I find the views in that piece rather harsh. Even taking into account what the team wanted to achieve in that race, given how Hamilton is adrift of his team-mate in the championship because of repeated failures by the team, how could they possibly expect that he would accept being asked to let Rosberg past? He is fighting tooth and nail. At this point in the season with them both scrapping for every point they can get surely the team can't expect either of them to move ever. They'd have to be mad.
They're fighting for a world championship unlike last year where they had awful tyre degredation and needed all the help they could get from each other. The constructors is pretty much wrapped up so it's not that bad. Yes he disobeyed the team which is unacceptable but can you blame him on this occasion? Rosberg wasn't even close enough to get past Hamilton so how does anyone else know that he would get past Alonso and Ricciardo and win? The fact is that Rosberg should be more aggressive when going for overtakes and not rely on people just giving way for him, he's fighting to become a world champion and not everything will be handed to him on a plate.
Looking at the lap times had Hamilton let Rosberg past they would have both lost time overall as Rosbergs tyres ran out of life when the call was made, he just couldn't get close. Also as I mentioned elsewhere,
Not really, it was plain to see Rosberg would not have been able to capitalise straight away - he had 3 slower cars in front of him. Lewis, if his pit stop was done in equivalent time (which it never is) - would have come out ahead of that train. The Mercedes strategists had a whole lap to bring Hamilton in but they didn't. It's called thinking on your feet, not hindsight.
I disagree with that theory BLS, Lewis did 31 laps on the soft and set his fastest lap on a couple of laps from the end - I think it would be "unsual" if all of a sudden Nico could only do half the stint Lewis did with 30 odd less litres of fuel - I just dont think that computes. Also I posted the preceeding and post Nico pit stop lap times by Lewis, who appeared to deliberaltly slow into the 29's in the 2 laps leading upto Nico's stop and then flollowed it up with 4/5 laps between 1.5 seconds and 2 seconds a lap quicker. Just as Lewis didnt make inroads into Vettel when he rolled up on him I think the same can be said for Nico on Lewis - it was probably a combination of the tight infield section leading onto the staright, a damp turn 1 and the likelness that they were on a higher down force setting restricting top speed down the very short straight. However, like everyone else its only opinion and I cant back it up with fact. I just dont see the logic in how one car (Lewis) can go (circa) 10 laps longer on the same compound with full fuel and in the process set his fastest lap (27:300), whilst the other (Nico) is viewed to have knackered his tyres and be lapping in the 29's - its just not consistent. The only variable is that Lewis had clear air on his run in to his stop whilst Nico was tucked up behind Lewis.
I agree - I think its going to make for a very interesting second half of the season. I wonder if the contract extension for Nico and the rumours of Vettel signing have unsetteled him to the point where he thinks fuk it?
They were a bit mismatched in the race as Hamilton had loads of fresh rubber to burn whilst Rosberg had to used scrubbed rubber, that'll account for some of the loss. After the inters Rosberg went used soft, used soft, new soft. Hamilton went new soft, new medium
Does seem a bit odd that they didn't use 3 new sets of softs for Hamilton (though easy to say in hindsight). Were they more concerned about the front wing knock he got through his spin, so he was better going slightly slower on medium, than ruining the softs too quickly with massive highspeed understeer?
I think Lewis just showed he out thought the strategy and made it work to his advantage has best he could.
I think Mercedes needs to be more consistent in what they put out to the press and when they give to the drivers. Wolff says Rosberg would have won had Hamilton let him pass. Lowe said there is no way any of them could have won. And just a couple weeks ago Wolff said the drivers would be doing the same strategy..no more different sstrategy... so why are they putting out the conflicting info? Remember this? Mercedes will restrict the race strategies that can be adopted by drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in their fight for the 2014 title. Until now, the dominant team has given its driver duo almost free rein to battle for the championship, despite constant speculation that Mercedes and its parent Daimler might prefer to see German Rosberg ultimately triumph. Autosprint now reports that one of the ways Mercedes is moving to demonstrate absolute equality between the pair is to limit them to very similar pit strategies. “The drivers must comply with the same number of pitstops,” said correspondent Alberto Antonini.
Someone asked a very pertinent question in another section... If Hamilton found himself in front of Rosberg coming to the final stint of the race wouldn't it have made more sense to pit Hamilton first as he had the new soft rubber instead of only pitting Rosberg who would have had to battle the front runners on used soft rubber? Interesting question indeed.
Personally, I would have done the same as Hamilton and he was right as he proved because he finished in front of his main WDC challenger and reduced the points gap to 11 points. Hamilton joined Mercedes to secure more titles for himself not his team mate. He's an out and out racing driver not a bloody politician.
And yet last year at Malaysia you wanted to kill Vettel. Why the double standards? ....Oh wait, it's because Vettel isn't British..
Well, I must admit that could be true, if you had as much trouble with the Germans as I've had, you may feel the same.
There is a theory (on here) that he doesn't stop on his marks, thus everyone has to shuffle a bit to get into position. If true it would easily cost a second or so, but don't think anyone has looked into that in much detail to see whether it's true or not.
Different situation. Vettel was told to hold station behind Webber, so Webber backed off thinking he was safe and Vettel overtook him. Was downright sneaky. Rosberg never got close enough to Hamilton to try a pass, what we will never know is how badly Hamilton would have defended the position if he had, at that stage of the race. What he wasn't prepared to do, was back off to let Rosberg by, thus losing more time.
Agree, you are forgetting the 'officer class' that these types of reporters think they are, in reality its still very much them and us, I mean, how dare Hamilton disobey an order from his superiors.
