The F1 Thread…

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

That sounds plausible and perfectly understandable. Senna and Schumacher were great at stamping their authority on the rest of the field. “Mess with me at your peril”. Sometimes it doesn’t quite work out but a top sportsman has to play mind games. Of course the team are upset when it spoils the race of both drivers but tough, that’s motor sport.

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 that 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.

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).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqHG256arrc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnrA4_TFrmo

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.

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

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

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[/quote][/quote]

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.

Rosberg needed to show he wasn’t Hamiltons bitch when it comes to squeezing or being squeezed and I think he achieved that.

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

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/rennanalyse-gp-belgien-2014-das-absichtliche-nicht-ausweich-manoever-8548940.html

Was it unfair?

46% voting for Yes, “the maneuver was stupid. Rosberg’s fault”

54% for “It was a normal racing incident”