Nico Rosberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas, Spa-Francorchamps, 2014

Rosberg hits Hamilton and hands another win to Ricciardo

2014 Belgian Grand Prix review

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Daniel Ricciardo has made a name for himself in 2014 by being the one driver who is always ready to capitalise when something goes wrong for the Mercedes drivers.

In Montreal it was an unlikely double technical failure. At the Hungaroring it took another glitch for Lewis Hamilton and a timely Safety Car appearance.

And at Spa-Francorchamps the catalyst was a collision which has further jeopardised the fragile equilibrium between Mercedes’ championship-contending team mates.

Hamilton fends off Vettel

The opening moments of this year’s Belgian Grand Prix looked like a replay of the last one. Hamilton led the field as they plunged into Eau Rouge with Sebastian Vettel stalking him as they came over the crest on the long run towards Kemmel.

Start, Spa-Francorchamps, 2014
Hamilton took the lead at the start
Like last year Vettel jinked to the left and drew alongside the Mercedes – but unlike last year he wasn’t able to make it past. The Red Bull driver ran out of room on the outside of Les Combes and took to the ample run-off area. In doing so, he surrendered second place to Nico Rosberg.

Rosberg had started from pole position but been beaten to the draw by Hamilton and Vettel. Hamilton had actually pulled up too late when they reached the grid and had to reverse back into his correct spot before the lights went out.

Having regained his place from Vettel, Rosberg quickly hauled in Hamilton over the remainder of the first lap, and the pair were separated by just half a second as they came past the pits. Even without the benefit of DRS, Rosberg had Hamilton on the defensive at Kemmel, and for the second lap in a row the race leader was covering the inside line as they approached Les Combes.

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Title-leading team mates clash

What happened next has already been discussed exhaustively and no doubt will continue to be as it marked another significant moment in this year’s championship battle. But title contenders are supposed to be of sufficient pedigree to avoid such incidents, and team mates are supposed to exercise an extra degree of caution to avoid such collisions in the first place. All that being so, the pair had absolutely no business making contact, especially not in such a feeble, amateurish fashion.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Spa-Francorchamps, 2014
Rosberg clash ruined Hamilton’s race
Hamilton was clearly ahead and had the racing line, so the burden of responsibility falls entirely on Rosberg’s shoulders. It looked utterly careless, but Rosberg has already made one seemingly careless mistake which worked out very well for him this year. Now he has made two, and will therefore become the target of more intense suspicions.

The manner in which they collided – Rosberg’s front wing making contact with Hamilton’s left-rear tyre – evoked memories of a near-miss between the pair during their battle in Bahrain. On that occasion Rosberg took exception to a similar move Hamilton had made, albeit one which was entirely within the rules. Rosberg had further cause for irritation before the summer break when Hamilton declined to let him past when he was told to in Hungary – an incident which was still being discussed within the team when the Spa weekend begun.

No doubt this latest incident will have further consequences as well. But in the race it left Rosberg with a damaged wing – and Hamilton with a puncture tyre and three-quarters of a lap between him and the pits.

Rosberg replaces broken wing

Hamilton traipsed in, trying to strike a seemingly impossible balance between lapping slow enough not to destroy his car and quick enough not to destroy his race. As if that hadn’t cost him enough time, he also had to pick his way around Andre Lotterer’s stationery Caterham in the pit lane.

Meanwhile Rosberg now led, albeit under pressure from Vettel. That proved only temporary, as one Red Bull was soon replaced by the other. Ricciardo had already passed Fernando Alonso on lap four, and on the next tour Vettel nearly lost control of his car at Pouhon, allowing Ricciardo by into second.

He wasn’t able to do anything about Rosberg, however, even as the Mercedes driver struggled with a loss of downforce. But with Hamilton out of contention, Rosberg took the first opportunity to replace his front wing when he pitted for new tyres on lap eight.

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Kimi Raikkonen came in from sixth on the same lap, and two laps later Red Bull brought Vettel in, but he lost his position to the Ferrari. Ricciardo’s pit stop two laps later temporarily handed the lead to Valtteri Bottas, but once the Williams driver had made his final pit stop Ricciardo was back at the front of the field again.

Raikkonen’s early first pit stop therefore promoted him to second, and behind him Vettel was receiving attention from Rosberg. The Mercedes driver was unimpressed with Vettel using the run-off at Paul Frere curve as an extension of the track, and told his team on the radio Vettel was “cheating at turn 15”.

Shortly afterwards Vettel was told to pay more attention to the track limits, and Rosberg took the opportunity to get a run on him as they approach the chicane. He braked a touch too fiercely, however, locking up his front wheels, and now Bottas was tucked up under his rear wing. As they reached the DRS zone at Kemmel, the Williams driver used his car’s excellent straight-line speed to excellent effect, and having been lining up a move for third place Rosberg was now down to fifth.

The other Mercedes, meanwhile, was a very unhappy place. Hamilton was struggling with a badly damaged floor which was getting worse, and the gains he was making on the cars ahead were gradually diminishing.

Even so, from an early stage he seemed intent on parking his car, despite his team’s assurances that his pace was good and that a Safety Car appearance would give him a strong chance of scoring points. Had Hamilton fallen into the same mindset which led him to abandon his qualifying run at Silverstone?

“My thought is that I already had an engine that’s blown up in the last race,” he explained afterwards. “So I may have lost one engine, so I have one engine less than Nico already, which puts me on the back burner already for the next few races.” For the Mercedes drivers, everything is seen through the prism of their battle with each other.

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Ricciardo holds off Rosberg

That suits Ricciardo fine as it keeps giving him chances to win. Rosberg’s damaged front tyres meant he had to make an early second pit stop, forcing him to commit to a three-stop strategy. Once he had done so both he and Ricciardo had one stop left to make – and the pair were separated by almost half a minute.

Rosberg came in for his final pit stop with nine laps left to go. Once back on track he lost little time in passing Bottas and Raikkonen, meaning Red Bull had little opportunity to pit Ricciardo in response had they wanted to.

Rosberg had eighth laps to cut Ricciardo’s 20-second lead, but despite lapping almost two seconds faster than anyone else on the track he simply didn’t have enough laps to get the job done. Unusually the Red Bull proved particularly fleet on the straight, a trait owed to its skinny rear wing. “We pretty much came here with a low downforce setting,” Ricciardo confirmed afterwards.

“We knew it would maybe affect us a bit in the second sector but we believe the car has a good base of downforce to sort of get through the second sector good enough and then what we lose naturally on the straights, running this type of wing, was something that put us back in with a fighting chance for sector one and two.”

Ricciardo used his tyres wisely, and set his fastest lap of the race on the final tour to win by a comfortable 3.3 seconds. Rosberg’s time lost behind Bottas had proved costly.

Magnussen in trouble

Life was far from comfortable for their pursuers. Raikkonen’s early first pit stop left him with a long final stint during which he was easily passed by the flying Williams of Bottas. Even so, fourth represented Raikkonen’s best weekend’s work since he returned to Ferrari.

Vettel emerged from a thrilling four-way scrap to claim fifth. Kevin Magnussen defended his position robustly from Fernando Alonso, leading the Ferrari driver to shake his first at the McLaren while he was edged aside at Bruxelles.

But it was on the run towards Les Combes that Magnussen crossed the line, forcing Alonso onto the grass on the straight. The stewards handed him a 20-second penalty after the race which dropped him out of the points.

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That promoted Jenson Button in his place, who discovered that being Magnussen’s team mate did not exempt him from similarly firm treatment, and Alonso. The Ferrari driver served a five second penalty in the pits after his mechanics were on the grid after the 15-second warning before the formation lap, and should be grateful his penalty wasn’t more severe.

Behind them the Force Indias sandwiched Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso for the final points after Magnussen was penalised.

An inevitable, avoidable collision

For Hamilton, however, the race had been over for some time. Mercedes finally decided there was no realistic hope of gaining anything from the race with six laps to go, and called him in to retire.

All season long there has been little to separate the Mercedes pair in terms of sheer performance, so perhaps it was inevitable that a collision like this was always going to happen. But the ease with which Rosberg could have avoided it, and his self-serving excuses afterwards about ‘not having seen’ the incident and so being unable to comment on it – as if he hadn’t had a better view of what happened than anyone – will not endear him to those inclined to see the worst in a collision which served him very well.

How well? His points lead over Hamilton more than doubled this weekend to 29. And that scoreline is all these two care about at the moment.

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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198 comments on “Rosberg hits Hamilton and hands another win to Ricciardo”

  1. Very poor decision by Rosberg. A decision that made me lose some respect for him as a driver. He hurt his team mate, his team, but mostly he hurt himself. He finished the race, but at what price?

    It makes on wonder if he would take out an opponent in the last race of the season, especially a double points race, if he knew it would guarantee himself the most points in the WDC.

    1. IT makes *one* wonder…

    2. I have been thinking about the incident since the race ended and knowing that ROS tried to “make out a point” kind of finally led me to understand the whole situation. All this year Hamilton have pushed Rosberg a little bit harder than any other driver when defending or trying to make an overtake. This was possible as he knew that Rosberg would always back off to prevent any form of collision (this, in my view, can go back to Bahrain). I don’t think that causing a collision is the best way to make this point clear, but also I believe that at some point this was bound to happen in racing if both drivers are on a really equal footing.

      1. I agree with your point. Hamilton is very aggressive with his racing and Rosberg was bailing out enough. He knows what’s at stake and he wants it. It was a bit clumsy but Hamilton probably tried to squeeze him a bit too far. This time it just didn’t work.
        Is it popular with the fans? No. But will anyone really remember if he ends up winning his first WDC? I don’t think so.
        It was pretty much the same in 2008 for Hamilton. He was in my view too aggressive that year and I felt that he didn’t deserve his title but at the end of the day he is a WDC and what I think doesn’t really matter.
        Personally I would love Daniel to win this year’s title. He is doing stellar job this year and he really became a new Alonso of F1. Having much slower car than the both Mercedes drivers he’s actually slowly but steady chipping away their advantage. Having Double-Dhabi this year, not all is over for him.

