[Closed] The F1 Thread...

Hamilton quicker?
Check their respective qualifying and finishing stats this year.
E.g qualifying Rosberg has 7 poles
Hamilton has 4

Maybe they should mandate a rounded edge on the f wing

probably 50/50 on causing a puncture

back2basics - Member
you guys really think nico could judge it so well to puncture Lewis and for himself to stay in the race

Yes, seeing as he was [b]behind[/b] Lewis rather than alongside. End plate/rear tyre contact has a pretty consistent outcome.

It pretty consistently ends up with a broken wing and not much else, punctures aren't the norm from that sort of contact

Don't agree, probably 50/50 on causing a puncture and the most likely wing damage is just losing an end plate.

Exactly this.

Yes, seeing as he was behind Lewis rather than alongside. End plate/rear tyre contact has a pretty consistent outcome.

If there is a 50/50 chance it's worth a shot to stop the guy at front running away!

If there is a 50/50 chance it's worth a shot to stop the guy at front running away!

Wheres Stato when you need him....

Theres usually 2-3 front wing to rear wheel collisions every race.
From my memory theres only been 1-2 that have caused a puncture this year.

It's common enough to warrant a rule change...

Rule change: Narrower front wing
Implications: The front wing has been reduced from 1,800mm to 1,650mm wide - the origin of the change was to reduce the number of punctures caused by an endplate catching the rear tyre of a competitor’s car.

http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2014/1/15408.html

Chew - Member
So you're saying that Nico could place his car with mm precision at 150kph through Les Combes, while pulling 2-3g of lateral load, whilst anticipating where Lewis was going to be, within a blink of an eye, to deliberately cause a puncture?

660mm is a big enough target when you know the driver in front will take the racing line.

if it was the other way round people on here would be praising lewis for being a racer and a fighter, yet nico plays hard ball, and suddenly he can puncture rear tyres at will
yawn....

I'm not trying to say he unleashed a master plan, more that he took a 'punt' knowing Lewis would [b]probably[/b] come off worse.

Chew - Member

How many rear wheel to front wing collisions over the past 5 years? (Lots)
How many have caused punctures over the past 5 years? (not many)

maybe 50/50 was a bit of an exageration but anyway plenty of punctures caused this way - off the top of my head:

Lewis/Nico today
Kimi/magnussen Korea this year
Alonso/Kimi Korea 2012 which put him out
Vettel/Lewis Britain 2009 or 2010 (biggest cheer Ive ever heard at a race 😆 )
Lewis/Vettel Japan 2012 or 13
Grosjean/Perez Spain 2012
Kimi/Perez Monaco 2013
Grosjean/Diresta can't remember which race
Vettel/some back marker being lapped (Karthikeyen?)
Maldonado /Kobayashi India 2011 or 12

probably tonnes more if you google as well

660mm is a big enough target when you know the driver in front will take the racing line

The FIA have all of the data and have taken no action (didnt even investigate it) and they have seen it as a racing accident.

Lewis/Nico today
Kimi/magnussen Korea this year

7 races to go, 200 points available, Mercedes imploding, Ricciardo only 64 points behind Rosberg and 33/1 for the title......might be worth a fiver.

I think Rosberg intentionally hit him, whether the intention was to try for a penalty against Ham, just spin him out our what I'm not sure. I don't think he could have intended to cause a puncture, but from the sky coverage post race he seemed to make 2 distinct moves resulting in the contact.

Personally I can't stand Hamilton, comes across as an arrogant spoilt brat, nico on the other hand seems a nice enough guy, fair play to him today racing incident. Lewis was never going to let him pass so a little unintentional contact got the job done.

Chew - Member

So 2 this year?
How many front wing/rear tyre collisions this year?

As I said already those were just the ones which sprang to mind. Didn't Kimi also get punctured by somebody's front wing during a safety car at monaco? Thinking about it did the same not happen to bianchi today from a caterham putting him out of the race?

LMT - nice guys rams bloke off road, that makes it ok?

Hasn't Rosberg admitted he did it on purpose to 'prove a point'?

If so, the only point he proves is that Lewis's assertion that they remain friends is bollocks

Rosberg was clearly quicker and Lewis thought he would get away with chopping across Rosberg's nose, as he has done so a few times this year.

