It wouldn't, but that's your view in where they may have finished. Kravitz and Senna think differently as does Toto, but then again Lowe was less optimistic about the chances of an outright win - so who knows? Rosberg didn't pass JEV like Lewis didn't pass Vettel, but it's difficult to draw conclusions from these on the basis of differing tyre life. Then again Rosberg dispatched Kimi and Vettel (I think or was it Bottas?) quite quickly after his pits similar to Riccardo easing past Lewis and Alonso. It's hard to draw conclusions from these alone.
There is no telling for sure, but if he wanted it, he should have stepped up. He had the chance to climb all over Hamilton and force the issue, but didn't.
I think this is spot on. I'm pretty sure that if it was roles reversed, Lewis would have forced the situation, whereas Nico either isn't as willing/capable of making it happen. However he may be more mindful of the team approach.
I got the impression that DR, FA, and LH desperately wanted to win that race and if that required taking chances then they were up for it. NR, on the other hand, desperately wanted LH to finish behind him in points. He would have happily settled for 10th providing LH was 11th.
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the post-race discussions at Mercedes, and I wonder how they'll address any similar situations going forward.
What I think Rosberg was playing at was to ask Hamilton to drop back (2 seconds at least) then after he overtakes Hamilton with his half shot tyres he then forces Hamilton to lose even more time to the others at the front. He pits and then overtakes Hamilton in the later laps thus swapping positions. You see Rosberg usually takes too long to overtake... I remember posting this earlier in the season and that he must be a little more aggressive in his mind. You cant wait for DRS situations to overtake, sometimes you have to make you skills account for something. In this race it was clear that Rosberg was just there sitting back waiting for something to happen. While Hamilton was all over Alonso's backside trying to make a move or forcing him to make a mistake, but Alonso used all his skills to keep Hamilton behind.. what did Rosberg do? He sat back and waited for something to happen. You have to make your race, don't wait and hope it comes to you. I am sure I heard Hamilton say I am not slowing down for him, if he gets close enough I will let him through but I am not going to slow down for him. And on the issue of Toto Wolff... I think they were so much concentrating on the pole winner to win the race I think they didn't realise Hamilton had it shot at it too at the end. Hamilton did about 34 laps on the first set of softs and two laps from the end of that stint he put in a really quick lap, wouldn't it have been more sensible to give him another set of softs since he had new ones he didn't use in qualifying to do the next 31 laps? Maybe he would have cleared Alonso and Ricciardo and stretch out a bit of a lead in clean air making it difficult for anyone to catch him... An if you look at the stats between him and Ricciardo you would see that was possible... Maybe Wolff didnt pay much attention to that side of it..I think they were paying more attention to the opening script... I don't think they even realised that Hamilton had a real shot of winning too.
Rosberg would have swapped team positions with Hamilton at the most... would that have given the team more points? No, but would that have stretched his lead over Hamilton? Yes! From the beginning when he found out Hamilton would start from pitlane he said he was going to play it safe because he didnt have the challenge from Hamilton... and I believe he didn't mind losing places to slower cars because of course Hamilton was starting from pitlane and he didn't expect Hamilton to be in the points I guess but I think he started to panic when he asked about where Hamilton was and the team told him that Hamilton will pit and be in front of him..I think that is where the panic set in.
Mercedes will no longer employ team orders during a race following the Hungarian Grand Prix debacle which saw Lewis Hamilton refuse to let Nico Rosberg past despite being ordered to do so. The situation created further tension between the pair, but with Niki Lauda backing Hamilton's choice not to follow instruction, the team will change how it handles such situations in the future considering its points advantage in the constructors' championship. "This is one of the thoughts we are having," Wolff said when asked if Mercedes would let them race freely in future. "At the moment, we have a 170-point advantage in the constructors' championship and maybe it is a moment of loosening it a bit, in agreement with both of them." Wolff is due to hold talks with the pair over the summer break and, with the battle between the pair heating up, reckons the only approach Mercedes can take is to let them fight it out on track. "The longer the season goes, the more intense it gets, and the more difficult it is to beat your team-mate," he added. "Maybe we have come to a point where what we had at the beginning of the season doesn't function anymore, because we cannot ask either driver to give up positions or jeopardise their own campaign and championship chances for the benefit of the team."
I have watched the German Gp in full, with RTL commentary. You were right. It is so much worse (bias).
Again, (in relation to finishing position) thats your opinion and you don't have enough data (like of all of us) to state it as fact. You pointed out that Lewis did his fastest lap at the end of 31 lap stint, so that would indicate that had Nico had free air from his 15th (ish) lap in the stint he too would have gone faster - especially as he would have had 30 litres less fuel. Anyway, what I do agree with you is that with hindsight 2 stopping Lewis on softs could have been a better option - with hindsight - but as I haven't heard Lewis moan about the strategy I'm assuming that he opted for it in a bid to get track position - just a theory and not fact. Interesting considering you posted in a previous thread that they were going to stop drivers using an alternative strategy to get track position.
I remember him telling the team that he doesnt think the mediums would last the 31 laps to the end. And they came back to tell him how many he did on the softs and if he could do those on softs then the mediums shouldn't be a problem. The problem with that was the softs were lasting just as long as the mediums..maybe because of the low temperatures, so why use the slow mediums when he had the new softs that would last just as long? He did 34 on them why couldn't he do another 31 on a new set with low fuel?
please log in to view this image please log in to view this image wtf1.co.uk ‏@wtf1couk 2h Even when he's on the podium Hamilton manages to have some kind of bad luck #F1 pic.twitter.com/lewZir3uZd
Gap analysis for the top 4 after the 2nd safety car please log in to view this image View Raw Image">
I can imagine a weird bunch of anti Hamelots (lol) sitting round an alter slaughtering Fingerlots as a sacrifice to the God of F1 (Minimax- Stealalot - Berni of Monaco) and using the bodily remains to mould a replica of Lewis's car, which they subsequently curse and pull bits off at random times during a race weekend!
