New radio reveals Hamilton’s suspicions in Monaco

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton was immediately suspicious of Nico Rosberg’s reasons for going off the track during qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.

New team radio of the incident released by Formula One Management on the official 2014 F1 season review shows Hamilton immediately suspected his team mate had gone off the track deliberately.

Rosberg was already on provisional pole position at the time and began his final lap with Hamilton following him. When he went off at Mirabeau it brought out yellow flags which meant Hamilton was had to back off and was therefore unable to beat him.

On Mercedes’ team radio at the time Hamilton was told “yellow, yellow turn five”. He replied “ah, that was very good of him” after seeing Rosberg’s car parked in the slip-road at Mirabeau. “Very good,” Hamilton added again.

Rosberg’s move was investigated by the stewards at the time. But they took no action, ruling they “could find no evidence of any offence related to the turn five incident.” He started the race from pole position and won.

Hamilton recently described the incident as part of an rivalry between the two drivers which escalated “to another level” in Monaco. He has also alluded to revealing information in the data from Rosberg’s car about the incident.

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

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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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121 comments on “New radio reveals Hamilton’s suspicions in Monaco”

  1. We heard at the time Lewis radioing “I might have known” on the way back to the pits, didn’t we.

    For a driver it was pretty obvious, since that’s the only reason Rosberg would have chosen to run first.

    1. @lockup I don’t recall hearing that at the time. I just did a search for “‘I might have known’ Hamilton” and the first result I came across was this comment from you so I think you may have that wrong.

      1. @keithcollantine Mmmm I don’t have it on disc any more, and I can’t immediately find a reference either, so maybe my mind was playing tricks. Anyway Lewis identified it as a cheat straight away.

        1. He didn’t say that, I must have watched replays of that happening at least a hundred times, and at no point did Lewis say anything like that.

          1. Did you know about the radio Keith just posted? What difference does it make anyway? Lewis knew immediately, is the point, which we knew from his demeanour when he got out of the car.

            Nico would only have run first in order to do what he did.

          2. I think you will find Nico and Lewis took turns to go 1st in qually even by event and Monaco happened to fall on Nico’s turn naturally, so Nico didn’t choose it, he already knew it was his turn to go 1st and that have him time to think about his approach beforehand, also it allowed time for Lewis’s guys to think of the tactic too, hence why Lewis realised straight away, he already knew there was a chance Nico would pull this trick before possibly even before Lewis got to to the event. Maybe they should toss a coin from now on to see who does his last flyer 1st.

          3. @thebullwhipper They generally took turns to choose their position, not to go first – and in most cases the choice would be to run second in order to benefit from track evolution. I understand that it was Nico’s turn to choose in Monaco and he took the somewhat unusual decision to run first, for some unknown reason.

    2. In the race he also said to the team “he knew” the team would mess up his pit stop and not call him in when he thought there was a window, meaning he saw a conspiracy there too.

      He is simply an accusing and paranoid conspiracy theorist more than anything.

    3. The point is, regardless whether it was a mistake or not, if you make a mistake which prevents someone else completing their lap, some form of penalty should be issued regardless. Fastest time removed for the offending driver for example. That could mean you end up tenth in the top ten shoot out but there could be no argument about whether it was a genuine mistake or not.

      1. No, the point is that Hamilton suspecting a conspiracy by Rosberg is meaningless when we all know he did the same to the team in the race about the pit stop and that was obviously ridiculous.

        F1 Fanatic and everyone know this, but pretends it doesn’t matter and instead put store into Hamilton’s suspicions about the first instance only. The real question here is why but it is anyway obvious. Sad really.

  2. I still don’t understand how Rosberg didn’t get a penalty for that. And for the incident in Belgium.

    1. AntiHamiltonFanbandwagon
      20th December 2014, 17:44

      maybe because both were infact racing incidents?

      1. Yes, it was a racing incident. That’s why Toto Wolff was furious after the race, and Nico was punished.

      2. In modern F1, it is possible to be guilty in the name of the sport and innocent in the name of the show. If they had penalised him, Hamilton would’ve won uncontested, so it’s better for the show to have the two Mercedes next to each other.

        Ditto Canada, if they gave him a 5-second penalty for straight lining the chicane, Hamilton would have likely streaked away (no one knew about the imminent brake failures), so Nico was innocent there too, for the sake of the show.

        There are rules saying you can’t change brake type in Parc Fermé, but despite this, Mercedes were allowed to change Hamilton’s brakes for a different brand that weighed and looked the same, for the show.