Well today it didn't work out. Brilliant

He was way ahead of him.

I'm pretty surprised to hear Rosberg say he did it on purpose. We all know in those knocks most of the time the car behind looses part of its nose with no damage to the car in front so odds on Rosberg would loose out. To do it on purpose would be stupid to say the least.

Brundle was looking at a tyre after the race and basically said that the only place to hit that would 90% guarantee a puncture was the first 30 or 40mm of the sidewall nearest to the tread. Normally contact with the rest of the sidewall/tread/rim won't result in a puncture. I suppose if you stuff enough endplate into a sidewall you're going to get a puncture.

I like Hamilton and admit he can act like a baby at times but thought he handled himself well today. What little respect I had for Rosberg has gone out of the window after reading the BBC link and his post race interviews.

Also tickled me when Rosberg said it was only the uneducated British fans booing him lol.

I admit I fall into that category.

Not mine. Also the racing line is wrong, it's the racing line when defending the previous corner.[img] [/img]

I'm pretty surprised to hear Rosberg say he did it on purpose

The suggestion from Wolff is that what Nico was saying was that he chose not to yield to Hamilton, rather than he deliberately crashed into him. Given that the consensus is that in this situation it was up to Nico to yield, it is perhaps a fine line between Nico deliberately hitting Lewis and Nico seeing if Lewis would blink first and yield, but given 1) Nico's championship lead, and 2), his apparent opinion that he needed to prove to Lewis that he's no pushover on the track, I think it more likely that Nico was playing chicken hoping Lewis, with a greater need to not crash, would blink first.

I agree, I think Rosberg is saying that he didn't make a mistake, he just wasn't sure (and didn't care) what the outcome of the move would be.

If Hamilton did this to Rosberg it would be seen as a brilliant attacking drive, as Kona said previously Hamilton has done this sort of thing on numerous occasion's and the driver in front lets him past. Rosberg was obviously faster and it's a race let them get on with it. The big difference is Hamilton uses the media to feel sorry for him.

I presume that any one claiming that Rosberg's intention was to puncture Hamilton's tyre is wearing a tin foil hat.
If Rosberg hit Hamilton on purpose, which he appears to admit, there is no way he could know the outcome of such a collision. To suggest that Nico knew that he would give his "team mate" a puncture is ridiculous.

@thegreatape - indeed worth a punt, especially with double points at the last race....

how much trouble will the management and merc be in if they suddenly started to get threatened by Red bulls and the 1.5 second advantage they currently have gets erroded in the next few races - suddenly their policy of "letting drivers race" would look spectacularly amateur and naive in the field of F1 racing.

actually forgetting all this nico and lewis rubbish,
wouldnt the best end to the title be in abu dhabi,
nico and lewis tied on points on pole/second,
third on the grid is riccardo and could win the title also if the other 2 dont finish.

all 3 into the first corner ....

Why would you deliberately get your front wing clipped by the car in front when there are 40+ laps still to race? You're just as likely to need a new nose cone as the guy in front is to need a new rear tyre, and there is no guarantee that puncturing Lewis would cause the damage to the car which led to retirement. New tyre - about 3 seconds in the pits vs new nose cone - longer.

In terms of the 'I did it to prove a point', I take that to mean that Rosberg wanted to show aggression and 'not back down' in the opening exchanges of the race. The move itself was a misjudgement made more likely by this approach, but not the desired outcome.

This is quite a good analysis:

martinhutch - Member

Why would you deliberately get your front wing clipped by the car in front when there are 40+ laps still to race? You're just as likely to need a new nose cone as the guy in front is to need a new rear tyre, and there is no guarantee that puncturing Lewis would cause the damage to the car which led to retirement. New tyre - about 3 seconds in the pits vs new nose cone - longer.

Nowhere near as likely, Nico was probably thinking "I'll lose an endplate at worst and still be faster than the rest of the field". As for not knowing about the damage caused by the tyre, having a puncture at any point is bad because you have to crawl back round to the pits, damage or not it's likely to be a ruined race or at least a much lower position. The actual time in the pits makes just about no difference compared to the minute+ he lost getting back round the track.