        1. @oeuribe and @toxic, Are you guys going to talk about the substantive facts or just make self serving inaccurate claims?

          The facts are Rosberg had fresher tires in Bahrain. So of course Hamilton had to defend hard to keep Rosberg back. It wasn’t so much that Rosberg had to back out of Hamilton’s aggressive moves in Bahrain, it was that Rosberg had more grip and could therefore afford to go deeper under braking and had the luxury of quickly changing lines thanks to his grip advantage. Hamilton did nothing illegal or overly aggressive. So please save us the revisionist history.

          As Keith pointed out, Rosberg could easily avoided the contact. On top of that, he was very self serving post race. Absolutely no remorse for wrecking his teammates race and a 1-2 for the team. How long is the clean cut image of Rosberg going to stand? The guy apparently can do no wrong. “Give a man a inch and he’ll take a foot.” Rosberg is just taking it all at the moment.

          1. I actually don’t have such a great memory, but that’s the feeling that I have got all season long from their encounters (@sudd if you have some clear example that contradicts this appreciation, please remind me of it because I have clearly forgotten).

            Also, it probably were easy for Rosberg to avoid the contact, but I believe that at the moment he should have been thinking something in the lines of “Why should I always be the one backing of”. Causing a collision is not the appropriate way to express any point and that’s probably an sportsmanlike behavior, but as showed by Perez at Monaco 2013, you shouldn’t expect that your rivals are the ones who always back off.

          2. Rosberg could also easily say sorry on the podium, during press conference or during flash interviews… often this season I hear people claiming Rosberg has the team on his side, but after that 2nd lap misjudgment at Spa, I think he’s not a popular boy at Brackley.

            Nico keeps talking about Bahrain like Lewis did something wrong while holding his ground. It was aggressive but fair, like the battle opposing Alonso to Vettel at Silverstone.

            Overtaking is not showing your nose and wait for the front car getting out of the way. Overtaking is not given, it’s earned!

          3. “It wasn’t so much that Rosberg had to back out of Hamilton’s aggressive moves in Bahrain, it was that Rosberg had more grip and could therefore afford to go deeper under braking and had the luxury of quickly changing lines thanks to his grip advantage. Hamilton did nothing illegal or overly aggressive. So please save us the revisionist history.

            Very well said

            I’m getting tired of people going on about Hamilton being aggressive with Rosberg because of Bahrain, dont people remember what happend? I seem to remember Rosberg actually dive-bombing Hamilton from way behind him going into turn 1, and Hamilton taking an avoiding wide line to get better drive out of T1, showing his race craft, i saw nothing aggressive other than Rosbergs attempts to overtake.

            In Hungary, Rosberg was nowhere near along side Hamilton enough to be able to dictate the corner radius, which is what you need to do when passing around the outside, even after Hungary Rosberg didn’t say anything bad about Hamiltons defensive driving there, his problems only lay with the team order buisness, and that he couldn’t make his only over taking attempt work.

          4. @Guy… “self serving inaccurate claims”? Seriously? It’s just an’ opinion… no need to really jump on anyone.
            It pretty clear that much more people will be now against Rosberg than before but what many of them chose to ignore is the fact that there is a WDC at stake. Rosberg just cannot be the nice guy that he was from the beginning of his whole F1 career really. I always thought that he is too soft to win this this year and I am actually happy that maybe he also got this?
            Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer to see a clean fight between these two guys but at the same time, I kinda miss the 80s/90s when it was all down to the limit.
            I just hope that Renault will not screw Ricciardo and he’ll be able to keep himself in the race as long as possible.

        2. Did you buy your “Team Rosberg” blindfolds online or at the track ?

          1. @hohum – Ha ha, well said.

            After decades of observing Formula 1 and many other racing series I’ve come to a conclusion. The best way to make a statement against any or all of your opponents is to beat them on the track without taking them out, without taking yourself out and without costing your team points with pointless stupid moves.

            I don’t have a dog in the Rosberg/Hamilton hunt. I don’t dislike either driver, but choose to throw my support to drivers like Daniel Ricciardo who race in more of the Jim Clark style.

          2. @bullmello, totallly agree, I like a driver who fights hard, not dirty.

          3. @HoHum
            So in this case you prefer hamilton who has been trying to use the media to his adventage by spreading lies and rumours about his team mate? Saying how it is he who has earned it, it is he who made it into f1 purely on merit (the other guy being just “some bloke with rich daddy”) and it is he who is more hungrier or whatever. You know, the same driver who has pushed his team mate off the road in multiple occasions with the mindset that either the other guy lifts off or we crash. And now you are annoyed when the other guy did not jump out of the way to prevent the other guy from crashing into him?

            All I see is lewis complaining and whining all the time in whichever media he gets to publish his words while rosberg doesn’t even bother to respond to his childish remarks. If there is someone who is fighting hard and fair it is the other guy who isn’t doing any of that…

      2. I’m not a fan of either driver, but Hamilton is not the only one guilty of forceful driving. Rosberg actually ran Hamilton off the track on the opening lap in Canada. That day Hamilton lost his place to Vettel. From and objective point, Rosberg does appear to be guilty bending the rules. It’s quite bizarre that each of his mistakes has resulted in him gaining a benefit over his closest competitor.

      3. EB (@ebchicago)
        25th August 2014, 3:26

        The problem I have is how early it happened. If you are fighting for the win and you only have a few laps left in the race and so you go for it, that’s racing. 2nd lap? That’s reckless, there is a time and place but the saying you can’t win a race on the first lap but you can lose it applies to the 2nd lap as well. I can’t imagine he tried to do it, I just don’t think he tried hard enough to avoid it.

      4. Surely Rosberg already make his “point” at the first corner in Canada?

        This is how to make a point, by defending like Hamilton, agressively but fairly. Driving into inevitable accidents is an idiotic and selfish way to make a point and If I were in control of Mercedes there would be very serious concequences.

      5. Theyve both driven aggressively and pushed the limits. Hamilton in Spain and Bahrain and Rosberg in Canada (recall that Hamilton beat him off the line and Rosberg locked up into the first corner trying to stay with him; if Hamilton hadnt yielded they wouldve hit. Interestingly it was also Vettel who took the place initially while Ricciardo went on to win) and Spa. Im giving Rosberg the benfit of the doubt in Monaco. But this was stupid driving. The first rule of F1 is you dont hit your teammate….

    3. Mark in Florida
      25th August 2014, 2:40

      Isn’t Ayrton Senna considered the best driver ever to have walked the earth? I seem to remember that he did the same thing to Prost. So apparently Nico is in good company with his driving. My opinion is that it is a race incident the touch was so slight. There was another similar incident later in the race but no puncture happened. This is just over blown by Hamilton,it didn’t bother him to push Nico off the curve in Hungary so why complain when you get back what you’ve been giving.

      1. rafael martins
        25th August 2014, 4:19

        The point is: Prost did the trick first, then next year Senna. Rosberg is trying to avoid some Hamilton “crazy move” ahead in the championship. Something quite possible. Put fear at enemy, pure mind game that move;

      2. In Senna’s case it was understandable because the previous year he had a championship taken away from him because of political moves by the french FIA head, not only that he also had his license suspended for “dangerous driving”

        1. Mark in Florida
          25th August 2014, 15:55

          Senna may have been justified in his actions, but is it right. If so then Nico was justified by the message he sent to Lewis, I’m not getting out of your way anymore or moving over for you to prevent a wreck. I don’t think that Nico was trying to hit Lewis that would be incredibly difficult to predict what kind of damage would occur. I do think he was holding the line and got out of it to late when it wasn’t going to work. If the situation was reversed people would be grousing about why Nico didn’t give Hammy room on the inside because he new he was there. Nico isn’t the golden child so anything less than perfect gentleman driving is going to be heavily criticized. We tend to forget that there are real people in those car’s that have motivations other than what the team or sponsors want. I have said it in an earlier post the second half of the season is going to be the real race. The niceties will go away and raw naked aggression will come to the forefront. It has to, nobody cares who finished second in the championship or who was the nicest driver. Schumacher understood this so did Senna most all champions have that ruthless streak to them. The season is getting really interesting and as strong as Daniel is driving he may just sneak in there and win it all.

          1. True, Senna complained about what Prost did the previous year and even said he wasn’t going to race anymore in a political sport. So when he punted Prost people sympathized with him more. Had he not complained about it they probably wouldn’t have sympathized with him as they did. This might be Hamilton’s plan incase Lewis punts Nico at some point in the future.

  2. And, by the way, many congratulations to Daniel Ricciardo for his win! I really like cheering for him. What a breath of fresh air.

    1. @bullmello

      I’ve got a quiet £5 on Daniel winning the championship.

      I doubt it’ll happen, but if Lewis and Nico manage to trip over themselves again… Especially at Abu Dhabi… It’s definitely possible!

      1. @cgturbo – I hope you win that bet!

    2. Indeed, I must say that I enjoy thinking he might still sneak up from behind and take that championship away from the Mercedes guys, much like Kimi did in 2007 @bullmello!

      All of his races this year and especially his wins have been perfectly using the opportunities offered out there, and doing it with guts, fair racing and a huge smile on top.

  3. The Independent and the BBC seem to imply that Rosberg hit Hamilton deliberately or at least did nothing to avoid the contact.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/nico-rosberg-takes-out-lewis-hamilton-to-the-fury-of-his-mercedes-bosses-9688615.html

  4. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
    25th August 2014, 0:36

    I’m so bored of the Mercedes stories now, it’s almost like every is blown out of proportion what next ‘Hamilton say ‘Rosberg didn’t pet my dog he hates all animals’ or Rosberg saying ‘Lewis didn’t say Happy Birthday to me he so rude in private”. The interesting battle is behind them. Some cracking drivers that I would love to see in a battle for pole and the lead, hope Mercedes fall back next season.