        In Hungary, Jenson Button was released from his box almost hitting another car but there was no unsafe release because fans don’t like penalties so they were being a lot more lenient (let’s not worry about the safety of the pit crew).

        I guess Spa falls under this new leniency stance. After the stewards kept trotting out the words “racing incident”, I went to read the rule book to find out what exactly its definition is. Guess what? It’s not even mentioned in the rulebook. They are making it up as they go along.

        1. Hamilton’s brake change for a “..brand that weighed and looked the same..” after his brake failure in Hungary during Qualifying is in the sporting regs and not for show. The inconsistencies of the Stewards from race to race shows just how ridiculous and ambiguous those types of rulings are. You get a different set of eyes at each race and some rule like a boarding school and others just let them race… It pretty much becomes a coin toss.

        2. @kodongo

          We knew the stewards are trying t be more lenient. They were talking about it all year. The rules are still the same, just the action taken lighter.

      3. Spa absolutely was not a racing incident. Grosjean was penalised in Russia for an incident very similar and yet Rosberg wasn’t.

        1. +1
          Had Rosberg been driving for another team, it may well have been punished – presumably Mercedes didn’t protest against their own driver. That said, I’m still not sure the FIA gods favour Hamilton enough to award that kind of penalty. Even when other drivers get them.

    2. Because Warwick.

      1. The very impartial Derek Warwick on Lewis Hamilton
        ‘I don’t want to give him advice really — he has won umpteen races and a world championship — but if I were to say anything it would be to man up and concentrate on the next race in Canada.’

        And the same very impartial Derek Warwick on his pet love Nico Rosberg
        “You will not find a more honest driver than Nico”

    3. they can’t penalize people based on suspicions…

      1. Of course they can @fer-no65. The FIA are judge and jury. Stewards just decide, end of, barring an appeal to the carefully selected, somnolent ICA.

        Anyway they had tyre load data, according to Mark Hughes.

      2. I would buy that for Monaco, but Spa? Drivers have been penalised for lesser crimes than what Rosberg did.

      3. They, the stewards, could have asked the team for the data from Nico’s car and looked to see if his braking point was significantly later that previous laps.

        It is, unconfirmed, reports about this late braking (up to 10 meters late) that have lead some people, to change their opinion from “Nico, with his Father’s view’s on cheating, would never do that” to “I’m not sure Nico is innocent”

        1. Mark Noble said he spoke to members of the Mercedes team and they too agreed it was deliberately done and had the stewards looked on the data showing tyre load, it would’ve shown that he was able to make the corner easily.

          I guess that was what Lewis saw, when he said, “if you had seen what I saw”

        2. Surely he would have braked early to ‘lock up’ safely if he intended to go off. Later braking is part of trying to improve one’s time.

    4. the incident in Spa, it was a racing incident, yet he did get penalised heavily – by his own team, reportedly a 6 figure money penalty, and a psychological penalty – the momentum in the team swung after that race.

    5. Although it seemed obvious it was intentional, it was more or less impossible to prove without Nico admitting it.

      1. Well they could’ve proved it by looking at the tyre load data, something which they didn’t.

        1. How does that prove anything?

          No one disputes that he drove into him. The dispute is whether it was on purpose.

  3. I wonder ,if Rosberg is under investigation for any incidents in 2015, if the stewards will still give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure one of the stewards said after Monaco that because of Nico’s reputation as a good guy this was taken into account.

    1. Also in the programme on Sky Lewis said he could have believed it was a mistake if he’d braked 2 metres later, but 10 metres.

  4. lets give Rosberg benefit of the doubt … seemed like pure driver error while braking and Mercedes have struggled with brakes this season.. don’t think there was anything deliberate there
    things were a bit too much on the edge at that point in the season and Hamilton simply reacted and still seems to believe that it was intentional :)

    1. @u2f1 Since apparently the other drivers thought it was deliberate I don’t think there is any doubt tbh.

      “That incident, which if you believe – as almost every other single driver in the paddock did – was deliberate,…” http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/reports/2014-monaco-gp-report/

      1. @keithcollantine You have it spot on buddy!

      2. It doesn’t name the drivers nor show quotations.

        1. File under: diplomacy.

          1. Or: Someone who disguises his opinion as a universally accepted fact without even bothering to ask anyone.

        2. @nase Mark Hughes has contacts everywhere in F1, he is highly credible.

    2. Why don’t you give the same benefit of doubt to Lewis? Why cant lewis be right? A majority of the F1 pundits and drivers now feel that Nico might have done it on purpose. Even after Spa, I don’t see how you can give the benefit of doubt to Nico.

