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Tosberg has 3 choices
Slow down - loose some speed, but if as he claims he was quicker than LH, no problem he can make up the time
Run on to the runoff tarmac on the left, maintain speed, but maybe pick up dust from the side of the track, and claim Lewis drove him off the track.
Stay on track and turn into LH and cause a collision, send LH a message that you're going to have to give me space, even when you can't see me!
Tosberg said he expected LH to leave him space, how could LH do this when he can' see him, and anyway Tosberg wasn't anywhere near a position where LH should yield to him.
From the bbc -
"The FIA will now have to decide whether to investigate what was actually said in the meeting and whether Rosberg's decision not to take avoiding action effectively caused a collision, which is an offence under the F1 sporting regulations."
And
"Wolff, who has indicated Rosberg could face internal disciplinary action from Mercedes, added: "The incident, as I see it, is not acceptable for us.
"What we saw there was that Nico was not prepared to take the exit, and that caused the collision. That is not something we want to happen."
Nobody at Mercedes thinks it was a 50/50 racing incident, they all think it was Tosbergs fault.
I bet Rosberg is sitting at home chuckling to himself. In any sport when a competitor starts moaning and throwing around stupid accusations you know you are doing things well. Plus lets face it team orders from now on can only favour Rosberg as he has a commanding lead.
Hamilton is hardly going to endear himself to the team by making wild accusations about reliability etc.
TBH I think Rosberg did the right thing if he wants to win the title. You aren't going to win it by making friends, so put your car where you need to and get the job done. If it rattles your competitor at the same time even better.
as many races have happened before where the lead driver has given hamilton's car space as he has dived in or cut back.. its part of racing and that supernatural power of giving space is just whether you like racing the person you are up against.
Ps maldonado neither has the super power or likes any of the other drivers.
As mentioned before just race and stop moaning..goes the same with footballers. Do your talking on the pitch..
I expect hamilton to come back stronger and rosberg to develop some mystical reliability problems.
Rosberg..the car behind you is faster than you 😉
After watching it again sober, Rosberg does take two swipes. Fact. Not saying he did it on purpose but he clearly turns in, backs off then turns in again.
Worst place you could get a puncture at Belgium (or any track I suppose) is the first couple of corners, 10 seconds for a nose change versus however long it takes to limp all the way back to the pits on three tyres.
For me Rosberg was never going to make a move stick there, why not stick to Hamiltons gearbox and attack into the bus stop or summink?
Can't remember the exact wording but it's something along the lines of you have to have a significant part of the attacking car alongside the defending car for the driver that's defending to allow the chance of an overtake. Rosberg never had a significant part of his car alongside Hamilton.
Watching back Hamiltons overtakes again at Hungary that everyone has mentioned, he had every right to be there (and he knows when to back out).
Either Rosberg was acting out of frustration or, well I don't know.
Just noticed the vid retro83 posted and Davidson explains it a lot better than I do. The virtual view shows how far back Rosberg was.
"The FIA will now have to decide whether to investigate what was actually said in the meeting and whether Rosberg's decision not to take avoiding action effectively caused a collision, which is an offence under the F1 sporting regulations."
But all they can do is impose some sort of penalty, a fine maybe, they can't now do anything that would alter the outcome of yesterdays race
I don't think anyone doubts that it was Rosberg's fault. Opinion is divided on whether his primary intention was to puncture Hamilton's tyre and put him out, or just to assert himself and go toe-to-toe with him, hope Hamilton would back down, but not care about the consequences if he didn't (including any sanction). I suspect the latter, it seems the more likely mindset - show Hamilton he will no longer be bullied on the track, make him think twice about how he races him in future.
[i]Anyway my guess is Mercedes are pretty happy with all the publicity it's created.[/i]
A likely 1-2 finish, ended up with only one car finishing behind a team who's publicly stated aim was to minimise the damage at Spa as their car is at least a second a lap slower. Hamilton bickering with the team all race about giving up. Embarrassing internal revelations about drivers being more or less out of control, snide press conferences, and the championship leader being booed onto the podium in second place...yeah, if I was the boss of Mercedes, I'd be well chuffed. 🙄
Driving a Merc makes you behave like an arse? 🙂
What are the media saying about it in the rest of the world? Not sure if it's the British media being Lewis centric or is there actually an issue here? Iirc things like shumi parking it at rascasse were universally vilified.
What are the media saying about it in the rest of the world?
A well respected German publication - Auto Motor und Sport - pretty much blames Rosberg.
They have a poll on their site asking if it was unfair or just a racing incident. When I looked it was 53/47 for a racing incident.