    1. Michael Brown (@)
      25th August 2014, 3:53

      I unfollowed Lewis on Facebook. I wonder if he’ll notice.

      1. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
        25th August 2014, 4:46

        He’s going to go nuts and blame it on Nico ‘If my wheel wasn’t punctured I would still have Michael Brown liking me on Facebook’.

    2. Allow me to state the other point of view. All this is great, fantastic drama and compared to 2013 is not “boring” at all. Gets the emotions going and isaking 2014 a vibtage season. Long may it continue say I.

      1. Agreed, been a while (2007 HAM / ALO) since we have had such a fierce battle between team mates. VET stomped on WEB and now RIC is stomping on VET so we can’t look to Redbull. It appears we may have to wait another season for fireworks to fly at Ferarri assuming that ALO & RAI remain unchanged….

        F1 needs these rivalries!

      2. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
        25th August 2014, 13:57

        See I don’t mind the drama but this has become so damn petty. Everything is magnified to the a ridiculous point. BBC definitely made this ridiculous hype train for it. Like the team orders at Hungary, Nico didn’t even ask for it. I’m just getting bored of it.

    3. This all started because Lewis took the last bread roll at catering .
      So Nico took the last strawberry milk,
      Its escalated since then,

      Toto took the last steak and Niki broke his arm,
      No one can punch Paddy because he’s to low to the ground,
      And then of course the @lite992 facebook incident,

  5. Mercedes have at least 2 reasos to be very unhappy with Rosberg today.

    He ruined Hamilton’s race but not his own. With a damaged front wing, he lost some positions but was still in place for a win. But destroyed the tyres trying -and failing- to overtake Vettel and did just some 12 laps, or something like that, on the harder tyres.

    He lost the race because of this mistake. Mercedes should have scored 43 points. Lost 25 all due to Rosberg’s fault.

    1. A fair assessment, I’d say. Rosberg had 42 more laps to try and get by Hamilton, and not backing out of that 1st attempt was ill-considered at best. Lauda and Wolff were so obviously livid afterwards, and rightly so. It makes me wonder how the Mercedes brass will attempt to manage their drivers going forward. I foresee some scenario-dependent team orders coming, but how can they even punish one of them for failing to comply? Take away their company car? Interesting times to come.

      1. @schooner, Easy! All they can do is slap on the wrist for Rosberg, or impose team orders and stop them from racing each other. Both routes strangely enough would be beneficial to Rosberg with his 29pt lead. Unless Hamilton is perfect for the remainder of the season and gets pole to checkers every race without mechanical issues. Very unlikely of course.

        1. If Mercedes wanted to put their foot down they could replace Rosberg for the next race and make him sit one out. This would give Lewis the chance to level the field again and send a very clear message. I know they won’t do it but that would be something.

    2. The biggest reason Toto is upset is because he is embarrassed that there is nothing he will or can do about it, he is too concerned with his personal image in the media to punish anyone

    3. There is no Team in Rosberg. He is a wildcard and I think he will spoil his own season and that of Mercedes.

  6. .The way I saw it Hamilton left Nico no room whatsoever, and nico tried to get on the power exiting les combes, so as not to be overtaken by cars behind him, Hamilton was there, and took an abnormally tight line on exit, nico and lewis collided. I see it as a racing incident, but if I had to apportion blame, it would be to Hamilton for taking too tight of a line on exit.

    1. and took an abnormally tight line on exit

      What, towards the apex of the next corner? That isn’t particularly abnormal.

    2. Sorry but you’re wrong on every possible element.

      Firstly there was no car in a position to challenge Rosberg.

      Hamilton took the normal racing line. Not a tight line. Just the normal racing line.

      Rosberg was to blame. Hamilton this time did nothing wrong at all.

      1. @zjakobs, you’re hopeless. I’m not even going to attempt to correct you.

        1. GB (@bgp001ruled)
          25th August 2014, 3:41

          maybe because you are wrong! @f190 is right: in all those points…

      2. The way the rules go, the “Normal racing line” is not a defense to force another driver off the road.
        You can’t take a line to the next apex, or to the track-out when there is another car beside you. That’s considered “forcing the other car off the road” and they hand out penalties for it. They did today actually. So the question is whether Nico was far up enough alongside Lewis for that consideration. Under braking for the right hander. I’d say yes, you’d say no. Remember Lewis is already taking a defensive line to the inside down the straight, forcing Nico to the outside. Would you say Nico was on the “normal racing line”? So Hamilton, who is already off the racing line should guess maybe Nico is to his outside. If Hamilton knows this, it doesn’t give him permission to head to straight to the next apex knowing Nico is there because that then forces Nico off the road. In Hamilton’s defense, the farther in to the right-hander they got, the more out of position Nico was. But can Hamilton still turn back to the left hand apex knowing Nico is there? Whose fault this was is a completely legitimate debate, and the way Formula 1 enforces their “forcing another driver off the track rule” makes it even more so. Both sides have merit.

        1. Michael Brown (@)
          25th August 2014, 3:56

          “Normal racing line” is not a defense to force another driver off the road.

          It sure works in the middle of a corner. Take Magnussen, for example. He can push Alonso wide in Rivage, but got a penalty for pushing him off on a straight.

          So the “Normal racing line” is an excuse to ignore all cars around you because you’re ahead.

          1. @lite992
            unless there is a car there, then that “excuse” becomes irrelevant because that car has the right to be there too.

            That’s why there is no penalty from the stewards…

            I too agree that ROS could have avoided the accident entirely and so could HAM, but since HAM was in front the team-player would usually be the hind driver…

            The “fault” was mainly Rosberg’s, but it’s still a racing incident.

            HAM counted on ROS acting benevolently, and he didn’t… and now none of them probably will in the future (angry words from niki or toto won’t count in the heat of the moment I suspect)

        2. Mr win or lose
          25th August 2014, 8:11

          So Hamilton, who is already off the racing line should guess maybe Nico is to his outside. If Hamilton knows this, it doesn’t give him permission to head to straight to the next apex knowing Nico is there because that then forces Nico off the road. In Hamilton’s defense, the farther in to the right-hander they got, the more out of position Nico was.

          I completely agree with this. It is a really complicated situation. Rosberg’s move and timing were a little clumsy, but he only wanted Hamilton to compromise the next corner and I think that’s racing. Possibly Hamilton was right to shut the door, but I doubt it was the most sensible thing he could have done. In the end, I think it just was a racing incident.

        3. @warren2185 I think you aware of F1 cars being equipped with brakes, right?

          1. They have a steering wheel too

        4. Hamilton, who is already off the racing line should guess maybe Nico is to his outside

          The trouble with this defence- besides the fact that you surely mean inside rather than outside- is that only having the front wing level with the other driver’s rear wheels does not nor ever has equalled ‘being on the inside’ in racing. If you do not believe that sticking only a wing up the inside of of an opponent going into a corner is both careless and entirely the fault of the driver behind, I find it hard to believe that you have watched much racing in the past, or at least understood it.

        5. Lewis left him plenty of room to get out of it before the apex of the next corner. This is at the point of impact and you can see just how much room Nico had when he did finally concede. http://tinypic.com/r/2uizl7r/8

    3. but if I had to apportion blame, it would be to Hamilton

      Therefore, you are wrong. Hamilton’s rear wheel was in line with Rosberg’s front wheel at the corner, therefore Hamilton is the car in front. In being the car ahead and taking the racing line, not a tight line which you seem to have fabricated, he takes no blame whatsoever for the incident.

    4. You may as well say Hamilton did not let Rosberg pass in the previous race when to do so Hamilton would have needed to back off 200 metres to let Rosberg catch up. Why should anyone who is racing give up distance for a teammate who does not perform himself for the team and cant catch the car in front?
      Rosberg has proved several times this season that he does not give a fig for the team but he has to learn that he cant buy a championship (or a seat next season) with unpopular tactics like taking out your teammate. Vetal did the same thing and took both Red Bulls off the circuit. I would be seriously looking at his contract if I were in Mercedes.

  7. What a great race by Ricciardo, I really enjoyed that one and it was an excellent win.

    He wasn’t able to do anything about Rosberg, however, even as the Mercedes driver struggled with a loss of downforce.

    I thought Ricciardo was catching Rosberg at the time, which was why they chose to pit him early?

  8. Hi,Who was the ex-driver race steward this weekend?It has not been mentioned in any article.

    1. It was Keke Rosberg

      1. Man,I almost fell on the floor when I read that.Thanks!I needed that.

      2. If only! Although if Keke was true to his principles he’d be giving little Nico a good thrashing!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veNKppUzS0w

  9. Rosberg was absolutely careless on that matter (with intention or not) so he should have been penalized. But instead, nothing happened to him. Apparently he can do whatever he wants. When Rosberg pushed Hamilton off in Canada, Lewis backed off, a thing that is completly different, since Lewis did absolutely nothing, he didn’t ran wide, he didn’t pushed Rosberg, he simply stayed on the racing line.
    But nothing will happen (Rosberg got his defenders and the ones that hates Hamilton. Would love to hear if Alonso was the one suffering…) and this may decide the championship.

    1. @edmarques, ROS probably did deserve a penalty but I am happy for RIC as ROS has no excuse for not beating him this race, a penalty would have given ROS an excuse (not necessarilly a valid one) for loseing.

      1. @hohum he can pretend his big lock up trying to make a move on Seb did not happen and say he lost to Dan because he was forced to change his front wing after “being pushed by Hamilton” :)

        @edmarques Nico did defend his ground in Canada pushing Lewis out and still thinks he needs to “prove a point”…

    2. Rosburg wont get a penalty while is Father is one of the stewards on race day.

  10. And what happened with Rosberg in Pouhon when he was passed by Bottas? Looks like he fat-fingered the pit limiter or something. What a hideous race by that guy. Also the team was saying he would be right on Danny on the last lap, every tenth is needed, they said. I think they were giving him some extra stick there out of frustration. In the end he was not even close to Ricciardo, which I’m sure will be the subject of some teeth-sucking reviews of his traces tonight.

