USA awards (god bless America etc)

Excuse of the week. Rosberg "A gust of wind" it came out of his backside, then he followed through.

 

I can't believe he's said that . It's perfectly plausible but it sounds so lame.

 

Yep. I wondered what he was going to come out with. Having said that, I still expected any excuse/reason to come out of his mouth…
– Apart from an admission of a lapse in concentration* (which is all but taboo in motor racing), as AG says, the gust it is about the most plausible thing he could have said.

Personally, I suspect it actually was a lapse in concentration. This can easily come about through distracting oneself with negative thinking such as 'all I have to do is keep doing this', or 'where is Lewis?', or 'yes, this will show people what I'm made of!'; or indeed, pretty much anything which momentarily detracts from the immediate driving task at hand. With so many gremlins seemingly manifesting in poor old Rosberg's head, I really do think something along these lines was the underlying cause – even if exacerbated by a gust of wind. But that really is the point: proper concentration allows such a possibility to be factored in, continuously, to the driving task at hand. This is especially true when the wind had been gusting all weekend…

*Admitting to a lapse of concentration is virtual professional suicide, giving out the long-term message: "I can't do this"…

 

That's exactly what sprang into my mind when he did it. If Lewis is behind him in a threatening position he seems to fall apart. I think the first time was Canada, at the time it looked like a dodgy bit of corner cutting, in hindsight it was the first sign of the collapses to come. He's too interested in his team-mate.
It'll be interesting to see how he comes back in 2016. Hamilton had a similar collapse in 2011 and came back far more focused.
I think if Nico comes into next season fully focused on himself he could win it, as I think Hamilton has lost a bit of his over the season because Nico has made it easy.

 

Makes you think that it might make sense to just cut their losses on Rosberg and get in a younger driver to push Hamilton and be ready to take over from him in the long term.

 

Yes, I tend to agree, Ern.

That said, I think it's a fair bet Ferrari will be up there with Mercedes next season and that Vettel might present a bigger threat to Hamilton's head than Rosberg. I'd like to think there'll be even more contenders but I don't think Räikkönen's up to it and it's not easy to see a serious challenge from another team unless Red Bull get some special unilateral deal (something akin to various Ferrari deals of the past), which, with Bernie manipulating the weak Toadt, I see as a real possibility at this stage, and is something I am 100% against.

 

Hamilton---》 Wehrlein 2018
Rosberg---》?

 

The race edit

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/video/2015/10/Race_edit__United_States_'15.html