Belgian Grand Prix 2014, Spa-Francorchamps - Race 12/19

MagicBoy said:
It's an F1 race thread, of course they're still at it. This will be rumbling on until the entrenched arguments continue in the thread for the next race. :D
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I personally love it

No real love or hate for merc or their drivers
The race was brilliant for it


And made for best post race show in ages

Hope for more shenanigans next race
 
Folks, apparently Nico is getting abuse on twitter about this whole episode?
Where the hell can I view the comments? (I cant find it on his page!)
 
MooMoo444 said:
What action can they take?

Fine? Like Rosberg gives a damn, hes loaded. They can't stop him from racing as they want the points and trophies. Stopping him from taking part in a qualy? Who cares, the car would come 2nd anyway.
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Perhaps they mean instructions or orders rather than a punishment for Rosberg.

According to, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_1_2014#Teams_and_drivers, Mercedes don't have a reserve driver. So if they did ban him from the Italian GP, who would they get in the car for one race? And, as you say, they want to win the points and ultimately the trophies. Rosberg and Hamilton in the cars give them the best opportunity to do that. Assuming a third driver hasn't ever driven the current Mercedes car, how long would it take for a driver to get used to the car?

Skeeter said:
OK, let's play devils advocate.

It sounds like they are going to apply team order to nullify the race. Looking at how other teams have done this in the past, they can either:
Favour the championship leader, Rosberg.
Favour whoever qualifies higher, which recently has been Rosberg
Or call off the racing after the final pit stops, which doesn't solve 2nd lap crashes.

The conspiracy theorist will love these :p.
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Indeed. It's a bit reminiscent of Australia 1998 isn't it? Hakkinen pitted by mistake giving Coulthard the lead. Coulthard pulled over to let Hakkinen back through to honour their agreement that whoever led of the two of them at the first corner would not be hindered by the other driver in winning the race.

As Rosberg is in the lead I think Mercedes would be wise to favour him. Ricciardo is quite close to Hamilton in the standings so supporting Hamilton over Rosberg could lead to Ricciardo making it very tight for the title. I know Mercedes will prefer to win the constructors' title either way.

Whatever Mercedes say or do, someone will argue that they are either supporting Rosberg unfairly, supporting Hamilton who is behind Rosberg or being too naive or not being brave enough to make a decision.
 
@MarcLister, yep, there's nothing Mercedes can do that won't be seen in a bad light by some.

There is a risk to the show though. This season has avoided being boring up front due to the Mercedes drivers being allowed to race. Imposing orders could significant damage the show.
 
I'm a big fan of Hamilton as I think he is the most naturally talented 'racer' in F1 but I'm not going to criticise Rosberg for this incident.

It makes no sense for him to have hit Hamilton on purpose because the majority of the time he would have come out of it worse off, it looked to me from the onboard footage like Rosberg lost a little traction and had to correct which is why he quickly steered left and then right again.

I've said it before but there is no divine right for the car in front to be on the racing line, if the driver in the car in front believes that staying on the racing line might result in contact then he should forget about staying on it and give room. The racing line is simply the optimum route around the track for when you have a clear track around you, when you're battling with another car it's not about getting around the track the fastest, it's about coming out on top.

So what if only a bit of Rosberg's front wing was alongside Lewis' car? it was still enough to cause contact if Lewis didn't give him sufficient room. Lewis didn't have to stay on racing line to stay in front he could have taken a wider line and still had track position for the following corners.

It's just the way that F1 seems to have devolved that the driver in front seems to take a "I'm sticking to the racing line no matter what and if the driver behind doesn't slam on his brakes and lose 2secs to avoid me then it's all his fault if we collide" mentality.
 
mmj_uk said:
I'm a big fan of Hamilton as I think he is the most naturally talented 'racer' in F1 but I'm not going to criticise Rosberg for this incident.

It makes no sense for him to have hit Hamilton on purpose because the majority of the time he would have come out of it worse off, it looked to me from the onboard footage like Rosberg lost a little traction and had to correct which is why he quickly steered left and then right again.