    1. He let him past to avoid a “going off the track and gaining an advantage” penalty you fool.

      1. Thanks for that helpful note. On that fresh info I should reduce my opinion of Rosberg’s race further.

        1. Michael Brown (@)
          25th August 2014, 3:58

          God forbid if he tries to race fairly.

  11. To quote a guy from another forum:

    Hamilton has on many occasions closed the door on Rosberg, expecting him to be the sensible one. Sooner or later Nico was going to become fed up with that. So today he did not go out of his way to avoid contact. And he was clever enough to pick a situation that would hurt Hamilton more than him. Clever man.

    I see the taste of the Ad revenue is too much for Keith to resist, so he decided to put this nonsense of a title to the article. “Rosberg hits Hamilton”… Hamilton ran over Nico’s front wing when it was completely avoidable. It’s not like Nico just put it there on the entry of the corner. When they entered the first right-hander, they were side by side. Nico was actually backing out as they were edging towards the next left-hander but Hamilton did what he was doing all year long – tried to cut off Nico and try to make him be the sensible one who pulls out in order to avoid contact and save the points for the team. Little did he know that Rosberg won’t be pushed any more. Rosberg made a point of holding his ground, while Lewis unnecessarily attempted to bully him out of the move, instead of sensibly taking a bit more cautious line. It backfired for both Lewis and the team.

    I can’t believe anyone is still buying Lewis’ nonsense. Guy did his best to inject toxic atmosphere in the team with his nonsense interviews all year long, and did his best to put Rosberg in the situations where they would crash if Rosberg doesn’t pull out of the move, even if it was always at the expense of the team.

    I think Lewis actually got served his own medicine today by Nico, and Nico being the smarter one, did it much better than Lewis ever did.

    I know that unlike some people who are still buying whiner’s drama, I am getting more and more respect for Rosberg. When he is racing for the team, he is really racing for the team. But when he is racing for himself, he is lethal. Lewis can’t even pull off a real killer move, but he for sure can talk about being hungry and what not for days on end.

    1. To date in the season I have felt that Rosberg has, overall, outperformed Hamilton. I feel that Hamilton has been a more forceful driver on track, and that given heightened tension within the team Rosberg probably felt he did have to make a point and push back.

      But doing it in that corner, that early in the race, when Hamilton had the line and track position, was careless. Rosberg caused the collision by putting his car where it didn’t belong. Hamilton gave him all the room he deserved, because Rosberg did not deserve any of the track his wing was occupying when they collided.

      Keith’s headline, in my view, is accurate and a fair representation of the race.

      Still hope Rosberg gets up over Hamilton for the WDC, though.

      1. “To date in the season I have felt that Rosberg has, overall, outperformed Hamilton.”

        I’m just going go ahead and say ‘lol’.

        Nico would be nowhere close to Hamilton this year if he wasn’t given full access to Hamiltons data after Hamilton smashed him in Malaysia and China. That combined with poor reliability, and a pinch of cheating on Nicos part, is whats kept him even close to Hamilton.

    2. I think Rosberg kept his car almost to the side of Hamilton’s sidepods before backing off. But Hamilton probably should have exercised caution before trying to take the racing line into the corner. He assumed Rosberg would back off significantly which has happened before, but this time Rosberg stood his ground.

      I initially didn’t like the way he complained about wanting to retire but on the hindsight concerning reliability issues, he could be right in his approach. But his comments to the media about Rosberg accepting that he hit him was bitter. Rosberg said he did not back off wanting to prove a point but that doesn’t mean he deliberately hit him. Which is what Hamilton is implying to the world in his comments.

      Wolff has confirmed what was originally said by Rosberg. If it is a meeting behind closed doors, I assume it would stay that way. I am not sure Mercedes are going to happy with Hamilton washing dirty linen in public.

      1. Maybe Rosberg thought Hamilton should have let him pass because he had more points due to Hamiltons past mechanical unreliability. This time he was closer than 200 meters.
        Somehow I dont think Rosberg will get any favourable treatment from Red Bull and his credit may have run out at Mercedes. Exciting season.

    3. @lawrence, you’re hopeless man. You couldn’t be more wrong. BTW, those claiming Hamilton didn’t leave Rosberg room, what exactly does that mean? Hamilton was on the inside line just at the edge of the curb. Is it his responsibility to jump on the curb or into the grass so Rosberg could make a hail marry attempt from the outside on lap 2!

      Or maybe you’re asking for space in the subsequent left hander. Is is Hamilton’s responsibility to run wide right into the “marbles” or dirty side of the track with very little grip so Rosberg could complete his hopeless attempt? That complex of right-left corners is basically a chicane, so from Kemmel straight its hard on the brakes than immediate right-left. Once you turn right, you immediately have to turn left to make the apex. Very simple stuff really. When you ask for space, what you’re actually asking for is Hamilton to yield his position to a guy who is on the outside and behind him? Unless you think he can make his car vanish, there is no space to be given up unless Hamilton runs over the curbs on the right side, into the dirty section of the track and possibly end up in the barriers due to poor traction.

      Watch these videos if its not clear to you:
      http://blog.axisofoversteer.com/2014/08/hamilton-and-rosberg-crash-whos-at-fault.html

      1. Nice link BTW :)

      2. Guy, Formula 1 has the rule you can’t force another driver off the track, just because Hamilton is heading for the racing line, doesn’t give him automatic permission to force Nico to drive off course to avoid him. if Nico was beside him under braking, where does the rule allow Hamilton to drive him to the edge of the road, racing line or no racing line. So then the argument is when did Hamilton realize Nico was beside him and when did Hamlton decide Nico wasn’t beside him any longer, and then run to the edge of the track?

        How is this different than the “cannot force driver off track rule”? As interpreted, if a driver is beside, but on the outside, of another driver, are you arguing the inside driver shouldn’t have to lift to leave room on the outside so he doesn’t push that driver off, after all, it’s the inside drivers racing line to drift to track-out. Or in this situation, should he lift, loose speed, leave room on the outside and thus, “yield his position”.

        I don’t really want a response, I’m just saying in my opinion, there are many ways to apply the “cannot force another driver off rule”. Nico was beside him briefly, doesn’t that count? Hamilton never “cleared him” before turning back left.

        1. @warren2185, well guess what buddy? You’re getting a response!

          1. You dislike Hamilton so much that you can’t see the situation straight.
          2. At no particular point was Rosberg forced off track. So please stop fabricating things that make absolutely no sense. Mag on Alonso is forcing someone off track, which he was penalized for. If you think that incident is in any way similar to the Ros/Ham collision, you need help and a better understanding of racing.
          3. Nico was never alongside. Hence his FRONT wing made contact with Hamilton’s REAR tire.

          A guy from behind runs his front wing into the rear tires of the car in front, and you some how blame the guy in front. Unbelievable! Not a single person from the F1 community(reporters, journalists, drivers, commentators, etc) has defended Rosberg on this collision, I wonder why? Because it was his fault. If the stewards had punished Rosberg, I could see people defending him and saying a penalty was not merited. There would be people for and against a penalty. That I can understand. But people like you claiming Hamilton was at fault for the collision is just absurd!

          Rosberg committed what is considered a cardinal sin in motorsports towards his teammate and his team, and yet you try to convince us he was the innocent one. GET A CLUE!

          1. +1000

          2. Nico was never alongside. Hence his FRONT wing made contact with Hamilton’s REAR tire.

            You contradict yourself. Front wing to rear tire contact, but not from the side? So he hit him from behind? They were side by side entering and Hamilton just missed clearing him on exit.

        2. How is this different than the “cannot force driver off track rule”?

          Because Hamilton didn’t force Rosberg off the track. Rosberg wasn’t far enough beside Hamilton to need to take such evasive action, and Hamilton is well within his rights to take his line being that far in front. Rosberg could’ve stayed on the track and avoided contact.

          Nico was beside him briefly, doesn’t that count?

          Rosberg wasn’t beside Hamilton. If Driver A’s front wheel is alongside Driver B’s rear wheel this means Driver B is in front, and therefore it is for Driver A to lift off or brake because he is the driver behind.

          Hamilton never “cleared him” before turning back left.

          That is irrelevant, Hamilton was far enough ahead to be considered the one in front going into the corner.

      3. be an armchair expert all you want, if you watched the GP2 race you would have seen plenty of overtaking through those corners, no different to where rosberg was, the car in front just didn’t attempt to make the second apex like hamiton did in order to leave room for the car trying to overtake. by not going for the second apex you’re still on the inside for the 3rd, and both cars can survive without accident through the corner.

        hamiton pushed, again like he always does to his team”mate” and rosberg is sick of being pushed around (see bahrain) and jumping out of his way. it takes 2 to make a crash, hamilton had just as many options as rosberg.

        1. So Massa was also to blame for Singapore 2011 then? @foxxx

        2. Hamilton dear fellow was leading the race. Rosberg at no time was alongside wheel to wheel. They could have gone for a one two having let the race calm down but Rosberg was not prepared to wait for the straight run. He went looking for trouble.
          Taking out your team mate is unforgivable and the fans let him know. He spoiled the day of many racing fans. That is not racing in any formula.

      4. @sudd If you read the article on the link you provided, rather than just watching the clips you’ve notice that lawrence makes a valid point. The author of the article concludes “Both went for the same piece of road, neither yielded, classic racing incident.” or in other words, Hamilton has a role in this and that is what lawrence is pointing out.

        1. Absolute rubbish. It was unnecessary and careless when Hamilton was leading the race. Why not wait until the straight if Rosberg was so fast? Hot headed attempt to overtake the lead driver on a corner. It was completely unnecessary on the part of Rosberg.
          He spoiled the Mercedes team effort. Those poor mechanics who work their backsides of for some rich kid (sorry but he is) to throw his toys out. It’s just not good enough.

    4. Larry, I suspect you are the guy from the other forum. ROS lost position and was desperate not to let HAM build a gap so made a silly totally avoidable error which cost the team 25 points, he was lucky it was not 43 points, which is why Nikki and Toto are angry but you no doubt believe there is a conspiracy in MB to hand HAM the WDC.