You would have, perhaps, thought it would be a much higher margin
Hell of a race - what was expected to be a dull 2 car championship is an absolute cracker!! 🙂
As others said, Schumacher made a career of cheating and it did him no harm so I guess Rosberg is just following a proven method.
I do not doubt it was the fault of Rosberg but I see it no different to Hamiltons agressive defense style from earlier in the season.
Rosberg needed to show he wasn't Hamiltons bitch when it comes to squeezing or being squeezed and I think he achieved that.
He had overlap and Hamilton could have given him space. Ultra high risk manoeuvre but such moves are what makes Hamilton a hero at times.
For sure Mercedes are pissed but that was always going to happen one way or another.
but I see it no different to Hamiltons agressive defense style from earlier in the season.
There is a difference, you are allowed to defend aggressively and take the racing line, you cannot attack aggressively and try to barge the other guy off the line.
At the point of Rosberg's second lunge to the right he didn't even have his front wheels overlapping
[IMG] 
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That said, it all adds to the drama
With all the safety improvements over the years the driver's head is so far down in the bodywork you can barely see anything from where they sit, as was shown on a driver's eye view video I saw a few weeks ago. I'm surprised they can race as close as they do without constantly crashing into each other.
Not that excuses Rosberg, he's acting like the spoilt brat he is. The reason Senna and Shuey got away with the stuff they did years ago is that they showed true genius behind the wheel and that endeared them to fans. Rosberg has none of that.
i guess a bit optimistic for rosberg to pull in that tight behind hamilton's car. The interesting play by rosberg was to rile hamilton up by admitting in the private debreif room to what he did. Knowing full well it would be broadcast on the soap box via a megaphone once within earshot of anyone ( see previous twitter spats).
Carefully chosen words by Rosberg and now the management dont actually confirm or deny the accusations but does leave Hamilton high and dry. The Mickey mouse management at mercedes makes more u turns than a learner driver on a 1 hour lesson.
Its retaliation by Rosberg to the mind games that hamilton set out to "destroy and cause him pain!"
Still its entertaining and I dont mind seeing another car on the top step. Bring back Brawn as neither wollf nor lowe or lauda can handle this.
I'm pretty surprised to hear Rosberg say he did it on purpose
@bluearsed Rosberg didn't say that, that's what Hamilton claims he "sort-of" said in a meeting behind closed doors. I think the line was that Rosberg said he had chosen not to take evasive action which Hamilton interpreted as deliberate collision.
This all just proves, in my mind, you cannot have two top drivers at the same team. We saw a little of it with Vettel and Webber. Rosberg and Hamilton know they have the best car and that the Championship is between the two of them so give no quarter.
From the bbc -
"The FIA will now have to decide whether to investigate what was actually said in the meeting and whether Rosberg's decision not to take avoiding action effectively caused a collision, which is an offence under the F1 sporting regulations."And
"Wolff, who has indicated Rosberg could face internal disciplinary action from Mercedes, added: "The incident, as I see it, is not acceptable for us.
"What we saw there was that Nico was not prepared to take the exit, and that caused the collision. That is not something we want to happen."
Nobody at Mercedes thinks it was a 50/50 racing incident, they all think it was Tosbergs fault
It was a racing incident, not intentional.
Plenty of similar incidents occur in the first couple of laps at half the Races on the calender, front wing damage and the odd punctured rear are reasonably common occurrences, this just happened to involve two Drivers from the same team...
The FIA certainly won't impose any penalties, otherwise they'd have to revisit every other minor opening lap incident this season, plus its actually helped to keep the season interesting by preventing Mercedes scoring full points with a 1, 2 on the podium...
Rosberg got a crap start and was panicing a bit, hence he was keen to make a pass and get out front ASAP, He'd just not got his head straght yet and hence he put his car a couple of feet further up the track than he should have, he had another 43 laps to make that pass trying to stick it by like he did was a poor choice, but nothing half the rest of the field (Including Lewis) haven't done themselves...
I saw the brief interview they had with Wolff, remarkably unguarded TBH and perhaps quite poor judgement to mouth off like that with a lens in his face,
I think He was probably more pissed off by the loss of points than feeling sorry that Lewis's race was wrecked.
It probably works quite well for the Team/Politics side of things, its a stick to beat Rosberg with when contract negotiations come up next, He's still the team management's "Preferred Driver" I reckon, He's just got a black mark against his name now...
Rosberg has a three year contract in place so I can't see that being a major issue.
DC's summary on BBC seemed about right - Rosberg can race Hamilton but not wheel to wheel - that's simply not his strength. It looks pretty clear to me that Rosberg put himself into a position where a collision was almost certain. Is that causing one? Debateable and he is right in that it does put down a marker to Hamilton who's said that he's not really sure how to handle things now - I expect that the result will be that he'll be more careful around Rosberg in future. Rosberg has probably done the right thing for him just unfortunately by somewhat underhand means.
