Poll: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2016, Yas Marina - Race 21/21

Rate the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix out of ten

  • Total voters
    96
  • Poll closed .
Something I've yet to read is that Hamilton had a pretty poor start to the season in general. Could this have been part of the hangover of winning the 2015 title? i.e. Once he'd won it last year he pretty much stopped turning up giving Nico; directly or indirectly a perfect platform to build on some wins/his confidence at the back end of 2015 and then 2016. I don't believe this helped Hamilton either.. (Again this is from a Hamilton fan. :p)
 
JUMPURS said:
No, the team chooses how the cars race, and if Lewis doesn't like it, I am sure he would have a seat in the Sauber or the Manor.

But as we all know, the past few years have been about the car, not the driver, so he's hardly likely to do that now is he?

Mercedes have an obligation to finish 1 and 2, no matter if they have won the WCC. They want other records, most 1-2's in F1 etc etc, there is more to it. They pay the money, you do as they say.

I don't think Hamilton was wrong to try and back Rosberg up, think it was his only option. I do think he was wrong to disobey orders.

Imagine the state if Rosberg ignored team orders in Monaco?
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I'm more talking about from a fans=me point of view. That should be how it is but as you say it isn't. If Hamilton wasn't in a merc I think he'd go to Ferrari after raikkonen maybe. Manor haha, could you imagine his face:D
 
Shocky-FM said:
Won't happen, big changes next year so their is no guaranty they will be as dominant which means they need him more than Rosberg.

If one or more of the teams are able to match Mercedes do you think Rosberg will stand a chance? Hell no.

I don't understand why people get so bent out of shape about it, it was an unreasonable request from the team.

It was effectively asking him give up any chance of winning the championship, no driver is going to follow that order.
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It could be said that Merc have less to do than anyone else. Merc still have the best engine and that isnt going to change drastically, its efficiency etc is still spot on.

No one knows who the new car will favour more, it might just favour rosberg just 0.1s /lap to put LH that bit more under pressure.

It could also be argued that Rosberg may drive a little bit better because he is now more relaxed after winning the WDC this year.

Of course it wasnt unreasonable - the team have the brand to think about, and what happened yesterday hurt the brand. Not to mention they pay his wages so he Should follow their directions when required.

Nigel Mansell completely disagrees with you, and Im sure he has more F1 and racing knowledge than anyone posting here :D

Finally - no , it could well be argued that racing at full speed is more likely to cause overtakes to go wrong and the rosberg no-score LH required than lapping 2 or 3 seconds slower than what LH was capable of for majority of the race. Taking unreliability out of the equation (as this is as likley to take LH out as Rosberg from any single race) , full speed racing is far more likely to cause damage than being backed up into traffic. Im not saying the latter doesnt happen, it does and often - but less frequently than damage / failure at full speed

EVH said:
I don't believe Ham will get more than a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine at most.

.
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Its a team matter, absolutely nothing will happen
 
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FrankJH said:
Its a team matter, absolutely nothing will happen
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This is probably right but it is very difficult for Mercedes to deal with. To do so publicly runs right up against Hamilton's ego, and this is a person who seemingly threatened to quit the team after Barcelona this year. To not do so allows the precedent to be set that Hamilton (and Rosberg presumably) can now dictate strategy from the cockpit and ignore the race engineers.

What can the team do then? If a driver comes into the pits suddenly without warning are they going to refuse to service the car?

Mercedes need to find a way to restore their authority in a way that still allows Hamilton to not feel too bruised and go into another threat to quit /media meltdown. Bad luck Toto - just when you thought you could have two weeks off...!
 
Like I said, Hamilton actually made F1 this season interesting in the last bunch of laps.
Team bosses etc are the ones killing the sport, and have been doing so with this crap of not allowing their drivers to race.
Maybe then they should only have one driver per team.
 
Lewis should back things up every race, far more entertaining to watch.

Of course Mercedes are going to do nothing to Lewis, it's a joke that the press think they will.
 
Mercedes can't do anything because it would further damage the relationship and trust between Hamilton and the team, already damaged due to the poor reliability they supplied to him this year. It would be a failure of management if they couldn't rebuild that relationship so Hamilton trusts (and thus obeys) the team.

Mercedes knows that Hamilton is a fast racer, and even with all the breakdowns, very nearly won the championship again. He doesn't give up, he goes for the win, he rarely puts a foot wrong. That's why they employ him, and that's why he doesn't accept being told to give away places or to ensure he loses the championship. It's part of the package, and something Mercedes have to manage as well as everything else.