      1. Mr win or lose
        25th August 2014, 8:37

        ROS lost position and was desperate not to let HAM build a gap

        And that’s why Rosberg didn’t even need DRS to get alongside Hamilton?

    5. +1 agreed.

      hamilton keeps pushing rosberg around and rosberg for the good of the team keeps jumping out of the way, he decided to stop being pushed around, he wants to win the WDC just like hamilton and he being pushed around by a bully wont get him it.

      kudos to rosberg.

      1. He did that at Canada already.

    6. Sir, Lewis was clearly ahead. Seb had more momentum than Nico a lap before he failed to make the move in the very same corner and went wide. Seb did not complain about that. Nico defended his groung in Canada pushing Lewis out and nobody said he played dirty.

      Nico hit Lewis REAR tyre with his FRONT wing! How could him be side by side?

      Now it’s Lewis fault Wolff and Lauda did not like it? C’mon. Nico Rosberg didn’t even bother to say sorry neither to the team nor to his team mate after the race on the podium! When asked about the boos by a Sky reporter he said “fans should read regulations first” … very classy.

    7. My Thoughts exactly!

    8. spot on!

  12. One thing that all commentators seem to be missing is Red Bull’s unusual top speed at Spa. Almost every commentator is putting it down to Red Bull’s skinny wing, but it is deeper than that. In past seasons we have seen Red Bull cars bouncing off the rev limiter in 7th gear sometimes halfway down the straights (I especially remember this being the case in 2013 at Spa). In this way, their straight line speed wasn’t hampered by creating too much down force at all. This created problems for the Bulls in traffic, as their DRS was effectively useless, simply getting them into the rev limiter sooner.

    This year, with fixed gear ratios and engines barely used beyond 11k rpm, Red Bull aren’t hampered by a pesky rev limiter stopping them getting more speed out of the DRS, nor are they choosing gear ratios which run out halfway down the straights. Thus we’re seeing them breeze through traffic much more easily than in the past.

    1. g’day crackers . I don’t know mate i tend to think it’s mainly that tea-tray wing . the rb10 has been a ”cucumber” this year .

    2. According to what I heard (interrupted by ads. in Oz) from Sky team, RBR were using extra electric power to boost top speed, so I assume they have re-written the software to save boost for where it is really needed rather than useing it evenly across the rev range. More info please.

    3. @crackers @hohum What’s also being missed is that as of Friday Aug 22nd, Red Bull have used their one time in 2014 right to renominate the gear ratio sets in their cars:

      A seal was broken on the gearbox of car numbers 01, driver Sebastian Vettel, and 03, driver Daniel
      Ricciardo, in order to replace all change gear ratio pairs and associated dog rings for re-nominated
      ones.
      This was done in accordance with Article 9.6.2 of the 2014 Formula One Technical Regulations
      .

      http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/championship/documents/Doc16.pdf

      1. Michael Brown (@)
        25th August 2014, 4:00

        That rule is silly.

  13. @keithcollantine, thanks for confirming my suspicions at the start. I saw Hamilton went over his grid slot but they never showed him reversing back. I was so nervous at the start that he was going to get a drive through.

    1. David Coulthard on the BBC broadcast spotted Hamilton being out of position, and reversing into the proper position. He wasn’t sure that was allowed… but I guess it was.

      1. IamSleepyWill
        25th August 2014, 11:38

        He almost certainly rolled back, which is definitely allowed. The TV camera’s fail to capture just how steep that section of the grid is, and there is no way Ham would have had time to engage reverse then engage L1 in time for the start.

        Reversing is not allowed in the pits, that is for sure, it is not so clear cut on the grid – but we can say with some certainty that HAM did not reverse, he rolled.

    2. He reversed, comentators said it.

      1. He went backwards due to gravity. The start is on a hill.

      2. Right before the start David said that the drivers have to put their foot on the brakes otherwise they will roll back to the chicane. It was assumed he reversed and the stewards have all the telemetry and since they love punishing Lewis they would have given him a penalty if he engaged reverse, if it was illegal. Alonso tried to reverse in Silverstone but didn’t because he said the lights started coming on so he had to go, so if he was going to do it then I guess its not illegal provided you do it before the guy flags off the race.

  14. As much I would support ForceIndia being an Indian (sad we don’t have any active Indian drivers in F1) will be the support for Lewis. Nationality sometimes does obscure our vision. Sure there will be many exceptions and they will in all possibility be majority as well. But the fact remains that people would support teams/drivers belonging to their nationality. Massa/Checko could be something where Massa was more supported because Massa was driving a Williams?

    Booing of Nico (not a fan of either though I have met Ham personally) was not nice. It is just like booing RIC for beating Vettel, only that Vettel wasn’t challenging enough.

    Give it a break guys. Constant complaining by fans of both Nico and Ham is making it real boring.

  15. I don’t believe Nico hit Lewis on purpose, even if Nico himself tells me in my face.

    1. @nuvolari71, what if God told you Nico hit Lewis on purpose?

    2. You wouldn’t believe him if he told you himself….uhh?

  16. Someone please tell HAM’s self righteous fans that races / titles are won on the track not by how many people back you off field with their sympathies. HAM is focusing too much on painting himself a victim of conspiracy . Maybe mark Webber can offer him a shoulder to cry. Let’s get on with true racing – not everything is fair we have misfortune sometimes but we need to battle it out and come stronger.

    1. Hamilton is very smart, he didn’t just reveal the information because of his emotions, he did it for other reasons as well, you need to read between the lines

      1. Erik Torsner
        25th August 2014, 9:54

        Hamilton is very smart

        He’s being hiding it well lately. Well played!

        1. Exactly, if you listen to his post race comments he said a few points which after listening to Eddie Jordan I began to think maybe this isn’t just a reaction from Lewis but calculated comments. The one about the teachers talking and not doing anything (a jab at Toto perhaps?) The one about Nico being furious about Hungary (maybe to prove Nico was out to get him from the beginning) I remember in Monaco one of the main reasons Nico wasn’t punished is because the steward said that Nico’s character gave him the benefit of the doubt. Well if you challenge the character maybe in the future stewards will think differently. Its kind of like a football player with good character admits to diving, Im sure the next time he is fouled the ref will say “well last time he admitted to diving so was that a dive or an actual foul?” Spa is a gone case but Nico could probably try some trickery again in the future and we don’t want the well “Nico is the nicest person in the world he wouldn’t do that” reason to crop up.

    2. Well if you had traveled to Belgium and spent probably 400 pounds to see your favorite English race driver, would you have been disappointed? This is supposed to be a spectator sport.
      That’s the people in the stands.

      1. I agree, its incredibly expensive to watch F1 live, only for it to last 2 laps (if you came to see Lewis) but for me Ricardo is a good substitute winner, so it wasn’t so bad

    3. Lets see:
      2010 Melbourne: webber takes him out, racing incident…
      2010 Singapore:webber takes out ham, racing incident…
      2011 Singapore: Ham touches Massa, he is given penalty!
      2012 Bahrain: Rosberg drives both Alo and Ham off track, racing incident…
      2014 Spa, Rosberg touches ham, racing incident…

      Interesting thing is that anyone takes out hamilton is given racing incident, but when he touches anyone given penalty…

  17. Lewis said Nico admitted to crash on purpose and Miky Lauda says Lewis is lying? Ow Lewis is losing the championship mentally. Lauda tried to clam the situation and added: “Nico felt he needed to make a point, and for Lewis, it was clearly not him who needed to be aware of Nico. Nico didn’t give in. He thought it was for Lewis to leave him space, and that Lewis didn’t leave him space. So they agreed to disagree in a very heated discussion amongst ourselves, but it wasn’t deliberately crashing. That is nonsense.”

    1. Rosberg knew from previous racing that Hamilton would not give him any more space than was necessary under racing rules, which is what his “making a point” defence suggests. He clearly resented Hamilton for this, bringing up previous defensive manoevers Hamilton used as far back as Bahrain in interviews after the race.

      If Rosberg had pleaded naivity then that is one thing, but to suggest he was “making a point” shows he knew exactly what he was doing and what was likely to happen. Rosberg intentionally placed his car in a position knowing that an accident was an inevitability.

      From a pure racing point of view Rosberg may have been able to win some small favor from fans if it were not from the fact that he forced Hamilton off the track at the first corner in Montreal. After using equally aggresive defensive maneuvers against Hamilton he really has no right to claim he has any moral right to ‘make a point’.

      From Mercedes point of view this is utterly unaccaeptable, there is no defence. His self serving posturing cost the team valuable points.

      1. Wat you saying is Hamilton drives aggressive, so every body alese is not allowed to drive aggressive and should give way. In the previous race Hamilton made clear that if Rosberg want’s by he should pass on his own, and the team basically supported that. Now they are crying as Rosberg took up the challenge and drives just aggressive as Hamilton. This no more than a race incident as both drivers drive aggressive and do not give way, it is up to Mercedes to recognize that two drivers with the same drive style do not work in a team.

        1. There is driving aggressively and then there is driving recklessly.

          Anyone with half a brain knows if a driver attempts to pass around the outside, better get alongside or else back out of it. If you then don’t back out and instead slice the guy’s tyre then that is not ‘aggressive’, that is reckless and quite frankly dangerous driving.

          Not sure what will convince people on this point… I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here.

      2. People need a reality check on this ‘aggressive driving by Hamilton’ nonsense. It’s called RACING. It’s what racing drivers do: aggressively defend positions. The better drivers still find a way to get past without incident. One thing you don’t do is deliberately cause an incident (which is what Rosberg HAS admitted to doing whatever the spin given by Wolff) because you’re frustrated at getting past. That’s grounds for a penalty. As one FIA steward apparently said, if they’d heard Rosberg admit that earlier, it would have been investigated.

        Hamilton was right to make this public and make sure the stewards think a bit more carefully about Rosberg in future. He got away with Monaco qualifying, and now deliberately taking out his main rival at Spa.

