Everything just fell apart for Mercedes yesterday, as easy as that. Hamilton looked flustered no idea how you finish 6th after dominating Friday and Saturday. Rosberg was pathetic I don't need to explain further. These two seasons hark back to the late 90's when Mclaren Mercedes peaked, as a young German in a red car prepared for something bigger.
I don't see it quite the same way because: 1. The set-up was ideal for Vettel's style: get ahead at the start and stay there. That's not to take anything away from his drive as he was imperious; it's just to say that yesterday's were the conditions in which he excels. 2. But yes, Rosberg was pathetic although there was, apparently, a problem with his car, or at least he was unhappy with the set-up. This may mitigate his lack of competitiveness or at least it would if we hadn't seen it all many times before. Personally, I don't feel inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt because there was no fight from him, a common complaint. So I'm with you there. 3. Lewis was fast, very fast, and he finished 6th despite his 'off' at the start; a penalty for what was arguably a racing incident; and an extra stop for a new front wing. It's academic now but I think it's likely that Lewis could have given Ferrari the fight that Rosberg failed to do. Anyway, as I said, it's academic now and the bottom line is that Mercedes were humiliated yesterday and we, the humble fans, were the beneficiaries as much as anyone.
That was one of the least predictable races of the past couple of years, pehaps longer - and all without rain! Congratulations to Vettel. His statesmanlike tribute to Jules Bianchi did us all proud. It capped off a well-deserved win whilst most others tripped over each other or themselves. I found it interesting and entertaining.
Hear, hear. I also thought that the tribute before the race was very moving but watching the drivers during that was even more poignant because of their emotion and that sense that it could have been any of them who was being mourned. The interviews with John Booth and Graham Loudon on Saturday's BBC were the most affecting though; I doubt I'll forget their faces, which said all that words could never do. It's just tragic.
I've got the feeling that something may kick off at Spa again. Everything went wrong for Hamilton yesterday, quite a lot of which was self inflicted. Despite the disaster of a race he finished ahead of Rosberg, that is going to be annoying Rosberg. He went from potentially totally overhauling a 17 point deficit to now being even further behind. Last year Rosberg left Hungary miffed when Hamilton essentially ignored team orders and look what ended up happening in Spa. The start won't be as much of a problem in Spa as it's such a short drag to the hairpin, the tow you get up the hill though makes it almost worth being in 2nd. Will Rosberg try to 'make a point' again?
I think he has to and as you say he went from potentially leading the WDC to being further adrift (in the space of a couple of laps) having really been comprehensively beaten by his team mate in the first half of the year. Regardless of the pace differential between the two drivers this weekend (even if there are mitigating factors) Lewis was fortunate and Nico was unfortunate to lose his 2nd place in such a manner. I like Ricc and I'm all for the move that can't be done, but it's fair to say that in reality that move has probably taken away any chance Nico had to ruffle Lewis's feathers. One thing I would say is that Lewis showed that when it goes wrong for him it can go horribly wrong, and that is the only hope of this championship going to the wire. So as you say, Spa is the the place if Nico is to have one final stand and start the second part of the season on a high. Lewis is back in the beneficial position of having that race win cushion and being able to come second if he so chooses.
I think a reasonable amount of the blame for his puncture has to fall on the shoulders of Rosberg. Ricciardo made quite frankly a desperate move but never really put Rosberg at risk, all it achieved was to probably ruin his tyres. On the exit Ricciardo was well out of the way and yet Rosberg just sort of needlessly drifted into him. A couple of inches the other way and Rosberg would have been guaranteed 2nd. The slimmest of margins can ruin a race, now he has several weeks to stew on that. Hamilton will of course be pretty miffed with his performance overall but at least he has the positive of having the pace when needed and at the end of the day beating his main (only) rival.
Little bit of pressure for Mercedes- they are one messed-up weekend in Spa away from seeing Vettel coming in from the fringes of the Drivers title race. It is massively unlikely, but it does put pressure on them. However, as we know from most of the weekend, they are head and shoulders ahead in pure pace. What is interesting is that they have struggled a little in traffic for two races now- Williams led them for a while at Silverstone and Ferrari were imperious from the front yesterday. However, I think the most likely result is Mercedes nailing it off the grid in Spa and re-establishing their dominance. McLaren will be fun to watch in Spa- Arai is bringing more power to the engine for Spa to truly test the upgrade, but I doubt it will be pretty viewing for Jenson and Fernando fans given how useless the engine has been so far. On a side note- how on earth did a Renault car win at Spa last year?!