I've said it before but there is no divine right for the car in front to be on the racing line, if the driver in the car in front believes that staying on the racing line might result in contact then he should forget about staying on it and give room. The racing line is simply the optimum route around the track for when you have a clear track around you, when you're battling with another car it's not about getting around the track the fastest, it's about coming out on top.

So what if only a bit of Rosberg's front wing was alongside Lewis' car? it was still enough to cause contact if Lewis didn't give him sufficient room. Lewis didn't have to stay on racing line to stay in front he could have taken a wider line and still had track position for the following corners.

It's just the way that F1 seems to have devolved that the driver in front seems to take a "I'm sticking to the racing line no matter what and if the driver behind doesn't slam on his brakes and lose 2secs to avoid me then it's all his fault if we collide" mentality.
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What a load of twaddle.
 
Lewis had every right to be on the racing line. It is up to the guy behind to make sure that he is not going to contact the guy in front. Rosberg should have been a bit more observant. Its the fact that there is a lot of rivalry between them that is causing all this uproar. Nothing else.
 
Skeeter said:
@MarcLister, yep, there's nothing Mercedes can do that won't be seen in a bad light by some.

There is a risk to the show though. This season has avoided being boring up front due to the Mercedes drivers being allowed to race. Imposing orders could significant damage the show.
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Wasn't that was Mercedes/Paddy Lowe said after Bahrain? They didn't want to impose team orders so as not to damage the sport (or possibly the global reputation of the F1 team impacting upon the image/reputation of Mercedes and its cars?)

It could be argued that Toto, Paddy and Niki were very naive in thinking that they could operate a top F1 team expecting to win GPs and titles WITHOUT their two drivers, who were going to compete with each other for the drivers' titles, needing strict instructions or team orders.
 
Jesus, it's got nothing to do with the racing line, when will people use a little common sense.

Watch any replay of any corner in any race. ffs, draw a right angled road on a piece of paper than draw line a car would follow through a corner, it will be a curve. You turn right the entire time yet you will start at the apex and end up on the outside edge of the road on any remotely tight corner. Look at Magnussen, he "pushed" alonso and Button off the track in exactly the same way.

The ROAD was turning right, so was Hamilton but that still means his car naturally ends up on the outside. Hamilton wasn't trying to get on the racing line, he didn't turn left into Rosberg's line, he was turning right the ENTIRE way around that corner including when he got hit. AS soon as he went into the corner that was the only line Hamilton could take. Rosberg forced Hamilton to the inside and forced Hamilton to that line, he went on the outside, he could turn tighter than Hamilton.

Hamilton did not move over into Rosberg, Hamilton turned right without ever stopping turning right. Rosberg put himself where Hamilton's car was ALWAYS going with no choice. THe only thing Hamilton could have done is move left. There is a limit to how tight a car can turn, but it can straighten up easily.

again mmj, every source has agreed that what Rosberg did, he did deliberately, turning right into Hamilton was a deliberate act and hit the car in front ending his race effectively.


Remember how many thousands of times someone pushes a car to the inside of a turn and that car ALWAYS< every time ends up wide coming out of the corner, because that is how physics works, tighter line = car ends up wider on exit. It's why when drivers force a car to the inside but don't make it into the corner first they usually take the corner tighter and try and get them up the inside.

Rosberg knew the line Hamilton was forced in to, he knew Hamilton would be forced wide in the exit with a tighter entry, there was never even a hint of the chance to overtake on the outside at that point, he went for it anyway, he's an idiot, he caused the contact in a gap that wasn't there.
 
Skeeter said:
OK, let's play devils advocate.

It sounds like they are going to apply team order to nullify the race. Looking at how other teams have done this in the past, they can either:
Favour the championship leader, Rosberg.
Favour whoever qualifies higher, which recently has been Rosberg
Or call off the racing after the final pit stops, which doesn't solve 2nd lap crashes.

The conspiracy theorist will love these :p.
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I thought of those scenarios last night but decided against posting them because of the conspiracy theorists. I think they will go down one of those routes from now on which could as you say improve things for Rosberg as the season get's nearer the end. I hope they don't interfere because they will win the constructors anyway and it's much more fun this way.