      3. These were NOT valuable points. Merc is so far away from everyone else that the 18pts lost are practically meaningless.

        1. Ricciardo is only 30 points or so behind HAM and about 60 points behind ROS.

          With the double points race in Abu Dhabi losing points for either driver is “meaningless” amd besides that every point is important for their DWC battle between themselves.

          The constructors title is pretty save but RIC has an outside shot at the DWC if Mercedes keep shooting themselves in the foot (be it reliability or drivers-related incidents on track)

          And IF (big if but not meaningless) none of their drivers win the WDC Mercedes would look like a massively disfunctional organization despite winning the constructors title.

        2. Not sure, but I think these Ego’s may just let Red Bull snatch the championship away.

  18. So the accident happen and its best for people to move on. There’s nothing that can be said or done to stop the accident that happen. 29 points isn’t bad and it can turn around very quickly as we saw this in Silverstone, so its not the end of the world. As for punishment unless Toto and Paddy are man enough to take the car away from either driver for a few races nothing they say will stop them from having a repeated situation. Even team orders, the drivers will just ignore them and then wait for the slap on the wrist at the end of the race. In this situation they need a Ron Denis character, someone who can cut ties with a driver even if they are stars. Anyway as I see it there will be no more information sharing between the drivers. It looks like Ham may be upset with Nico but I feel Ham mechanics are also upset with Nico and will start hiding some info from he’s side of the garage. Merc will not like it but what can they do to stop it.

    1. That’s the thing isn’t it? What has happened, happened and in the end ROS now has a 29pt lead with only 7 (?) races to go.

      Regardless off all the fall out and screaming bosses, if your Rosberg you’re thinking “Job done” no?

      1. Yeah, and if you’re Lewis you paint a picture of Nico that if Nico does something similar again people will start to wonder, so in a way Nico will probably not try something similar again, for fear that people will be like this has happen too much to be a coincidence. But anyway given that bad luck may come his way at some point in the future that 29 points could quickly be 4 points and its game on again. If bad luck doesn’t happen all Lewis has to do is win 4 races to reduce the gap to 1 point.

  19. Maybe a rule change? It was interesting watching the Australian Supercars (400km race) and then the F1 on Sunday, the Supercar rules make it clear – if you stuff up another driver’s race *for any reason* then you will be penalised (drive-through usually), so the onus is very much on the following driver to “not” initiate contact with a car in front – no matter what. Racing incidents are always split-second decisions (F1 split-split seconds…) so taking away the inevitable right-wrong arguments and instead emphasising the mantra of clean driving is a great concept – so I reckon they should have this in F1 as well. I personally think this might have helped cool most heads down, but F1 seems to not want to tread on anyone’s toes – so how Ferrari only got a 5 second penalty for what was obviously very dangerous behaviour at the start of the race just confirms the political side of the sport. The politics was also on seemingly show with Nico – as a professional driver that sort of race contact would be ground-hog day – with himself surely being on both sides of such incidents many times before. But he just couldn’t bring himself to apologise (didn’t have to say he was wrong) to his “team-mate” even though it clearly wrecked his race and gave him a massive advantage in the championship. Sad really. Congrats must go of course to Daniel – – even if his wins have a bit of “Steven Bradbury” in them! I also congratulate Seb for playing the wing-man role and helping Daniel – at the end his “grunt” team-work holding up Rosberg for a few laps definitely helped get Red Bull get the win, actions I suspect he would rarely get acknowledgement for. But I love the way Daniel goes about his work – very little grumbling, whining or complaining – just gets on with what he has under him and makes the best of it – good and bad. He (and Bottas as well) still seem to appreciate the opportunity they have been given and just let their actions do the talking – which is great for the sport.

    1. Interestingly since V8 supercars implemented that rule on contact, Many have felt the quality of the racing has declined as drivers are now less willing to force the issue.

      Also interesting in that regard that the FIA recently relaxed the regulations on contact because many fans, Teams & drivers complained that a penalty for contact was harming the racing. Indycar have done the same thing & again the racing improved when they did.

      1. The Saturday Supercar races were in terrible wet conditions and the quality of the driving and racing was fantastic. The rule was probably even more relevant then, as if a car got bumped of the track the run-off areas were so slippery they would simply spear straight into the protection walls with no steering or retardation at all – there was one almighty head-on into a concrete wall which was pretty nasty. So making sure you didn’t contact another car at certain points on the track was also a pretty important safety consideration. There is still plenty of bumping in supercars but the drivers now need to decide when to give the “hurry up” and to not do it when the lead car is in a vulnerable track position (ie mid-corner) – you still can’t block of course. It’s swings and roundabouts, and yes, perhaps it does tone the aggression a bit. But I would think most fans would prefer to see racing hard for lap after lap rather than having cars being sent spinning off the track, most drivers would be happy with the rule (know where they stand in both positions) and I also suspect teams would rather have cars coming home in one piece rather than on the flat-bed.

        For me this was an incident you might have accepted more on the last few laps of the GP with both going for the win, though most other F1 drivers still managed to not hit each other on Sun. Perhaps I just expect too much from these highly paid and expert drivers to not be rolling the dice so early in a race.

        BTW racing is a game of inches – in most cases if you stick the nose in more often than not it is just the front wing that gets broken, so whilst I do think it was Nico’s fault tyhere is simply no way he would have done this deliberately. With no blown tyre it would have been his race compromised not Hamilton’s (so still a poor driving decision), and I wonder what the arguments would have been then!

        1. oohh just had a thought. maybe nico had a razor blade taped to his front wing :-)

  20. And Toto now already defunct that Rosberg said that he hit Hamilton on purpouse.
    Rosberg felt that Hamilton should have left him more room.

    http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/28922696

    1. Excellent read ,

      a small quote

      “The FIA would have to establish whether Rosberg admitted to deliberately hitting Hamilton, on which the accounts of Hamilton and Wolff are now at odds.”

      Hamilton and Wolff are now contradicting each other , ?

      wow.

      1. Well Toto is being political here and also trying to cover for himself incase the media ask him why he didn’t punish Nico. Toto said that Nico didn’t admit to causing an accident but admitted to not backing out of one to prove a point. Isn’t that the same thing? It’s like saying, “Judge, I don’t admit to shooting that person, but I admit to not to pulling the trigger to prove a point”

        1. No. It’s not like that. All racing incidents are caused by one or more drivers not wanting to yield.

          Crashing deliberately is not a racing incident.

          1. No and this wasn’t a racing incident – it just looked like one. The small print of Rosberg’s admission is that his ‘point’ involved him steering hard right into Hamilton’s tyre. That’s not ‘choosing not to avoid an accident’, that’s steering into one. He could have said he miscalculated the timing and knicked Hamilton’s car unintentionally. Just about everyone would have believed him as it would be entirely possible. But he didn’t say that. He said it was done to prove a point.

          2. He probably didn’t want to crash but didn’t care if a crash happen. I mean you are behind someone or close to being behind them, you know you are in the blind spot, so what your saying move over and let me overtake you? Lewis left a lot of space, it just wasn’t the space Nico wanted, Nico wanted him to leave space on the racing line so as to not get compromised in the exit of the corner.

          3. At no point did he turn into Hamilton.

            He even did a massive correction to ovoid him, but clumsily clipped him, as Lewis himself has done on many occasions with different drivers.

            You will see it here in the last gif (http://blog.axisofoversteer.com/2014/08/hamilton-and-rosberg-crash-whos-at-fault.html)

            The interesting thing is, I have thought about situations like this. If I was a driver and had some sort of coming together like this (unintentional), I would use the opportunity, to say to my rival not to expect anything different if he is not going to give me space,or is going to not let me take my racing line if I was in Hamilton’s position, just to establish a psychological war.

            We know Rosberg is stronger mentally and it seems it has worked for him, and I would not be surprised, that the so called “admission” was done in retrospect with this in mind.

            However one thing I would not do, is make this point to the team, that might not work out well for him.

          4. @mateuss you are probably right, however given the admission it makes one wonder. Before that I just thought it was a dumb attempt to pass but when you say you didn’t avoid it on purpose, you have to wonder. If Nico said what he did to get on Lewis’ mind how do you know whether Lewis did the same by releasing what would be private information in public. Surely he knows the media will be all over Nico with questions so maybe Lewis is trying to destabilize him.

          5. @mateuss It’s a good point, maybe Rosberg did try to turn a weakness (clumsy attempt to overake) into a strength (rattle Hamilton by claiming it was kind of deliberate or that he simply didn’t care: Rosberg has less to lose). I think the Monaco qualifying incident and this were simply: Rosberg simply drives ‘worse’, deliberately, precisely when the consequences will be worse for his rival (Hamilton). Shrewd and cynical, but it’s entirely reversed the championship battle since Monaco. I also think there’s a frustration, though, that he can’t prove he can drive past Hamilton on track. I’m sure in his mind he’d have ticked all the boxes in terms of proving he deserves to win this season: he’s qualified faster and driven faster during races. He just hasn’t driven past Hamilton to show he’s the top Mercedes driver (in his mind at least).

  21. Captain caveman
    25th August 2014, 8:46

    I genuinely believe it was a racing incident which was avoidable by both drivers. If 60/40 in favour of Hamilton. It is true that Rosberg could have lifted but the question is ” did he have to?”

    I.e did Alonso and vettle have to lift and run wide on right hander when overtaking magnusson? No they chose to because magnusson was actively putting them in a position of touching….. But no one can claim that magnusson was on the racing line at that point, he was not and was defending. Magnusson had the right to do what he did and everyone excepts that, as did Hamilton with Rosberg. So logically one has to ask and accept that Hamilton equally could have avoided the collision as he decided to actively defend a move which did not require defending.

