would be one of those who doesn't think he's one of the fastest in F1. In terms of speed I'd put, Hamilton, Alonso, Vettel and Ricciardo ahead of him since all of them have a track record of winning races they shouldn't win while Rosberg has always won with the fastest car on the day (just like Coulthard did).
Not overly impressed by Verstappen so far, his teammate Sainz is a match for him at the moment although I concede that his pace given his lack of single seater experience is good. The problem with pairing 2 new drivers together is that its impossible to say just how good they are, Toro Rosso almost had Vergne set the benchmark in the past 2 years and if you could beat him you were good enough. Now who knows how well they'd do if they were paired up with a known quantity.
Anyway I'm glad that the Monaco GP to done for another year and here's hoping we never have to see another one.
) However, I disagree that Catalunya is difficult to pass on. In my opinion, it's one of the easiest tracks on the F1 calendar. For me, it seems to be a game of out-braking in several of the corners. 
I love it when people defer to me 
