As I understand, motivation plays a crucial role in winning a race, not to mention a quick car on the track, driver's skills, plus a touch of luck.
My question is, who do you think is more fired-up at this point in time.. and why, Massa or Hamilton?
I think they're both very fired up. But maybe Lewis is a little more because of how conned he must feel by the recent court decision. But i am not sure if that's a good thing for him though.
Because for me the ability to maintain focus for a very long time is probably the most important thing for winning a race. I can qualify in pole on most tracks in an F1 racing sim, in the best car and after a couple of practice sessions. But then if i try to do even a half length race i struggle to go that long without having some sort of off track incident resulting in losing a place or several. Of course the real thing is even more difficult, with the G forces and immense strain on your neck, keeping concentration surely must be the biggest challenge, and i beleive it's been the number one downfall for practially every F1 driver ever, because none of them are/were rubbish drivers, but they've all had an abysmal moment, or several.
Normally you get in a rythem and your subconscious is taking control of everything. You automatically brake in the right place, and turn into the corner at the right moment at the right speed. But ocassionally the rythem behind all this is disrupted and then you can't rely on that anymore, you've got to concentrate and make sure you do it correct. Such times are when approaching traffic and you've got to concider different lines and back off here and there if a collision seems likely, and immediately after a pit stop when you've got to re-find your rythem from scratch, you will approach the first corner at a totally different speed to normal, with cold tyres and a heavier load of fuel. Judging where to brake with all that to concider is not easy at all. So in my oppinion, winning races comes down to the ability to focus all the way from the start line to chequered flag, and so i wouldn't be supprised if the regular race winners throughout history were practitioners of meditation or something similar.