Again to reiterate *I'm not saying he did it on purpose*, just that he knew what could happen and wasn't too worried if it did. Quite rightly in a way, but not usually the done thing against your team mate on lap 2!

I agree with most of your post, retro, but for this:

just that he knew what could happen and wasn't too worried if it did.

So, if I overtake you on your bike and then turn left in front of you it's not my fault if you crash into me? I know you could crash into me, but am not that worried as I'm in a rush, and assume that you'll brake hard and yield to me as you probably have more to lose than I do.

That thought process is deliberate, just as Nico's was.

Lewis likes to be the tough guy battling it out but doesnt seem to like it when it happens to him, I can understand he's frustrated but lots of sour grapes here, he's not used to be challenged at his team and he can't handle it. He has the best car and he's not winning so he has to have a good tantrum

Edit: there wasn't a pass there Niko could have backed off but he didn't, Lewis could have stayed ahead but rounded wider. IMO Lewis didn't think it through as he was most likely to come off worst and he most needed a good result.

Edit2: @martinhutch I don't think these two have been racing as "team mates" all season, Hamiltons remark before the German GP of Romberg being a rich kid from Monaco and not German shows the real animosity. IMO Mercedes should get rid of Hamilton

I'm pretty surprised to hear Rosberg say he did it on purpose

He didn't. He merely saidhedidn't yeild. Hamilton claims he did it on purpose, a claim which Mercedes aren't backing up.

Wolff later claimed Rosberg's remarks had been misinterpreted.
"Nico felt he needed to hold his line," said Wolff. "He needed to make a point. He didn't give in. He thought it was for Lewis to leave him space and that Lewis didn't leave him space.
"For Lewis, it was clearly not him who needed to be aware of Nico.
"So they agreed to disagree in a very heated discussion among ourselves, but it wasn't deliberately crashing. That is nonsense."

Well done to Hamilton for helping spice up what's becomeyet another very boringF1 season though; hopefully there will be a few fireworks before the end of the season.

I did find Hamilton's whining and whinging amusing. He knows that if he leaves Merc, he'll probably end up in an inferior car, and is showing that he's a frustrted primadonna who's beleived his wn hype a bit too much. Get on and do the job, if you can, or just shut up moaning. 😆

I did find Hamilton's whining and whinging amusing.

The suggestion from Wolff is that what Nico was saying was that he chose not to yield to Hamilton

Anyway my guess is Mercedes are pretty happy with all the publicity it's created.

I don't think it is boring this year. A dominant car, yes, but a fascinating rivalry in it. Ricciardo utterly dominating Vettel (and note how well he - Vettel - has conducted himself). Williams back at the front. Most races being decided in the last few laps. The need for fuel conservation is the only thing I can think of that I don't like much.

So if by 'not yielding' you know there is going to be contact, how is this not deliberate? Rosberg has not got himself into a position where Lewis has to yield, he knows that HM will hold the racing line and that LH can't see him anyway. Tosberg can easily run on to the tarmac, or step on the brakes, instead he turns into LH, deliberately.

zokes - Still not a customer

So, if I overtake you on your bike and then turn left in front of you it's not my fault if you crash into me? I know you could crash into me, but am not that worried as I'm in a rush, and assume that you'll brake hard and yield to me as you probably have more to lose than I do.

That thought process is deliberate, just as Nico's was.

Don't get me wrong Zokes, I still place blame probably 90/10 on Nico, but I don't think he set out to crash as such, more like just maintain his position i.e. refuse to yield and if [i]that[/i] causes a crash, so be it. So yes, in a sense it was deliberate, but in a roundabout way not directly.

Edit: Having re-read your post that is basically what you said, so yes, i agree! 😆

If you look again at the Sky VT posted above, you'll see that Rosberg got out of his position and then for some reason only known to him, he turned right again to make the contact

I would have thought that holding onto the racing line "just because you're in front" is being a little foolhardy. Lewis could easily have stayed very slightly wider than normal into his entry to the left hander and maintained the lead. They were both trying to gain the upper hand, Nico by not backing out and Lewis by closing the door. A 50/50 racing incident - as the stewards presumably saw it too.