      1. Martin Brundle was telling viewers during the Abu Dhabi broadcast that the more he looked at it as time passes, it was very clear that Nico’s actions were more fishy than his admirer Derek Warwick, who doubled up as a “independent” & “impartial” race steward, had deemed to be.

    3. @u2f1 read this, then come back and tell me it wasn’t deliberate..

      http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/sports/06iht-prix.2718507.html?_r=1

      1. … I don’t think that provides any actual evidence does it?

        1. Well that would only come from a Rosberg confession.. What is clear is that when Warwick said you’re not going to find a more honest driver than Nico Rosberg he hadn’t read this article, the key phrase of which is “all drivers had done something similar in their careers”. Whilst he must have been acting on supposition as far as everybody else was concerned, when he says “all drivers” this means about himself cheating, he was absolutely certain.

      2. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
        21st December 2014, 8:37

        I liked Coulthard’s instinctive reaction (from which he rapidly rowed back), something like: “Wow, that looked wrong.” It was such a weird accident, he seemed to be sawing at the steering wheel, the side by side comparison is pretty damning, as Coulthard says, he began sawing even before applying the brakes! –

  5. I dont believe the conspiracy, i believed it with schumacher in 2006 or whatever it was, because of schumachers past character history, but i dont believe it with Rosberg – he has always been fair, and because of the fact that Rosberg then reversed back on the track, which was more likely to get him a penalty. Hamilton should have got a better lap in first go if he truly wanted the pole position. Rosbergs error did not happen when hamilton was faster. i guess we need this kind of rubbish drama in such a season where only 1 car could win in normal circustances.

    1. Funny you should say that about 2006, read the NY times article I referenced above about that very same incident

    2. Keke Rosberg on MSC 2006 Monaco
      “He should resign from the Grand Prix Drivers Association and never mention the word safety again. It he was a real man he would have parked the car in the middle of the road and walked away. We would have thought much better of him. It was the worst thing I have seen in Formula One. I thought he had grown up. He is a cheap cheat. He should leave F 1 to honest people.”

      Keke Rosberg on Nico 2014 Monaco
      ?????

  6. Rosberg should’ve been punished for this. What nonsense is it that the stewards have to be CERTAIN that it was deliberate in order to punish him? Grosjean’s crash in Spa in 2012 wasn’t deliberate, he was punished because he made a mistake that cost another driver.

    Rosberg should’ve been punished for the same reason. Even if not intentional, if your driving is poor enough to cause such a disadvantage for another driver through no fault of their own, you should be penalized. Not penalizing Rosberg for this sets a very obvious and dangerous precedent that NO ONE will be surprised to see going forward.

    1. I have a feeling that if Rosberg had done that to any one else other that his teammate, he would have been penalised.

    2. What nonsense is it that the stewards have to be CERTAIN that it was deliberate in order to punish him?

      And whats wrong with that?

      Would it have been fair if they had punished Nico when there was the possibility that it was a pure mistake?

      In a situation like this if there is any doubt at all then the only thing you can do is nothing because handing out a penalty based purely off the suspicion that it could have been deliberate is ridiculous.

      Where would that end, Handing Lewis a penalty for his spin during qualifying at Austria because its possible that he could have intentionally braked in a way to lock the rear brakes?

      1. Given that the stewards once imposed a 25 second penalty on a drive for “not convincingly giving back a position”, the stewards pretty much do whatever they feel like doing at the time.

        1. Ah would that be the same driver who was on the receiving end of Nico’s dirty tricks in Monaco 2014?

          And to think Massa had the cheek to whine to this day that he deserved the 2008 title because he won more races conveniently forgetting FIA handed the Belgian 08 win to him on a plate after stripping it from the winning driver for “not convincingly giving back a position”.

    3. Grosjean’s mistake was far more serious as it endangered all around him and was one that any driver should have the awareness to avoid. Running somebody off the road in a straight line is incredibly serious.

  7. It was seven months ago. Get over it already people.

    1. Exactly. Lewis won, so why keep on with this?

      1. Trenthamfolk (@)
        20th December 2014, 20:59

        Because there’s an important lesson in there… Rosberg cheated and still couldn’t win. Even when he’s playing dirty he’s sub-standard…

      2. Because incidents like Spa, and Monaco, contribute to the idea that Hamilton only “barely” out-performed his teammate, when in reality, Rosberg never had a chance of winning without his teammate racking up DNF’s.