If Rosberg keeps doing what he's been doing all year, even without the points gap he gained at Spa, I suspect he'd come out top which I think is a shame as I do tend to prefer the faster racing driver to win but I admire Rosberg for making the best of circumstances and it's worth remembering that he's doing a decent job against Hamilton even in qualifying.
I think the line was that Rosberg said he had chosen not to take evasive action which Hamilton interpreted as deliberate collision.
This really. I think it's ridiculous to suggest he took him out deliberately- for one thing there'd be just as much chance of him taking himself out.
Much more likely IMO he was thinking something along the lines of "Right, he does this all the time and I give way, now it's my turn, and stuff him if he doesn't move over."
I expect that the result will be that he'll be more careful around Rosberg in future.
I doubt that - it isn't in Hamilton's nature to back down. I fully believe he will do exactly the same in the next race if a similar situation occurs.
[i]Rosberg needed to show he wasn't Hamiltons bitch when it comes to squeezing or being squeezed and I think he achieved that.[/i]
I think it may have, instead, spectacularly backfired on him. His boss thinks he's a liability, and instead of winning by being the faster driver he's instead chosen to take on Hamilton in an area in which a) Hamilton is very practiced and b)Is better than Rosberg I think the next race is going to be very very interesting, and au suspect Hamilton's going to make it a very uncomfortable place for Rosberg. I can't see Mercedes stepping in to support him either.
Far from stamping his authority, I think in fact he's lost
You say that but I'm not so sure. This is his best chance by far to win another WC and he'll never emulate Senna if he doesn't get a move on...
Or you're spot on and he's going to be even more aggressive and leave Rosberg the choice of becoming a figure of hate if he doesn't play along.
Either way, I do think it'll change his behaviour.
It was a racing incident, not intentional.
No, it was intentional. Rosberg deliberately swiped back in a second time, and a driver of his experience will have known that in doing so, there was a very high likelihood of contact.
The car in front does not have to yield, especially when the attacking car is so far back - the attacking car must yield. And if Hamilton had eased off slightly, all that would have resulted would have been that Rosberg T-boned him instead of taking his tyre out. He'd have to slow pretty hard with Rosberg that far back to let him pass, and he had no requirement to do so. The fault lies 100% with Rosberg, and given his experience and lead in the championship, it's very difficult to believe that he didn't hope for the outcome he got. If Hamilton's downfall had been more immediate, had he not controlled the car as the rear tyre deflated, then I suspect the stewards would have looked a lot closer - just like the football player who never dives rarely winning any penalties.
Look at it another way - the worst that could have happened is that he took them both out, and he'd still have his lead, with one less race to defend it in. Second worst would be Rosberg losing his nose and Hamilton being undamaged, so a 10-20 second time penalty whilst the nose is changed, and as the car is so fast, working his way back through the field and regaining 2nd place behind Lewis.
Also, FWIW, the Aussie media is taking the same line as the British media, actually devoting more time to the Mercedes story than to Ricciardo, which I think is a little unfair.
OK, so what's the German media saying (anyone speak German?)
I just noticed that L'equipe has a Hamilton Vs Rosberg section!
Up until Spa, Hamilton has clearly used his better racecraft skills to shut out Rosberg even when Rosberg has had a clear car advantage at certain race moments.
Without any doubt Hamilton would have had no doubt prior to Spa that he could shut the door on Rosberg and a 'soft' Rosberg would always yield.
Time will tell how this will develop but I am sure that Hamilton will be more cautious around Rosberg for a while.
If Rosberg keeps doing what he's been doing all year, even without the points gap he gained at Spa, I suspect he'd come out top
Actually if you count mechanicals and now spa, lewis would be streets ahead in points
Was it unfair?
46% voting for Yes, "the maneuver was stupid. Rosberg's fault"
54% for "It was a normal racing incident"
Actually if you count mechanicals and now spa, lewis would be streets ahead in points
Sure but he isn't and statistically there's no reason to expect Rosberg to have worse reliability than Hamilton in the remaining races. Arguably from a statistical pov, LH should have more mechanicals and slower pitstops whatever the reasons may be.
Arguably from a statistical pov, LH should have more mechanicals and slower pitstops whatever the reasons may be.
Eh ❓
Well in the races so far he's had slower pitstops and more reliability issues. If you extrapolate...
My point was really that while he may have had worse reliability, if that's purely down to bad luck, there's no reason to expect it to even out from here on given that they drive the same car.
