Why Mercedes didn’t retire Hamilton sooner

44 comments on “Why Mercedes didn’t retire Hamilton sooner”

1. 

   colinf (@colinf)
   24th August 2014, 20:48

   I think begging to retire the car is not the attitude of a champion. One need only look to Alonso to see what a never give up mentality can get a driver…
   1. 

      Ju88sy (@)
      24th August 2014, 21:25

      Five engines total this season not eight, thanks to Hungary Lewis is already one down vs Nico, with no chance of points and Monza next up it was logic not attitude causing Lewis to request retirement.
      1. 

         Wil-Liam (@wil-liam)
         24th August 2014, 21:39

         +10
      2. 

         kpcart
         25th August 2014, 11:53

         i don’t think lewis is that smart. When Hamilton is winning, he claims he never gives up, when not winning…
         1. 

            pxcmerc (@)
            26th August 2014, 15:56

            lolz, maybe you are pointing the finger at yourself, Lewis said exactly that in the post race press conference. He also said he was under very little pressure to come up with such a ‘smart’ idea as to not blow your motor on a pointless race.
   2. 

      LosD (@losd)
      24th August 2014, 22:20

      Hammy has shown that attitude several times this year. He was just being realistic.
   3. 

      GB (@bgp001ruled)
      25th August 2014, 3:07

      stop adoring alonso please! do that in your room…
      1. 

         David Jessop (@random-linkz-2)
         25th August 2014, 9:08

         he’s not adoring Alonso. I am a grosjean, vettle and massa fan. I really don’t like Alonso but he unlike most drivers including Hamilton. Alonso will never give up a cause until the finishing line. he would drive a car with no front wing to the finish if it happened. the only other people I know do this would be vettel (brazil 2012) and grosjean possibly with his career and india 2013
         1. 

            William Stuart (@williamstuart)
            25th August 2014, 9:59

            Those are completely different circumstances, this year a much greater focus on reliability is given, meaning that it is almost certain that no one will finish at Abu Dhabi without incurring penalties. Also, with the best scenario being Lewis scores a point or two and Nico scores 18, this is not really going to matter, and it is far more advantageous to ensure the cars reliability for a future race where he can score big points. I would have been very angry at Lewis if he had come over the radio and said the opposite.
            1. 

               Scott Williams
               25th August 2014, 11:39

               Alonso fights as hard as possible but he’d think about the championship 100% too. Think about his championship winning years, he’d do only what was necessary to pick up the title.

               Lewis was very mature to think about retiring. Of course he wants to drive but he wants to win the championship more.
   4. 

      William Stuart (@williamstuart)
      25th August 2014, 9:53

      It is exactly the kind of thing a world champion would say, if the car is deteriorating and the chance of him getting a decent number of point is infinite coma then adding unnecessary miles to the clock is going to be a huge disadvantage in future races where he is actually running at the front, if that engine fails at a future race then we all know it was (potentially) avoidable. Scoring one or two points is nothing in this title race (famous last words!) so the safety of the car should be reserved so that he gets greater reliability when he can take a huge amount of points.
   5. 

      lb
      25th August 2014, 10:25

      Did he ask to retire immediately? No…He went out, gave it a go and made a decision to re-group. No need to work the engine when he’s already disadvantaged on that front with respect to his team-mate.
      Imagine this…he continues to the end, finishes in 15th and then needs a new engine for the next race. Then you’d say he was silly to continue with no hope of getting points.
      1. 

         kpcart
         25th August 2014, 11:57

         imagine this, if Hamilton was in 2nd place, he would have finished the race on the engine so what is the difference? better to stay out, they turned the engine down anyway, there was a chance of points.
         1. 

            Patrickl (@patrickl)
            25th August 2014, 12:46

            He wasn’t in second place. Did you even read what lb wrote? Hamilton tried and it turned out that getting points was simply impossible. That’s the scenario. Not having a possible win and then throwing it away for a lack of effort.
      2. 

         kenneth chapman
         26th August 2014, 10:07

         going by the logic of saving engines/ and no points then all cars after the first few laps should then retire from the race?
         1. 

            Nitin (@nguru)
            26th August 2014, 15:42

            and who will be the winner ???
2. 

   Yoshisune (@yobo01)
   24th August 2014, 20:51

   It’s the first time that 2014 cars were faster than 2013, I think. Last year’s fastest lap was a 1:50.756, two tenths slower than Rosberg today.
   Of course Rosberg had brand new soft tyres, low fuel, but it’s still a remarkable achievement, in my opinion. It’s a shame that the W05 is the only car capable of doing it.
   1. 

      hunocsi (@hunocsi)
      24th August 2014, 22:42

      Of course Rosberg had brand new soft tyres, low fuel

      I don’t remember it from the top of my head, but I guess last year’s fastest lap was achieved in a similar way.
      1. 

         Zane Jakobs (@zjakobs)
         25th August 2014, 0:49

         @hunosci most fastest laps are
         1. 

            Zane Jakobs (@zjakobs)
            25th August 2014, 0:50

            @hunocsi see above
         2. 

            hunocsi (@hunocsi)
            25th August 2014, 1:23

            That’s what I said.
   2. 

      BJ (@beejis60)
      25th August 2014, 13:39

      @yobo01 But remember last year’s cars ran on medium and hard tires; this year was medium and soft.
3. 

   Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
   24th August 2014, 20:54

   Did Lewis incur the damage while driving back to the pits, or cause it? If he’d taken 20s longer but brought back a less damaged car…we’ll never know.
   1. 

      matt90 (@matt90)
      24th August 2014, 21:00

      Seems pointless to ponder it then.
      1. 

         kpcart
         25th August 2014, 12:03

         not if that is the reason he incurred the damage.
   2. 

      Marc Thielke (@motor)
      24th August 2014, 21:19

      It was a long way back to the pits and there was no info for Lewis about how the bits left on the rim were behaving. I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. Lol…..but he was driving on the racing line and not slowing traffic behind him at one point.
4. 

   Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
   24th August 2014, 21:28

   It¡s funny to see the laptime comparision between Daniel and Seb. It’s like watching Mark v Seb all over again but in reverse order: Daniel gets the car round faster and using less tyres…
   1. 

      Andre (@lheela)
      24th August 2014, 22:07

      Not a huge surprise considering the running Seb had in FP1 and FP2. From what I’ve heard he had to adopt Daniel’s setup due to the lack of running, therefore he naturally used up more tires which slowed him down.
      Not taking away any of Dan’s performance, but we should stay fair at Seb’s performance.
      1. 

         Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
         25th August 2014, 0:46

         @lheela it didn’t happen only here…
   2. 

      @HoHum (@hohum)
      25th August 2014, 0:18

      @fer-no65, looking at just ROS and RIC their lap speeds are so similiar, except when ROS was on new tyres playing catch-up.
5. 

   Tom Davidson (@wacamo)
   24th August 2014, 22:06

   A voluntary (I’m not going to win, so I want to go get a beer ;-)) retirement would have cost them a penalty. Better to look for a reason to retire that avoid the penalty.
6. 

   Elaine
   24th August 2014, 23:22

   Lewis would never willingly give up on a race. He’s a fighter but when alls said and done Rosberg done him wrong
7. 

   Edvaldo
   25th August 2014, 0:46

   You have to remember that between laps 2 and 8, Rosberg was driving with just half front wing.

   He was so slow that didn’t even pulled away from the pack and was probably going to lose the lead to Ricciardo if he stayed out longer.
8. 

   DaveW (@dmw)
   25th August 2014, 1:46

   The laps 3 to 8 issue was down to Rosberg having a busted wing.

   Also he had the debris on the antenna for a while. Anyone note the rich irony of Rosberg getting thrashed about the head and shoulders by a piece of Hamiltons tire debris? That was only meager helping of justice.
   1. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      25th August 2014, 6:35

      :-) I thought the same about that debris, although I am not completely sure it was from Hamilton’s car, looked like something coming from the grandstands to me.
   2. 

      hobo (@hobo)
      25th August 2014, 7:41

      Based on where he picked it up (I thought it was around Eau Rouge / Radillion / Kemmel, I think it was more likely from Bianchi.

      I may be misremembering the replay when he picked it up though.
      1. 

         Björn Svensson
         26th August 2014, 0:06

         Yes, he did pick up the debris from Biancis car, but only because it was dragging under his car for a couple of laps. My guess is that it was threading from Hamilton’s thrashed tyre, almost every driver drove over some pieces of it since it was all over the track. And those threads are incredibly tough, so there’s no wonder that it would survive a good while under a car.
9. 

   andy2k12 (@andy2k12)
   25th August 2014, 8:22

   Am I the only one who believes that lewis just decided to drive slower and in this way he ultimately forced the team to retire the car?!

   I mean he asked the team 4-5 times and sounded more and more desperate. On lap 19 he was the fastest car – so at that moment still no sign of damage?!
   1. 

      Deb Luhi (@debeluhi)
      25th August 2014, 12:40

      No, you’re not the only one
   2. 

      Solo (@solo)
      30th November 2014, 21:28

      You do realize teams have something called telemetry and they can see if he did anything like that.
10. 

    David Jessop (@random-linkz-2)
    25th August 2014, 9:14

    something interesting is that with massa and bottas, after massa’s second pit stop massa was faster for the majority of the rest of the race and with info that massa had debris stuck in his car from the Hamilton-Rosberg incident costing him all that time and it only got removed at his second pitstop eguating him to losing 40 seconds. it would be interesting to see where Massa would of ended up as I think he would of ended 4th or 5th possibly
    1. 

       Patrickl (@patrickl)
       25th August 2014, 12:51

       See this: https://www.racefans.net/2014/08/24/2014-belgian-grand-prix-lap-charts/

       I’m saying it’s the usual unwarranted “Massa excuses” for not performing though. He went from doing a poor stint on medium to softs. Of course laptimes will drop.
11. 

    PJA (@pja)
    27th August 2014, 20:59

    On one hand Mercedes did have to leave Hamilton out in case of a safety car to see if they could salvage a point or two, but considering how badly damaged the car was, how far back he was and most importantly the fact that Hamilton is one engine down on Rosberg after Hungary with penalties if a driver exceed the limit, it is completely understandable why Hamilton suggested retiring when he did.
12. 

    Casanova (@casanova)
    29th August 2014, 16:47

    Just noticed that Rosberg set a time on lap 21, less than halfway through the race (and so presumably with about 50kg of fuel on board), that was half a second faster than anyone else managed all race long (even Ricciardo pushing for the win at the end). So even disregarding his late charge on softs, the Merc really was devastatingly quick around Spa!

    Also, I hadn’t noticed that Sutil was the second-fastest person during the race – perhaps there is hope for Sauber yet this season?

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