        1. The incident at Monaco happened in qualifying, Lewis still had a chance to win.. He just wasn’t good enough in the race to do it.

          He coudl have got a better start & passed Nico there, He could have been faster during the pit stops & jumped him there & of course he could have got close enough to try & overtake him yet he didn’t.

          Other drivers managed to jump cars ahead of them either at the start or during the pit stops & several drivers managed to overtake cars on the track so its not as if Nico’s error in qualifying cost Lewis the shot at the win.

          1. @Monaco?
            You can only do that if you are not team mates, but drivers in the same team?!!! Get real!

          2. Roger, have you ever watched a race at Monaco? Geez, that’s a stupid statement. You really think you can take a chance and try to force a pass on a teammate on that track at Monaco? LOLOLOL

            You think Toto was ticked off about the incident at Spa? Try wrecking your teammate with a pass at Monaco and see what happens.

      3. Spa 2008 still bugs me! Finest dueling in a generation and FIA award the race, for political reasons, to Massa – who showed the entire season (Silverstone!) he couldn’t handle the rain with the same skill as Hamilton and Raikkonen.

        As for Rosberg, of course it’s important. Next year is likely to be the same intense duel between the two for championship points, so establishing precisely what Rosberg was up to at Monaco and Spa is crucial to undo the unjustifiable nonsense Warwick used to defend Rosberg: basically “he’s not that kind of driver.” You can bet he wouldn’t have extended that condescension to Hamilton.

      4. @henryshakespeare/@Londoner

        Because cheats should never be allowed to get away scot-free.

        It’s like saying lingering suspicions dogging Tour de Farce 1999-2005/Singapore GP 2008 should not be looked into because the season was already over let’s move on.

        1. Londoner made that comment 1 day ago. Get over it already people.

        2. The Monaco incident is nothing like those 2 that you mentioned. The Armstrong doping scandal was widespread and deep, and many many people already knew about it. The 2008 Singapore GP was a plan from higher up in the team. With Rosberg at Monaco, it was at worse only himself making the decision purposely to run the car off. And it is still possible it was just a suspicious looking mistake. But ultimately it did not hamper Lewis’ championship and is not worthy of being called a “scandal.” So yes, let this one go.

          1. Trenthamfolk (@)
            21st December 2014, 18:02

            Cheating is cheating, and so was exactly like the others…

          2. Well @henryshakespeare we’re at the end of the season, what parts are we allowed to review and what parts not?

            We have best driver, best pass, season DVD and all the rest of it. Then a few people seem to think it’s for them to say something shouldn’t be discussed?

            Let’s face it if we believe one or both moves were deliberate then what about the stewarding? What about the F1 media? Where’s the video of Sky’s midweek report of Monaco?

            There are implications about the sport we’re watching, as well as how most of the season played out.

            The Season Review DVD is called “It Was Fair”, even. Which is highly debatable afaic.

            So if you’re not interested personally fair enough, but go discuss what does interest you. Though I notice you had your say before telling the rest of us not to discuss it :P

          3. @lockup. Discussing what’s not worth discussing is in itself a valid discussion. There comes a point at which you’re just beating a dead horse.

          4. @henryshakespeare the entire season is ‘a dead horse’ now, so we all know it’s just trying to censor an unwelcome viewpoint that you can’t rebut. This ‘get over it’ attitude is poor. I know others have been ruder than you, but still.

            A driver cheated, twice, could easily have won the championship with it, and the sport collectively whitewashed it. That’s a valid topic. If you don’t want to discuss it, fine, but just don’t discuss it.

            Nobody’s forcing you and the other malcontents to read this thread are they? So don’t read it; problem solved. Ostensibly ;)

          5. @lockup. I’m a HAM fan and am very glad he won. And I agree that had Nico won the WDC it would have been undeserving. But I do not necessarily believe he cheated at either Spa or Monaco. There is no definitive proof for either case. I’m no censoring anything, I’m just putting forth the idea of “letting go.” I shall now take my own advice and do the same. Peace out.

  8. Am I the only one around here who remembers the fact that when Hamilton was told to back off, his sector times were actually slower than his previous best (hence, slower than Rosberg’s best)? Even if Nico did that deliberately (which we cannot be positively sure about, no matter how hard Hamilton fans tend to skate over the stewarts’ decisions and label them as “it’s in the name of the show”), Hamilton wasn’t setting a time that was worth anything better than P2.

    1. So would Lewis have taken the pole had Nico completed his lap conventionally? “I was two-and-a-half tenths up on my target,” he asserted. He was referring to the advantage he knew he had over Rosberg in sector two – the main meat of the circuit, comprising 46 per cent of the lap time.