My point was really that while he may have had worse reliability, if that's purely down to bad luck, there's no reason to expect it to even out from here on given that they drive the same car.
On the contrary, if is is purely down to bad luck, then the laws of probability dictate that such things will even themselves out over a sufficient time, all else being equal. Whether an F1 season is a sufficient length of time, and whether all things [i]are[/i] equal are other questions.
I don't think you really understand statistics. Your statement is true before the events happen (eg before the season started). From here on, the fact that NR has had better reliability [u]in the past[/u] in no way influences the future probability of either him or LH having mechanicals.
As such, by not having had the mechanicals up to this point, NR has gained a clear advantage (statistically).
One question we haven't touched upon, when LH realised he wasn't going to be competitive - he asked to retire the car, to save the engine, but wasn't allowed to do so, that seems to be a curious decision?
If a safety car had been deployed, there may well have been a chance of points and Merc engines' reliability has been decent thus far so on balance it was worth keeping going.
[i]but I am sure that Hamilton will be more cautious around Rosberg for a while.[/i]
Are we talking about the same driver? If I was Hamilton, the very next thing I'm doing in the first corner of the next race is punting Rosberg into the barrier. If Rosberg wants to play that particular game, he could do worse than walk down to the Ferrari garage and ask Alonso how that worked out for him
🙂
Mind you, see how well that worked out for LH and Alonso given that Kimi won the title that year...
Might be worth a punt on Danny Ric then?
i think when other driver start to come out and side with Hamilton (Button and Massa) than the argument is settled. They are hardly Hamilton fans!
It was 100% Rosberg's fault.
I don't think it was a deliberate attempt to puncture Hamilton's tyre but it was a deliberate attempt to put some manners on Hamilton.
Deep down Rosberg knows this is his best chance of becoming World Champion and it looks like he is prepared to defend his title lead with plenty of vigour.
I was more disappointed that it spoiled a good scrap than anything else yesterday, a clumsy lunge on the second lap doesn't make for a good race long battle.
Still nice to see Danny Ric win again, his speed consistency and maturity are a revelation. No one predicted he would be so good against his vaunted team mate.
It was a racing incident, not intentional.
No, it was intentional. Rosberg deliberately swiped back in a second time, and a driver of his experience will have known that in doing so, there was a very high likelihood of contact.
The car in front does not have to yield, especially when the attacking car is so far back - the attacking car must yield. And if Hamilton had eased off slightly, all that would have resulted would have been that Rosberg T-boned him instead of taking his tyre out. He'd have to slow pretty hard with Rosberg that far back to let him pass, and he had no requirement to do so. The fault lies 100% with Rosberg, and given his experience and lead in the championship, it's very difficult to believe that he didn't hope for the outcome he got. If Hamilton's downfall had been more immediate, had he not controlled the car as the rear tyre deflated, then I suspect the stewards would have looked a lot closer - just like the football player who never dives rarely winning any penalties.
Look at it another way - the worst that could have happened is that he took them both out, and he'd still have his lead, with one less race to defend it in. Second worst would be Rosberg losing his nose and Hamilton being undamaged, so a 10-20 second time penalty whilst the nose is changed, and as the car is so fast, working his way back through the field and regaining 2nd place behind Lewis.
If He's really able to be that calculating and precise then Hats off, but come on, those sort of contacts generally result in front wing damage for the chasing car and perhaps 1 in every 5 instances the leading car gets a flat?
You really think he was seeking the contact? Nah the balance of probability would have been He'd end up eating his front wing while Lewis romped ahead... The outcome was just "Lucky" for Rosberg.
He was trying to put Lewis "Under pressure" the sort of thing Lewis has done himself plenty of times, the different being Lewis wasn't phased, knew his line and called Rosberg's bluff when he went in a bit too deep, Yes it's Rosberg's "fault" but he wasn't actually seeking the shunt, he was playing [I]"Who's the bravest boy"[/I] with completely the wrong fella...
Lewis will of course bitch about the incident that wee bit too much and test everyone's patience in the end. But for now, yes he gets to prance about on a high horse...
Also, FWIW, the Aussie media is taking the same line as the British media, actually devoting more time to the Mercedes story than to Ricciardo, which I think is a little unfair.
+1000, Ricciardo has been Great so far this season and the focus on Mercedes bickering does take a lot of the shine off, but that's F1 for you the racing plays second place to the politics sometimes... At the minute I'd say He'd be a far more popular championship winner than either of the Mercedes drivers, but it ain't (technically) a popularity contest...
wouldnt it be special if Ricky won it from under the noses of Merc drivers.
Whats the betting that come the final round, Nico leading the championship, tries to take out Hamilton and Ricky, fails and has a total meltdown!