They were, but even so on a power circuit like Spa (and even Canada), I was stunned that the Red Bull Renault was able to outrace the Williams, McLaren, and Force India last year. Did they do a skinny wing if I remember?
Lewis has been very lucky in the last two races, he cocked up both starts, nearly crashed during the restart at Silverstone and drove into people here, seems he's okay when he's in front, or 'racing' his team-mate (by that I mean of following him as instructed) , but a bit of pressure and he's all over the shop. He's lucky he doesn't have a racing driver as a team-mate.
On a side note, the Rosberg/Ricciardo looked very similar to Hamilton/Rosberg at Spa, funny how people decide who is to blame by who the driver is, rather than the incident.
They're nothing alike. In Spa Rosberg was tucking back in and misjudged where his own front wing was, in Hungary he was cutting across and misjudged where Ricciardo's front wing was. They're both Rosberg's fault. Ricciardo's lunge was speculative but he kept it on track and gave Rosberg heaps of room. Edit: So many ****ing typos
What you can say to counter that is that Nico had plenty of room to his left, Ricciardo was avoiding the asphalt.
I didn't say it wasn't his fault, I'm saying it's very similar to what happened in spa last year, except Rosberg isn't running around crying
Like someones already said, peoples opinions on these matters are very influenced depending on who they like/dislike anyways, my two pence. Yesterdays Ros-Ric clash was Rosbergs fault in my mind, but, and this is the more important factor, it was more of a racing incident than punishable offence. Was clumsy much like the Ham-Ric coming together. I'd say that Ham may have gotten away with it on another day, it was clearly his fault but also it's the sort of clash you've seen go unpunished. That's not to say he didn't deserve the punishment though.
he wasn't 'tucking in' at Spa at all, it was Hamilton who was moving across for the next corner after going up the inside, he likes to slap Rosbergs face when he overtakes, a good example is Bahrain 2014. At Spa Rosberg just didn't yield like he normally does and 'left it in there', another thing Hamilton likes to do. I saw this the same way I saw that, the person in front coming across someone who hasn't quite yielded as much as they could've. six of one half a dozen of the other, that's how I called it at Spa and that's how I call it here.
Let's not forget that the big difference in Spa was that they were team mates. That's why Rosberg got so much grief. You take extra care not to take your own team mate out. Given that Ham was in front when Ros touched him and he could have avoided it, there was no wonder his team were pissed off with him. If Ricciardo had been on the same team as Rosberg he would have got hauled over the coals for not giving him that extra little bit of room.
An 'edge of your seat' race and one of the best in recent years; perhaps even a classic. It seems fitting that the first race after Jules Bianchi's death is likely to be one of those which lingers in F1's memory for the right reasons – as opposed to the dreadful memories of Suzuka last year. It seemed to have a bit of everything, and serves as a great example for one of Murray Walker's classic phrases: "Anything can happen in Formula 1, and it usually does". I've not read through the comments of this thread, so I can only guess at points being discussed prior to EMSC's comment above (which I can see as I type). In isolation, it's difficult to make sense of, so I'll read back after posting this summary. - - -o0o- - - Delayed starts are rare these days. Being out of position on the grid is very unusual, especially from one of the most experienced Grand Prix drivers of all time. But it may have exacerbated Mercedes' clutch difficulties and perhaps contributed to poor launching off the line. With both Ferrari's swallowing both Mercs at the start, the tone was set for some excitement, as did Rosberg also getting past Hamilton – who'd had the edge all weekend and was likely to make a real battle of it. But Hamilton's over-zealous effort to get Rosberg saw him run wide and drop to 10th; nothing short of a disaster at a circuit notoriously difficult for overtaking. After gathering himself together, despite passing Massa around the outside, by lap 18 he was 30 seconds adrift of Vettel and 20 behind Rosberg – who was still making no impression on the Ferraris. Grosjean's unsafe release provided extra entertainment in the pit-lane and he did a better job to nail Massa's wheel-spinning exit. He'd maintained a respectful sideways distance to Massa so the subsequent penalty may have looked harsh but it was correct in my view. Teams must not take such risks in the pit-lane. Ferrari build-quality showed with Räikkönen's camera falling off. Still, better that than a wing, eh?