      MotorSport Magazine (link above)

      Also, your quote:

      Even if Nico did that deliberately (which we cannot be positively sure about, no matter how hard Hamilton fans tend to skate over the stewarts’ decisions and label them as “it’s in the name of the show”), Hamilton wasn’t setting a time that was worth anything better than P2.

      You can’t be positively sure of Nico’s intention but you can be positively sure about the outcome of two abandoned laps.

      Bravo, you are the guardian of objectivity.

      1. I’m not “the guardian of objectivity”, those are the stewarts. And their decision was that it was not a deliberate act from Rosberg. Anything beyond that is guessing and a waste of time.

        Also, take not that had Rosberg finished his lap, the gap would have stayed the same between the two of them.

  9. Wah, Wah, Wah!!!!

    It was 7 months ago, Was a mistake by Nico & not done on purpose…. Lets move on!

    Same with Spa, It was a mistake, A simple mis-judgement….. Time to move on!

    1. Trenthamfolk (@)
      20th December 2014, 21:06

      Rosberg would like everyone to forget, but no one likes a dirty little cheat… It’s important to remember his bad sportsmanship! Remember how he blamed the British press and anti-German sentiment? I was personally disgusted, particularly as the British press has been so supportive of the Schumacher situation…

      1. Calling him a ‘dirty little cheat’ implies that he did both act’s deliberately.

        The FIA stewards, You know the people who have all of the data & a driver representative who you know understands racing far better than us fans who just watch on TV found on both instances that Nico did not act deliberately.

        At Spa in particular the only people who felt Nico hit Lewis intentionally was Lewis Hamilton & his fans.

        At Monaco opinion was more split.

        1. Monaco, see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/sports/06iht-prix.2718507.html?_r=1

          At Spa the Mercedes team admitted Rosberg said he hit Hamilton on purpose before backtracking furiously in the name of ‘the team’

          1. As Alonso & every other current F1 driver who was asked about it said-

            ” It’s impossible that Nico from the cockpit could have been so precise with his front-wing to have cut a tyre off another car, you need to be in surgery at the hospital with that sort of precision. Definitely, we are not so precise.”

            Every other current driver & all of the ex drivers who were asked about the incident all said the same thing.

            Clearly however Lewis & his fans know more about driving an F1 car & what drivers are able to see/do from the cockpit.

          2. The intention and the outcome are two different things. Fisichella was able to slice Schumacher’s tyres in Brazil 2006 and he tried repeatedly to do so.
            Rosberg perhaps didn’t exactly have the intention of slicing Hamilton’s tyres, but he certainly had the intention of not getting out of the way.
            Only Rosberg knows what he tried to do and how aware he was of the consequences of his actions. Any opinion of any other driver cannot be taken to be a fact.

        2. Trenthamfolk (@)
          21st December 2014, 18:07

          And Nico Rosberg who said he kept his foot in on purpose… I have no reason to disbelieve Hamilton on this point… racing incident, yes… terrible racing and dirty sportsmanship, definitely! Everyone knows it and anyone who says otherwise is just being a tool… you know it’s true…

    2. Yup, karma is a bitch, summed up his mistakes in the finale!

  10. If Hamilton is SO much faster than Rosberg and deserved to be on pole, then why, why, why wasn’t he on provisional pole after the first run in Q3? At Monaco, the biggest prestige race of the year, if you want to win, you cannot waste time making a single banker lap, you have to go for it. To me, Rosberg had provisional pole and no reason to but to go all out on his last run to protect it. And if I had choice of when to take my lap of the teammates, I would absolutely go first at Monaco (and any other street course), because the risk for yellows are too high.

    I am not trying to change a single mind here about Rosberg’s action at Mirabeau, everyone has taken a side and only Rosberg knows the real truth. The fact is, if Hamilton wanted pole for Monaco, it is solely his fault he didn’t already have it in hand.

    1. @reg A banker lap is run at a safe speed, to make sure that you can go flat out on your second run when the track is that bit more evolved. If you screw up your banker, you have to do your second run with a margin to make sure of avoiding a disastrous drop right down the grid.

      So a very fast banker makes no sense. UNLESS you are planning to use the choice it earns you at Mercedes to run first or second. And because on a road circuit the track evolves with every run, you would always choose to run second.

      If you have provisional pole with the two team cars coming out of the pits one right behind the other yellows are not a risk. Quite the opposite, as we saw. Anyway you have your banker, so what you want is the maximum number of cars rubbering in the track in front of you.

