Which flies in the face of the "random" argument, and partly against yours about the elite not being able to win because of the tyres. I'm with you, and in fact I don't think a lot of people would try to argue that Hamilton didn't have the best chance of anyone winning the race if he hadn't been penalised. But why was that?raymondu999 wrote:Not to mention Hamilton probably had a hell of a victory shot without his penalty
Because Hamilton did the best job setting his car up to use the tyres on that track. Of anyone, by far with the exception perhaps of Maldonado. The Lotus cars had some issues with the temperatures and you could argue the Ferrari was running a bit better on Sunday than it had done in qualifying. But Hamilton was flying on Saturday and Sunday both, in both conditions on both tyre compounds.
So, Hamilton, in what so far has arguably looked like the best car in the field, did the best job setting it up and would probably have lapped the field, right up to and including his team mate had it not been for the penalty. Proving that it was him, Hamilton who did that job with his engineers, regardless of the tyres. Because his team-mate went nowhere in the same car with the same tyres. That elite enough for you? How about Alonso consistently out-performing his team mate every single time they've been on the track? How about Raikkonen's 14 point advantage over his team-mate in the championship standings, despite all his qualifying mishaps and mistakes?
The cream still comes to the top. They just have to work a bit harder for it, especially because there are more competitors now close enough to take advantage of any mistakes.