… Then Maldonado ran into Perez, causing him to spin. Lap 20: Hamilton had a 4.1 sec pit-stop allowing Bottas to attack into T1. Rosberg's stop the following lap was 2.8 sec. After the first stops Rosberg had emerged 22 seconds ahead of Hamilton but now on lap 38 it was just 5! He'd been struggling with set-up all weekend but I could see no obvious reason for such a lack of pace. From the Championship point of view, he could count himself lucky Hamilton was behind rather than sailing off into the distance. Instead, it was Vettel who looked well-set for an unchallenged victory. Hulkenberg then lost his front wing at the fastest part of the circuit, bringing out the Safety Car. From a seemingly unassailable lead, Vettel now had cars right behind but was still unlikely to be challenged by Rosberg who'd never looked quick enough. Hamilton though – immensely quick all weekend and also only seconds behind – was an altogether different prospect. Many drivers chose to pit under the SC but I was very surprised at Rosberg's choice of the slower compound. It seemed he wanted to be on the same tyres as Hamilton, as if to cover him off, rather than take the fight to Vettel with the (with only 22 remaining laps, very) slight risk of his tyres going off too much toward the end*. Räikkönen's poor luck continued and he'd had to return to the pits for a full reset which ultimately didn't work. But who'd have dared write the script for what was to happen next? The SC pitted. [edit: my thanks to AG who points out that it was about this time that Bottas – who'd been having a great race in a car not best suited to this track – was punctured by Verstappen's efforts to pass after the restart]. Hamilton made a poor restart, trying to unsettle Rosberg by taking a different line out of the final corner but all it did was allow Ricciardo to get tucked up behind for the classic (non-DRS) slip-stream and get ahead around the outside into T1. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but perhaps Hamilton should have admitted defeat this time. In the effort to get straight back at Ricciardo, he out-braked himself and under-steered into the side of the Red Bull, damaging his own wing and any hope of chasing Rosberg and Vettel, especially since he was then (correctly, in my view) handed a drive-through penalty. After serving it, he emerged in P13 and 20 seconds adrift of the points. Then Button almost hit Sainz with unexpectedly massive closing speed; and Maldonado got another penalty – his 3rd of the day – for overtaking under the SC. Sainz then retired and Hamilton passed Button for P8. With only 5 laps left, Ricciardo then made a desperate attempt to pass Rosberg. I'd like to say at this point that the Red Bull is handling better than either Mercedes. It is very compliant and appears to have more downforce, allowing later braking and higher cornering speeds. But the Mercedes has pure grunt. Ricciardo's only chance to get Rosberg was to outbrake him but he tried from an unrealistic distance and although momentarily passing Rosberg, he was never going to make the apex on such a tight line unless he could also avoid locking up. Such a lunge required excessive entry speed, and burning the candle at both ends just doesn't work. Inevitably, he under-steered wide and Rosberg was poised to re-pass with an easy undercut (not to be confused with passing another car through better timing of a pit-stop). But Rosberg drifted out too wide before getting full clearance, resulting in minor damage to the Red Bull but a puncture for Rosberg with almost a whole lap back to the pits. I need to go now and I've taken too long to write this but there is one final point I want to make. Without reading the thread, I'm presuming there's some derision aimed at Rosberg [edit: please read added paragraph below]. I wasn't impressed either but I think credit is due for the way he managed to get that car back to the pits without ripping the carcass right off the wheel whilst at the same time doing it quickly enough to retain a points scoring position. He made it look easy but it is a very fine balancing act. Those excursions at almost every corner were no accident; by driving the widest possible arc with the absolute minimum of steering input, the carcass experiences the least possible lateral loading and is therefore more likely to remain attached to the rim. Full credit to him for remaining focussed despite knowing he was likely to fall further behind instead of close the gap to Hamilton. [Edited: typos; syntax; reference to Bottas / Verstappen incident; and added paragraph below] [*If I'm right about Rosberg's motives, it serves to underline a significant difference in the mentality of the Mercedes team-mates. Hamilton does not preoccupy himself with thoughts of insuring against what's behind. However, this race also reminded me of an impetuous youngster who threw away a World Drivers' Championship at his first attempt and highlights the need for balance between extremes. I'd suggest Rosberg would benefit most by a shift in mentality towards Hamilton, rather than vice versa. …].