      This is what Lewis and, all the other drivers, understood.

      The fast banker is not prestigious. It means Rosberg’s cheat was probably premeditated from the start of Q3, at least.

      1. @lockup – I fully understand what banker laps are and why they have banker laps. As I said in my original post — it is my opinion that it does not apply for Monaco, it is THE race of the year, you just need to go out and run two pole laps in Q3 and take the best one. The tiniest bit of added rubber grip does not make up for the increased risk of something going wrong ahead on the track. If that was not true, then why on earth was Hamilton letting Red Bull and Ferrari run their final Q3 laps behind him, especially if the Red Bulls were a threat to grab pole? Furthermore, if the track is so superior by incremental rubber, why didn’t Hamilton put the Red Bulls and Ferrari in between himself for a better track to run for pole against his teammate?

        Having said that, I have never understood how exactly the teams govern themselves for Q3. I don’t know if there is some gentleman’s agreement between the teams in how they agree they will send their drivers out. Obviously all of them want the advantage of the best track conditions possible, but it is clear that 10 cars cannot all cross the start line with five seconds remaining on the clock for Q3. So how do they do it? We have seen a few times drivers being caught out on this before(and not just in Q3), but if you can only really control when your two cars leave the garage, how do you really strike that balance out on track?

        1. @reg it’s the team who decide when their drivers go out – we see the drivers sitting in the car and then the RE gives the signal and the car is started and waved out. The drivers have no idea where the other cars are.

          Yes it must be tricky. They use gps and need a bit of luck too I think. As you say if they wait to the very end there could well be traffic and backing up, but as a team Merc did not need to take that risk because they had pace in hand.

          As far as the two Mercs are concerned the drivers themselves just had choice between the two of them. Yes there’s only a tiny difference with one car ahead, and therefore there’s not much reward for a risky banker lap. In theory.

          The only reason to take a big risk on the first run is if you have some other plan in mind, which depends on gaining the option to run first, in front of your teammate.

          All the reasons for wanting pole and dreading 11th on the grid are more true than ever at Monaco. If you overdo it somewhere on your first run you dare not do the second run at a risky pace. The smart way is to do a banker and then a quick one.

          So it’s a reasonable, albeit unprovable, theory that Nico took a small extra level of risk on his first run, because it was going to pay off more than normal.

          1. @lockup I reject again that the ‘only’ reason to take a ‘big risk’ on the first run is if you have some other plan in mind. This is Monaco and traffic is always a concern, so always a reason to put in as fast a lap as possible when the opportunity arises. I don’t believe these drivers are intentionally going 9/10s knowing they have a final shot, especially at Monaco. Why go out at all then? If Nico or any driver was feeling particularly hooked up at the time, would it be reasonable for him to back off from that and assume he’d feel the same oneness with the car a few minutes later, and also have a clear run?

            Let’s talk about the risk Nico would have been taking had he done something deliberate and gotten penalized. Why would he risk handing the race to Lewis? You’d think a smart guy like him would know it would be better to start behind LH, than behind the whole grid, and that is supported by the stewards finding no evidence that Nico did anything other than overcook the corner.

          2. @robbie, no indeed they’re not going 9/10ths on a banker lap. More like 99.8% – the fastest speed at which they pretty much know they’re not going to touch a barrier and take a corner off the car. Then with that in the bag the final run can be at 100%.

            This after all was Rosberg’s explanation for going too deep into Mirabeau, wasn’t it?

            Except that braking 8m later didn’t do it. He was going to make the corner. So he had to waggle the steering to engineer a lockup.

            Yes it was risky to cheat. Who knows what was in his mind, really. Had he calculated that Warwick would be too sweet to make the call? Would he have done it if, say, Mansell had been the driver steward that day?

            Anyway he did do it, did it again at Spa, got booed, ruined his reputation and still lost the championship. It was very stupid.

          3. @lockup Wow thats some precision to knowingly go 99.8 knowing for a fact that there will be that extra .2 for the final run…guaranteed…at Monaco.

            And, I highly doubt Nico has ruined his reputation other than for some such as yourself. Prior to this unique rivalry of 2014 which saw two childhood friends in far and away the best cars, what had Nico done that was questionable compared to LH’s having lost WDCs that were his to lose, having got caught up in Liegate, and having admitted in 2011 that off-track distractions cost him on the track, hence wasting millions upon millions of the teams’ and sponsors’ money? Is Lewis’ reputation ruined? Perhaps to some I suppose.

