no F1 expert rates Hamilton over Vettel right now either but you do. Like you I form my own opinions, not the experts one. Raikkonen ended up above Hamilton in the points with what was clearly a slower car. He did this after years out of the sport too. For me that makes him better. Hamilton is only best or second best if you only go by speed and nothing else, he makes tons of mistakes which are largely driving error, and his car management is poor.
As for your array of excuses for Hamilton, the fact is in his 3 years together with Button in McLaren, Button collected more total points over those 3 years than Hamilton, even if Hamilton ended up narrowly in front 2 of the 3, and Button had a top 3 (2nd place last year) for the year while Hamilton couldnt manage that any of the last 3 years. I am not sure who has more race wins in that time combined, but fact is Hamilton has been matched or even bested by Button over the overall 3 year period in the same team and essentialy with the same car. If anything I was generous to rate him 2 spots above Button.
He is rated so highly by people because he is British, he is black in a predominantly white sport, because his feud with Alonso allowed him to write some autobiographies and gain attention, and because a couple years ago he was the youngest, all those novelties together. Although interest in him has faded greatly now that someone younger than him is way better (Vettel), and since his results are no longer keeping up. Things dont look any brighter for him with his dumb decision to move to Mercedes, who currently are nowhere near the best car, and much slower than McLaren in fact, and show no signs of drastic improvement anytime soon. I dont know what he was smoking when he made that choice but I expect it wont be long before he is regretting it. Also will be interesting to see if he even is able to best Rosberg or not. Rosberg is faster than alot of people think, he would have alot of race wins in a faster car. It wouldnt surprise me if Hamilton yet again finds himself unexpectedly bested by a teammate in now an even slower car, and if that happens his stock will drop even further than it already has.