  22. something interesting could happen. I think we are getting a 2007 case again. With rosberg and Hamilton having the fight up front and Ricardo catching them up, with double points in offer at abu dhabi, he could win from behind by winning the race and if rosberg and Hamilton collide in the race and are both out, it’s possible, he only needs to close 15 points up before the abu dhabi and at this current rate, he could easily do that although I have a feeling that a Williams will win in Monza and there is a chance that vettel will win at suzuca (sorry for the bad speeling) as he is a demon round that track as he has only not won there once (2011) and has never finished of the podium there

  23. Webber said it best a “fracking disaster” And it is on multiple levels…
    i) a world champion wanting to park his car as he’s running down the field – not the image you want to send potential sponsors -> esp with BlackBerry on death watch.
    ii) Rosberg showing he is utterly ruthless. I’m told, common among champions – pushing the rules to the absolute limit and sometimes beyond. He better watch out or he’ll end up tainted. I read somewhere that badboy brands like RedBull like this, but other brands don’t.
    iii) I love Ham’s personality – when he’s upset or feels aggrieved, you know about it and it makes awesome copy. However it’s starting to look unprofessional.

    Takes one to avoid an collision and two to cause it… Remember Kimi in 2007 – go Ric!

  24. Forgetting who’s to blame for the actual impact, Lewis had the lead and should have been pulling away from Rosberg, he clearly looked slower. Do you think the likes of Alonso would be getting hounded by their teammate after having a clear track?

    1. Not at the moment but wouldn’t it be awesome !!!!

    2. Other drivers have been faster than Alonso and ‘the likes’. Even Massa sometimes. What’s your point? Shall I point out that from pole Rosberg ‘should have’ been in the lead?

      Who knows how the race would have played out, if Rosberg had raced fairly. Though he made that extra little steering turn to catch Lewis’ tyre, so presumably even he didn’t think he was going to win on pace.

    3. He wasn’t slower, the slip stream Nico would have takes a bit of time to brake, and you have to do it in the second sector. Lewis had to defend Vettel so took a tight line into the Les Coumbs chicane which put Nico right behind him. And Nico came closer in the long run to the last chicane and up to the first chicane. If he was quicker he could have waited until he can pass him before the braking zone. But he wanted to rush it, possibly because he was criticized for not overtaking JEV?

      1. He had a lap to break free but Rosberg was all over him and looked clearly faster, maybe Nico could have waited for DRS but it couldn’t have worked out any better for him, he played a blinder tbh.

        1. In Spa and Monza you only have the middle sector not a whole lap. the last sector in Spa is a big advantage for the slip stream 20+ seconds worth of a slip stream and a further 26s in the first sector, only in the middle sector can you pull away. This is why they don’t activate DRS until the start of lap 3 as everyone on pole will be overtaken immediately

    4. It is funny that you mention Alonso because (altough the British media, as far as I know, does not mention it) Hamilton did the same thing yesterday, when after saying that Nico did it on purpose Hamilton said someting like “I had the track and that should be respected, aks Alonso (and after rethinking what he just said he added) or anyother pilot”. I am not going to analize Hamilton’s mind but… there are two possiblities, they (ALO and HAM) are now close friends or Hamilton is remembering the old good years.

      1. I mentioned Alonso because the penalty on Mag was for edging Alonso off the track. To me that didn’t make any sense because they didn’t punish anyone else on track so why punish Kevin. I feel it was like Canada (Perez incident) where they said there’s been a lot of incidents and we haven’t even investigated anything, someone has to get a punishment, and looked up and chose Kevin…

        1. Maybe they didn’t punish anyone else because nobody else pushed another car onto the grass at 200mph?

          What Kevin did was dangerous & more importantly against the FIA’s regulations on defensive driving on straights (You must leave a cars width if another car is alongside you & you cannot edge another driver off track) so the penalty was 100% justified.

  25. If your angry and resentful and hold a hot coal to throw at someone,you are the person who gets burned!
    It appears Rosberg has a very immature ego and in his current emotional state is capable of anything as he showed at Monaco and Spa,in a word he is unpredictable and dangerous and obviously shows sociopathic tendencies.
    He knew at Spa the overtake was not on but instead of backing out he created a “a racing incident”.Mercedes should arrange for him to be rested and arrange counselling for him,he currently has a mental age of 10 and that is being generous!

  26. Very disappointed with Nico Rosberg. He put his car in a position next to Lewis Hamilton’s where he knew there would be contact if both of them wanted to stay within the confines of the track.

    I always thought Rosberg was smarter than that – to get tangled up in completely avoidable crashes with championship contenders in the opening laps on a corner with a massive run off and then not have the balls to properly and publicly explain himself. Even Maldonado isn’t that brainless.

    With hindsight it looks as though Monaco’s qualifying incident was also intentional, despite Rosberg’s claims that it was an innocent misjudgement.

    We watch F1 to see professional racing drivers race professionally. Rosberg’s recent behaviour is far from professional. In any other line of work he’d be suspended or dismissed for hitting a college to “make a point”.

    I’m by no means anti-Rosberg but the FIA and Mercedes need to throw the book at him for this, if Hamilton’s claims are true.

    1. Very disappointed with Nico Rosberg. He put his car in a position next to Lewis Hamilton’s where he knew there would be contact if both of them wanted to stay within the confines of the track.

      Except for the disappointed part those are almost the exact same words Brundle used to describe his races with Senna. But nobody was complaining then, obviously.

      1. They were complaining for sure, same as Schummy days, its just that as years pass and you look at history it fades away

    2. Gideon Hadi (@)
      25th August 2014, 13:07

      if Hamilton’s claims are true.

      if that’s not true, so who will you bkame

      1. Gideon Hadi (@)
        25th August 2014, 13:08

        *blame

    3. You have to understand this is not any other job, In any other job Hamilton would had been dismissed long ago (after any of his usual speeches about the team at the end of every race that went wrong -for him-).

      Come on! Hamilton has been moaning so much that now (when he could have a point to complain) everybody is so tired that nobody cares. Now, the problem for mercedes is how to address next championship.

  27. Isn’t it funny how quickly everything changes in Formula 1. At the start of the season, NOBODY wanted Red Bull to win again. I remember a brilliant line from Keith about people throwing their remotes through their TV sets (or something similar) if Vettel were to win in Australia. Fast forward 6 months and here we are commenting how funny it would be for Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo to sweep through to the title Kimi-style, whilst Mercedes are fighting it out. I bet we wouldn’t be saying that if it was Vettel taking advantage of these wins, and I can 100% hold my hands up and say that I’m guilty of this too!

  28. Rosberg’s body language suggested he did wrong. I didn’t say that he deliberately hit Hamilton, but he could do this differently. I guess that all things that happened prior Spa catalyst the thing to a disaster. I just hope that this incident won’t be decisive in title fight, otherwise it would be bad for F1. I hate it when Prost won his WDC in 1989, as I hate it when Schumacher won his 1994 title. I would hate it if Nico won his title because of this to. I like tough but fair fight and that is what F1 should be all about.

    1. And also it was bittersweet taste after Senna pushed Prost the next year. It was not a great feeling even though we all know that Senna was faster from the both of them, as we know that Schumacher was faster driver than Hill, and I think that everybody would acknowledge that Lewis is faster than Nico as well.

    2. Gideon Hadi (@)
      25th August 2014, 13:09

      everyone will stop watching F1 if there is no contoversy like this

      1. @f1indofans maybe you are right. If nothing happens then it’s boring and if stuff like this happens then it’s not OK. You can’t please a man can you? :)

  29. Nico makes 2 mistakes(Monaco and Spa) and instead of getting penalised for them, he gets away with it and gains 25 points and now has a lead of 29 points. Added to that all the bad reliability issues for Hamilton compared to 1 problem that Nico had. It just doesn’t look like Hamiltons year.

    1. Gideon Hadi (@)
      25th August 2014, 14:48

      remember how many bad lucks did Nico get last year

  30. From my point of view the problem here is that Hamilton´s driving style put him in troubles very often and when he competes against Nico he uses their “team relationship” to get adventage of his driving manners. After a few races Nico problably reached a point in which he is not going to allow it anymore… the result is Hamilton out with no championship points and another “Ham’s style media circus”.

    Maybe I am wrong but Mercedes could be disappointed with all these Hamilton’s crisis in the news.

    1. Exactly. He is always causing friction intentionally. Wouldn’t be doing that if he was so concerned with what’s best for the team.

    2. Captain caveman
      25th August 2014, 12:38

      I would have to agree, Hamilton appears to be playing all sides, the team and the media.

      1. Captain Caveman
        25th August 2014, 17:30

        I forgot to mention that I wonder how the team structure is affecting the inter team politics. Two bosses in paddy and toto (not niki) can’t be easy, surely one person needs to be in charge and the buck stops with them…. would the situation be different with Ross Brawn at the helm… .? Probably a discussion for another day.

  31. It was not so much the actual collision that made me question what Rosberg was thinking but his decision to try at overtake at that point on the track at that particular time of the race. Wouldn’t it have been more intelligent ( as we are often being informed Nico is) to wait until DRS was enabled and complete the overtake under significantly less risky decisions?
    The rather desperate move on Vettel into the Bus Stop chicane which resulted in flat spotted tyres and failure to overtake made me wonder even more about his decisions.

    1. @arki19 Yeah I agree. He seems so frustrated by his bad start (or that Hungary: Why didn’t he let me thru?” ) that he made some pretty bad moves during the race. And at the end his face showed that he wasn’t over the moon by the result, but on the other hand maybe deep down inside he was happy about those 29 points that matters….

    2. So basically we should just ban all ‘risky’ Non-DRS overtakes?
      Or maybe all racing should be banned until DRS is enabled?
      Nonsense!

      For all Nico knew that could have been his 1 shot to try & overtake as lets not forget he got a great run through Eau Rouge (Lewis was a bit wide through there), And that got Nico in position for a good slipstream which all gave him a speed advantage down the straght as a result (Hence why Lewis moved to defend the inside).

      Had he waited Lewis may have been away & gone by the next lap with Nico outside the DRS activation.
      Look at what happened to Vettel, He had 1 shot to try & get the lead on the 1st lap & was never in a position to try it again.