In the end, Mercedes failed to supply a championship winning car to Hamilton, while they did to Rosberg, so it's no wonder Hamilton is inclined to not trust that the team has his interests close to heart. That's a relationship that Mercedes management has to address and fix.
 
Glaucus said:
is there anywhere with all or a lot of old races, fancy watching some classics. 1996 monaco for a start.
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I've just received two black bin liner bags full of old VHS F1 race tapes from a friend, and a truck load of old magazines and books, so I probably have that race in my attic!
 
Lewis Hamilton said:
"I hope the team provides me with reliability the way they do with the other car," he said/
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I do not get this.
It truly reeks of him suggesting the team sabotaged his car early in the season to give him engine failures.
It is as if he thinks they were within the teams control.

I'd like to know if there is something in Lewis' driving style which leave the engine more prone to failure? Was it a different component each time, or were there specific parts which constantly needed replacement.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
I do not get this.
It truly reeks of him suggesting the team sabotaged his car early in the season to give him engine failures.
It is as if he thinks they were within the teams control.
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No, it suggest that Mercedes did not do a good enough job, which is true, even though Rosberg's car is proof that they are capable of doing so.

Twisting Hamilton's words like this (and it happens a lot) is why most other drivers are just boring drones who just trot out their corporate lines whilst managing to say nothing or showing any interest or personality.

It wasn't long ago that we were complaining about the lack of any driver personalities in the sport, and every time one of them raises his head above the parapet and expresses a genuine opinion, it gets twisted to show him in the worst possible light.

Hamilton suffers from this a lot because he does wear his heart on his sleeve, but other drivers are catching up. Alonso and Button (maybe on their way out, they don't care), Verstappen (being young and ballsy), and the new "authentic" Vettel (frustrated by the lack of progress at Ferrari), have all shown more personality than the last few years.
 
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FrankJH said:
Of course it wasnt unreasonable - the team have the brand to think about, and what happened yesterday hurt the brand. Not to mention they pay his wages so he Should follow their directions when required.
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How precisely did Hamilton driving slowly to try to win the WDC, hurt the brand of Mercedes?

If Hamilton had driven at his true pace, and Rosberg had driven at his pace, neither car would likely have been shown on screen much for the whole race.
By driving slowly and actually making a "race", both cars were then on screen for 90% of the race, which I would say the brand and sponsors would prefer.

I would actually say, the team moaning about it and trying to tell a driver that he can't compete the only way possible, would have more of a negative impact on the brand.
 
Just watched highlights after trying to avoid spoilers since yesterday and mostly succeeded. Congrats to Nico. Lewis shown he's still spoiled little kid and I lost last bit of respect for him now.

E: stupid autocorrect :)
 
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Wasn't too bad a race, thought it was fairly entertaining as far as the WDC goes.

Congratulations to Rosberg, thought he did what he needed to do to take the title.

I keep my fingers crossed next year will shake things up and we'll have some close, unpredictable racing!

Many thanks Shimmy for the threads this year :)
 
I dunno if it's been said before as i've not read the whole thread, but disobaying team orders is hardly a new thing in F1 is it? It's only being unsportsman like that's got the viewers going. I can think of several instances where a driver has disobeyed a team order and there have been no concequences other than a telling off behind closed doors. This is what I think will happen to Hamilton here.
What will be interesting now is if we get a situation like in Monaco this year where Rosberg was happy to let Hamliton pass him, will he do him a favour like that again? I bet every driver on and off the grid would never want Hamilton as a team mate, but if I ran my own team, i'd still hire him in a second.
 
Well done Nico. You are a very deserving world champion. What an achievement. Something very special happened yesterday in that Nico beat a three times world champion to the championship in the same car. It's like Coulthard winning the championship over Häkkinen or Webber winning over Vettel. Lewis tried all he could including lapping slowly which I think he took too far and disobeying a team order was also too far. No driver is bigger that the team. I personally think the reason why Lewis was so miserable on the podium is I don't think he will win another championship in F1. I think the Mercedes dominance will fade with the new regs especially the regs relating to the engine development. Ferrari, Honda and Renault will be working flat out and history has showed that these guys will be incredibly strong. Lewis is brilliant when things roll his way but not so good when they don't. All I can say is - Lewis get yourself prepared because Max is coming and he will be in a great car and he will be bloody quick.
 
At the end of the day Nico could have challenged for the lead which would have forced Lewis to push on but he didn't and settled for 2nd which turned out to be a difficult drive.
 
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