          4. Lol @robbie. That was Warwick’s argument – Nico is too honest to cheat and lie, therefore he didn’t do it. After all Derek asked him, and that’s what he said. Case closed!

          5. @lockup Was Warwick the only steward? Is that a direct quote from Warwick or your wording?

  11. The best teams in the sport continually skirt the rules and look for any loopholes to exploit, and we love them for their creativity. The moment a driver does something even remotely suspicious, all the wankers come out. Why is that?

  12. Lewis jumping to conclusions before he had even seen how Nico Rosberg had ended up down the escape road says more about Lewis than anything else.

    At the point he was on the radio making these comments he had not even seen what had happened so making snide remarks on the radio & acting like he’s the victim (Like Lewis always does) shows his true character.

    Its also clear that Lewis made his mind up before he’d even seen it & that nothing could have changed his mind afterwards, So his opinion on it can clearly not be trusted.

    1. Dizzy, really see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/sports/06iht-prix.2718507.html?_r=1

      Do you think Nico and Lewis never discussed Schuey, and also his win at all costs rep?

      1. I don’t see how thats relevant to anything.

        If you want to go down that route however then I guess Hamilton’s driving into everyone in 2011 was because he was emulating Senna’s attitudes?

        1. Did you read the article? The bit where Rosberg was quoted as saying

          “Nico Rosberg, a driver at Williams, agreed, saying that all drivers had done something similar in their careers.

          Schumacher’s error, he said, was in doing it so obviously that he got caught – and was penalized – and in not admitting that he did it on purpose.

          Drivers learn the moves, Rosberg said, in go-karting, where mechanics with many years of experience teach them the tricks. As they reach the highest level of karting, however, Rosberg said, they learn from the professional kart drivers who race up to their 30s, earning a living from sponsors.

          “They know it all,” Rosberg said.”

          Not relevant? How much more relevant can you get?

          1. Dizzy has made up his mind, he’s not using common sense or looking at the motivations behind Rosberg’s actions.

    2. Rosberg did reverse the car to the track again after losting it on Mirabeau.
      Was it necessary? He blew his last attempt to pole. Doing it or not wouldn’t make any difference.

      At the time it was said that this happened while Hamilton was on the sector.

      If it was, who can blame him?

      And i must say it’s funny how can one judge a person’s whole character based on a reaction on the heat of a battle.

      1. The reversing part had no impact on Lewis as the yellow flags would still of been displayed if Nico had stayed up the run-off.
        All Nico reversed did was clear the yellow sector, Had he stayed there the yellow flag would have remained out & everyone’s final lap would have been affected.

        There were cars behind Lewis & by reversing & clearing the yellow sector 1-2 of those drivers managed to get a final quick lap in.

  13. The only thing to save Rosberg’s face on both this and Spa incidents is to leave to the stewards to analyze.

    And what they judge is if a incident deserves punishment or not, not if it was intentional or not.

    And both Rosberg’s maneuvers, altough probably intentional, were racing incidents. That’s how Rosberg played the game slightly crossing the line of the illegal for a part of the season. That lock up on Canada was another point. I rewatched the race since and he completely fails to lose the advantage, at least for the next 2 laps.

    1. Monaco can be intentional (probably only Rosberg knows that), but Spa definitely wasn’t. Yes, the move at Spa was intentional, but the result wasn’t. Some people seemed to think that Rosberg was trying to collide, or even more ridiculously, trying to precisely cut Hamilton’s rear tyre!

  14. I do agree Hamilton in this case.

  15. Come on its over and the right man win the Championship, at the end Rosberg have double failures in Abu Double so I think its fair enough.
    And I actually laughing when people say Nico is a cheat, yes Rosberg made some incidents, but how many times Hamilton called by the stewards? definetly more than Rosberg.

    1. Schumacher and Senna Are one of the best drivers in F1 but they also did quite some cheats and tricks, so I don’t see a lot of problem if Rosberg tried to emulate them, and I think Hamilton too.

      1. They were penalized for the obvious ones!

  16. Monaco I kinda get, I still disagree with those who feel it was an intentional act on Nico’s part but I get why people believe it was.

    But I still don’t see why or how people can believe Spa was deliberate, Especially given how the other drivers spoke out about how its impossible to be so precise with the car to ensure you catch the tyre just at the right place with the best part of your front wing to cause a cut.
    I also recall that on Sky someone from Pirelli mentioned that the actual area of the tyre thats prone to been cut by a wing is actually incredibly tiny & that most of the time wing to tyre contact will not result in a cut.