      As Ayrton Senna famously once said if you see an opportuniyy to overtake you go for it & if you no longer go for that opportunity your no longer a racing driver.

      1. It just seems to me that Nico – who had a considerable lead in the WDC points table should have been smart enough to wait another lap. I see his actions as a measure of how under pressure he feels from Hamilton.
        We fans feel quite contemptuous about DRS (and rightly so) and it seems nowhere near as exciting or skilful when watching a DRS aided overtake but surely from the drivers/teams perspective it is less risky to use these opportunities to pass?

  32. The whole incident was a “I’m going to tell mummy” from Lewis Hamilton. I think that Lewis is a good driver when things go his way and if he does something he shouldn’t to his rivals, (other teams or his own), then he thinks that is fair, BUT, if anyone, (including his team mate), should do the same back then he’ll throw his toys out of the pram. Nico Rosberg is a damn good driver and he was fine before Lewis Hamilton went to Mercedes. If Hamilton can’t hack the rivalry, go back to McLaren where they like whingers & whiners.
    Click below for a laugh !

    Okay, I’m off my soap box now. :)

  33. Rosberg said from his own mouth on his post-race video blog:

    “the thing im most annoyed about is the last lap though, cos i had a little opportunity, just so close but didnt manage to use it, like 30cms missing or something, what he did was ok, the way he defended, because the guy on the inside, its his corner, so the guy on the outside has to make it far enough infront, so the other guy cant push him out”

    1. Thats about the Hungary incident. i forgot to add. For those trying to use it as Ammo against Hamilton.

  34. Hamilton is talking rubbish. Only a few people know who said what, but I am pretty confident that Rosberg did not say he hit Lewis on purpose. Most likely he said he was challenging Hamilton and wasn’t going to back down and yield track position like he had every other time this year, including the last race where Hamilton drove him off the road. It was definitely possible to overtake, and go two wide, through that corner. We can say that with confidence because it happened in the race. Hamilton did his usual chop on Rosberg but Rosberg didn’t blink. Absolutely the guy coming from behind gets most of the blame, and Rosberg did back out but not quite enough, but this definitely sends a message that Rosberg will no longer be pushed around. Although these two are not fit to wash the socks of Prost/Senna, this is exactly what Prost did to Senna when he said he wasn’t going to jump out of the way if Senna does his usual “back off or crash” move on him. Spa is just one race, but I’d say this contact has been brewing since the first race.

    Controversy sells. Bernie is just loving every second.

    1. “Hamilton is talking rubbish.”

      Oh right, because you know more than the Merc bosses?

      Hamilton said Rosberg “basically hit me on purpose”, Toto said Rosberg said he could have avoided
      collison but chose not to, to prove a point that he wasnt going to back down’

      Maybe you can take a moment to explain to us all how not avoiding a collision, is not purposely crashing.

  35. Lewis has had 4 team mates in F1. He’s had issues with 3 of them, Serious issues with 2. That’s..interesting in the least.

    1. Hear hear.A classic case of “How not to win friends and influence people “.

      Point to state doing no good for Nico or Ham reputation. Somehow its hard to take sides but Nico shows his ruthless side and hunger to win more. No point looking for excuses.

      1. You can’t be friends with your number one rival. you can maybe laugh and have a beer once you retire but not while you’re racing

  36. Nico’s revenge (aka point proving) took deliberate steps since the beginning of the race.

    Nico may be a poor starter, but not that poor as to let both Lewis and Seb pass him so completely in such a short amount of space. So it can be construed that he deliberately set himself to be in a position to pounce upon Hamilton.

    Then there is a rumour circulating that Toto is dissatisfied with Nico because he did raise the power output of his car beyond the factory setting to be able to stick to Lewis.

    Why did he have to strike at this point?

    Simply because the distance Lewis would have to cover would guarantee the most damage to his car and race.

    At this point, one has to be very scared of angel faced Nico as he shows grudge holding potential of monumental proportions and a disposition to misbehave to achieve his aims.

    Does one remember the race at which under pressure from Lewis, Nico went straight instead of threading the chicane to avoid being passed? With this and Monaco in mind, Nico becomes a very shady character. One even gets to think that he may have had Lewis car sabotaged by one of his mechanics or one of Lewis’s one.

    If we recall the days of Schumi/Rosberg, I am not sure, but I think I remember Schumi had a much greater amount of tech trouble that Nico.
    Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

    It seems to me a wary eye must be kept on Nico.

    1. Nico may be a poor starter, but not that poor as to let both Lewis and Seb pass him so completely in such a short amount of space. So it can be construed that he deliberately set himself to be in a position to pounce upon Hamilton.

      You’d have to be very smart to plan this, and theres no guarantee the other guy will get a punture, then it will be egg on your face if that happens, so Im pretty sure this isn’t likely

      Then there is a rumour circulating that Toto is dissatisfied with Nico because he did raise the power output of his car beyond the factory setting to be able to stick to Lewis.

      Is this true?

      Simply because the distance Lewis would have to cover would guarantee the most damage to his car and race.

      Its likely he wanted to go round the outside but was late on being side by side with Lewis, saw he would be compromised on the exit of the corner which would loose him at least half a second instantly so tried to force and stay close to the racing line.

      Does one remember the race at which under pressure from Lewis, Nico went straight instead of threading the chicane to avoid being passed? With this and Monaco in mind, Nico becomes a very shady character. One even gets to think that he may have had Lewis car sabotaged by one of his mechanics or one of Lewis’s one.

      Going straight in Canada is the same as here in some sense, like I said he felt he would loose time and end up a few meters behind Lewis and loose the slip stream, In Canada he braked late felt he would loose time at the chicane loose the position in the straight so he cut the chicane.
      One thing I don’t agree is that he sabotaged Lewis’ car, if he did Merc would be in big PR trouble.

      1. I take exception to the ¨staying on the line argument¨. Nico has been very inclined to have off track excursions whenever it suits him. Besides, there, he had only to let go of the throttle; not change a iota off his line.

        Then you seem to doubt the intelligence of one that had been, for weeks, mulling his response to Lewis’s offence in Hungary.

        Sabotage doesn’t involve the whole outfit, just one devoted evil doer with access to the intended victim’s machinery.

    2. Gideon Hadi (@)
      25th August 2014, 14:51

      hahahhaha nice joke @carlD, if he cheats then he will ahead of Lewis in 2013, and if he cheat he will be ahead of Hamilton in Malaysia 2013.

  37. By the way if it was true that Nico told Hamilton (to his face) he did it on purpose… I would had paid a lot to see it. I can not even imagining it! … At the end of the race, Hamilton approachs Nico demanding an explanation and he answers – You know? I DID IT ON (F…) PURPOSE!

    Ha ha ha, My god! it must be terrific!

    1. Punch in the face James Hunt style, perhaps?

  38. I’ve liked Toto but I’m struck by him saying his drivers had a heated exchange in the debrief and ‘agreed to disagree’. Surely his job was to replay the incident and, with the engineers, Paddy, and Niki, decide what happened? Not leave it to two racing drivers to argue? They were never, ever going to agree. That’s weak.

    And so far, no penalty. Now Nico has this and Monaco, so he has to be thinking this cheating concept really pays off!

    I won’t matter what Toto has said, he’s let it pay off, so if it comes to it there’ll be more of it. He’d already laid down the law and Nico ignored it. Now even as it is with 29 points’ lead there’s a real possibility their wdc will be tainted, going to someone who’s been booed on the podium for cheating.

    And let’s not forget the team had the tyre load data at Monaco and knew full well what went down there, but they supported Nico – the polar opposite of deterrence.

    It’s no good supporting cheating and then being upset that the sportiing values you want your brand to stand for aren’t winning through.

    1. Ok, but now try to imagine the opposite point of view.

      I am sure you know Pedro de la Rosa, ex F1 pilot (arrows, jaguar, mclaren, sauber), ex Jordan test driver ex McLaren test driver and currently Ferrari test driver, more than 16 years of experience in F1.

      Pedro de la Rosa said yesterday, “It is impossible to that (Nico’s hit) on purpose, you do not actually see where the front wing ends, it is just impossible”.

      What happens if (just if) Hamilton did not say the hole truth or misunderstood Nico’s explanation? What if there was no “cheating” as you called it? What if Lauda said what really happens?

      What then?

      I will tell you what, Mercedes will be hiring a second driver for next seasson right now because it is becoming impossible to deal with Hamilton’s criticism.

      1. *What Pedro said was “it is impossible to DO that on purpose….” (sorry)

      2. @Paul2013 I don’t believe they don’t know where their front wing is. It’s an exact, constant, heavily learned distance from the what they can see, and these guys have the best depth perception going. That’s how they dice all the time just missing each other.

        Rosberg knew that if he stayed in there and Lewis took the normal line his wing was going to be in the way, and just to be sure he actively steered right, into Hamilton’s tyre.

        So the team have a driver who’s being booed for cheating, in danger of winning unfairly against the most popular driver in the sport. If they don’t want that, it’s going to need more than cross words.

  39. Pedro’s assessment ignores the fact that at least 80% of the times the front wing punctures the tires in a clash. So you dont really need to know the exaaaaaact boundary of the wing in order to hit a rear wheel and puncture it.

    The best that can be said of Nico’s driving in Belgium is that he was clumsy, causing a collision with his team mate, and clumsier flat spotting his (almost) brand new tires while braking. This is neophyte driving at its worst.

    1. According to Pirelli punctures caused by front wing contact are actually rare because of the increased strength they added to the sidewall this year.

  40. I love coming to F1Fanatic and reading the articles. Great job for some great reading Mr. Collantine.

    It’s quite humorous to read the fans posts. So many variations and interpretations of the exact same race. One would think that there were 2 different races. 1 of which Rosberg hit Hamilton and 1 of which Hamilton chopped Rosberg.

  41. Can I just say it’s nice to have a F1 site that isn’t biased all towards Hammy as most other sites appear to be. This is the best site out there

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