Toto Wolff says Mercedes may go beyond a "slap on the wrist" for Nico Rosberg after his collision with Lewis Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Rosberg made contact with Hamilton on lap two at Les Combes, giving Hamilton a puncture and dropping him out of contention for points - with the Brit later saying there was little Mercedes could do to reprimand his team-mate. It later emerged Rosberg had admitted he wanted to "prove a point" by leaving his nose in at the corner and Wolff admits the team has harsh punishments it can implement on its championship leader if it feels the need to.
Like what? Forcing him to drink tap water instead of bottled?
The commentators tried really hard to paint it as a 50/50 racing incident, but to me it was completely on Rosberg. I was surprised to see that you thought it was 50/50 as well. It may have been a racing incident, but one that was easily avoided by Nico.
I just don't understand what good could come from that from Rosberg's point of view. Lewis turns in a skosh early to put the pinch on, and that could well have had both of them out of the race. Does not compute that a driver would risk damaging their own car in order to 'prove a point'. At least not in F1, where some components can practically explode if the slightest force is applied in the wrong direction. In tin tops (NASCAR, BTCC, DTM, etc) or if he was more fully alongside I can understand it, but in single seaters where there's only like a foot of overlap I can't make sense of it.
I think its more of a case that Rosberg got some red mist and pushed where he shouldn't have been, and when it ultimately worked for him he had all afternoon to circulate and become a big man about it in his head. It might be easier to take a bold/stupid stand than just admit he was wrong, as I'm willing to bet Lewis went into that meeting with daggers.
It's all conjecture, though. Calling that Hamiltons fault just seems daffy to me.
Oh yeah, Lewis was blameless. Just seemed like a racing incident. That same thing happens between Alonso and Ricciardo and no one would be talking about it.
In fact, taking your observation to point, I can easily see where it might have been an honest whoopsiedoodle on Nico's part that he spent the next 80 minutes bigging himself up over.
*I think the initial pass attempt was to prove a point and be assertive. I think the contact was just Nico being daft.
In the aftermath he knew he was going to have the piss taken out of him, so he decided to turn it into this big moment of chest puffery.
It's obviously a much bigger deal since they're teammates. Nobody would think anything of Fred and Ricky Ricardo getting into it.
*Sad to see a good run by MAG turned south by driving like the mobile guillotine squad. Forcing Alonso to the grass was pretty stupid, and he followed it up the next lap by making about four moves down Kemmel. Pushing Fred wide at Rivage was fair game though. (iRacing note: The left after that is the hardest corner on the entire track for me).
Nobody would think anything of Fred and Ricky Ricardo Vettel getting into it.
RBR had to jump through some hoops to get that car to hang with the front runners. Wonder if they have anything for the rest of the races or if the no aero option only works at Spa.
As regards RBR's "let's run without wings!" setup, I felt Vettel was unfairly widening the track on exit from Stavelot. Every single lap, all four wheels off. His engineer even warned him about it at one point. Punishable?
You're right, I'm 100% certain this won't fall into complete disrepair. I can tell just by looking at the pile of abandoned toilets.
Der Seb drove the circuit in an Infinity road car yesterday.
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Generally, I like street circuit racing. But Sochi appears to have been saddled with the same plague that made Valencia so uninspiring - run off areas. The whole point of a street circuit is that there's nowhere to go. 2" too far on exit at Spa, you kick up some dirt. 2" too far on exit on a street track and your day is over.
Anyone else bored by Monza? I literally fell asleep midway through. Feel bad for Alonso DNF'ing in Italy. Other than that it was pretty meh, even with the cars whizzing by at faster-than-NASCAR speeds.
It wasn't the most boring race of the year, but it certainly wasn't a barn burner, either. That said, I'm getting a real kick out of the conspiracy theories out there that Nico purposely blew T1 to allow Hamilton in front to atone for Belgium. So dumb.
Any excitement was gone the second Rosberg blew the first chicken for a second time. I was at least hoping to see them battle again and all the pyrotechnics that would follow.
Any excitement was gone the second Rosberg blew the first chicken for a second time. I was at least hoping to see them battle again and all the pyrotechnics that would follow.
It wasn't the most boring race of the year, but it certainly wasn't a barn burner, either. That said, I'm getting a real kick out of the conspiracy theories out there that Nico purposely blew T1 to allow Hamilton in front to atone for Belgium. So dumb.
[tinfoil_hat]
I thought their was a better chance they sabotaged Hamilton's software at the start to make sure Nico got clear so there wouldn't be any more troubles or reprisal since he's got such a clear path to the championship.[/tinfoilhat]
I'm not saying they did it, Mclaren ECU's are about as buggy as Windows.
Just that I thought that was going to be the conspiracy theory Sunday night, not Nico's trips through the runoff.
That should be the FIA's new method of creating overtaking.
"We've secretly replaced this driver's ECU with that of a Windows Phone. Let's see if they notice..."
I do give them (the drivers) some credit. Watch any Indy racing? They started standing starts and it's fun to try and guess how many will brick when the lights go out. It's a **** show every single time, and it's wonderful.