    If you seriously believe that Nico could ensure that he clipped Lewis’ tyre at just the right place to cause a cut while doing minimal damage to his own front wing then clearly your a better driver than others on the F1 grid past & present who as far as i’m aware all agreed it was impossible to do deliberately.

    It was a pure mistake, A silly mis-judgement & not a deliberate thing.

    1. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
      21st December 2014, 10:18

      I think Brundle gets this spot on:

      having turned away initially, he then not only straightens the wheel but actually turns towards Hamilton. It was an instantaneous moment of anger and petulance which has been building up for a while.

      linky

      1. Yeah never mind the corner approaching him at 150 km/h!

      2. That’s Brundle’s take, but is not proof of anything. MB would know that turning away, straightening, and turning toward are also symptoms of a bloke trying to keep his car under control. Nico admitted deliberately standing his ground, but not deliberately hitting him. The stewards agreed.

        1. Stewards judge the results of incidents, not the intentions.
          And a minor touch like that is just an incident.

    2. @PeterG It’s very easy to puncture a rear tyre with a front wing. We heard Vettel at Silverstone on the radio saying if he hadn’t backed out of it he’d have given Alonso a puncture.

      The wing is 550mm front to back. It’s not a pin. A swipe with it is very likely to engage the vulnerable part of the tyre.

      And the link that @thegrapeunwashed posted above has a screen grab with Rosberg steering hard right into Hamilton as his tyre goes past.

      He didn’t need to do ‘minimal damage’ to his own front wing, he just needed not to knock it off completely, while leaving the other car with a 3-mile drive back to the pits that was guaranteed to damage his floor or have him lapped.

      1. @lockup
        As I said Sky spoke to some people from Pirelli after the race & the Pirelli guys said that the area of the tyre sidewall thats most prone to suffer a cut from the wing is tiny because the sidewall has been made thicker & strengthened with the aim of preventing puncture from wing contact.

        Nico managed to catch the more vulnerable area of the tyre, That area is as Pirelli said tiny & would be highly difficult to deliberately hit with a front wing that you can’t even see from the cockpit.

        Also read what other current F1 drivers said when asked in the Monza press conference-
        http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/drivers-back-rosberg-over-hamilton-clash/
        “”It’s impossible that Nico from the cockpit could have been so precise with his front wing to have cut a tyre of another car, You need to be in surgery at the hospital with that sort of precision.”

        I think these guys know more about this than any fan.

        1. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
          23rd December 2014, 14:57

          @PeterG, note that Brundle doesn’t say that Rosberg deliberately tried to puncture Hamilton, he just says that Rosberg lashed out in anger.

          1. @thegrapeunwashed I think the fact Brundle selected the frame he did says everything about his view. It is the only frame of that steering input. Whether it was an instantaneous decision or not, it was a decision.

            And Rosberg surely would not have risked damage to his front wing completely mindlessly; it would only be for a bigger payoff.

            Bear in mind MOST of the paddock reportedly thought Monaco was deliberate, but almost nobody would go on the record. There was a massive FOM embargo on the whole idea of NR cheating.

        2. No @PeterG the vulnerable part of the tyre may be small but the weapon is BIG. He only had to INCLUDE the outer ring of sidewall within the contact. The tyre is only at 19psi so the sidewall bulge will squash quite easily to expose the vulnerable band.

          The endplate is 550mm. He can hit either the front or the rear of the tyre, so that’s a 1.1 metre target, and the relative speed of the cars is only slightly different.

          Alonso and Vettel are wrong, who knows why. I don’t suppose they spent any time on it, and nobody would go on the record calling cheat over either Monaco or Spa. They all know exactly where their front wings are, as we see on every race start.

          Did you go look at the screen shot? Can you explain it any other way?

  17. I wonder whether the enormity of the blow to Rosberg’s championship hopes was lurking at the back of the stewards minds when they found him ‘innocent’. Precedent of the Schumacher incident dictated that they would have to send him to the back of the grid where points would have been scarce [it being Monaco, not a normal circuit].

  18. Is the date on the article an error, or are we beating a dead horse? We already know about Hamilton’s view of the incident, and that he supposedly saw something the stewards didn’t.

    This is just a shame.

  19. Hamilton has won it at Monaco already. No matter whether he won the championship at the end, he has won the respect of the fans. You just cannot win any championship by cheating, even tiny margin, you will not gain the respect from the fans, and fans are way smarter with all the information they can access to these days….

    1. ” You just cannot win any championship by cheating”
      That means Senna isn’t the true winner of 1990? ;)

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