This year having two drivers quite closely matched and all the fallout give ammunition and justification for the way Red Bull and Ferrari have done things in recent history when they have a championship winning car :(

I'm going, Alonso to Red Bull, Vettel to Mercedes and Rosberg to be out on his ear ;)
 
there are now headlines that hamilton may quit merc...

just read the transcript from Hamiltons interview after the "16:45 chat"

If you go into the chicane at Monza, wheel-to-wheel, are you going to trust him?
“I’ll just make sure we’re not wheel-to-wheel.”

made me laugh
 
MarcLister said:
Wasn't that was Mercedes/Paddy Lowe said after Bahrain? They didn't want to impose team orders so as not to damage the sport (or possibly the global reputation of the F1 team impacting upon the image/reputation of Mercedes and its cars?)

It could be argued that Toto, Paddy and Niki were very naive in thinking that they could operate a top F1 team expecting to win GPs and titles WITHOUT their two drivers, who were going to compete with each other for the drivers' titles, needing strict instructions or team orders.
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People like to create drama, mostly Brundle with his crap trying to talk about the team heads not being able to control it.

Like Red Bull did with Vettel? Outside of literally sending a signal that limits the RPM of the car they want to control, when the drivers are out on track they can do what they want.

Rosberg could have done what he did no matter what team orders the team has in place.

The biggest issue is Rosberg turning up to the race angry because Hamilton didn't randomly drop loads of time to let Rosberg pass him in the last race. Everyone on the grid, everyone in the garage, everyone at Merc acknowledge what they asked of Hamilton was wrong, no one anywhere thinks he should have let Rosberg by. Hamilton himself said he'd let him by if he caught him. Rosberg spends a month angry and comes to the track to prove a point..... because the team made a mistake asking Hamilton to do something insane and were clearly wrong.

How on earth can you be angry about that weeks later when the very idea of Hamilton giving up loads of time on Alonso was barmy.
 
MarcLister said:
Wasn't that was Mercedes/Paddy Lowe said after Bahrain? They didn't want to impose team orders so as not to damage the sport (or possibly the global reputation of the F1 team impacting upon the image/reputation of Mercedes and its cars?)

It could be argued that Toto, Paddy and Niki were very naive in thinking that they could operate a top F1 team expecting to win GPs and titles WITHOUT their two drivers, who were going to compete with each other for the drivers' titles, needing strict instructions or team orders.
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Yeah Mercedes view was "we don't want to ruin the show" but we all knew the real reason was "we don't want the bad press like RBR had".

But to be fair to them they aren't in a position to really news to worry. So long as their drivers don't take both cars out of the race Mercedes are going to win both titles. Team orders favouring a driver usually arrows because a championship threat comes from another team. Yes Ricciardo is doing well, but he isn't going to win the WDC.

They could just say no team orders, but hold their 2015 contracts to ransom if they do anything stupid (no matter what the headlines say, neither driver is realistically considering leaving Mercedes).
 
I thought the point Rosberg was trying to prove was that he wouldn't yield to Hamilton's aggressive (albeit legal) defending like we saw in Bahrain and Spain.

If Lewis feels he can't trust Nico to race sensibly wheel-to-wheel he's likely to give him more room and potentially an advantage in the final few races.
 
Irish_Tom said:
If Lewis feels he can't trust Nico to race sensibly wheel-to-wheel he's likely to give him more room and potentially an advantage in the final few races.
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It'll backfire. Lewis won't back down from that if that's the plan for Nico, he'll just be a stubborn bugger and put his car wherever he wants to put it regardless, he'll leave it up to Nico to decide whether he wants a contact and a potential accident.

Merc will be sabotaging themselves if they let that unfold.
 
All I have to say on this is that I'm sick and tired of F1. Been watching it since the 80s and have just about had enough.

It's all rules, regulations, politics and controversy, punctuated with an odd bit of decent racing now and then. As a fan, I just want to watch exciting, fair racing between drivers. Instead every single weekend is mired in controversy of some kind or another which overshadows the actual racing and usually leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many fans when they feel a driver has got away with unsportsmanlike conduct or just plain cheating.

Pinnacle of motorsport? What a joke.
 
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