By Simon Wright – Follow
me on Twitter @Siwri88
The 2014
Formula One World Championship took another dramatic twist as the two title
contenders from the same team collided at Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix at
Spa-Francorchamps.
Championship
leader Nico Rosberg tried to overtake Britain’s Lewis Hamilton on the second
circuit of the 44-lap race, but touched the back of his teammate (pictured below), puncturing a
tyre on Hamilton’s car and forcing him to retire. Rosberg went on to finish
second and extend his championship lead to a healthy 29 points, with seven
races remaining.
 |
| The damage is done and Lewis Hamilton thinks this was done on purpose by Nico Rosberg |
What followed
was even more gobsmacking. Hamilton has since told the media that Rosberg
admitted to deliberately crashing into him on purpose. So, with this story set
to rumble on for the next fortnight, here is my take on the dire situation that
has pushed the Mercedes team to war.
The build-up to the incident
Tension has
been bubbling underneath the surface between Hamilton and Rosberg this season,
with some barbed comments in the media and a few tense, but thrilling battles
on-track. Hamilton often prevailed in these, leaving Rosberg behind in the
wheel-to-wheel racing. His lead has been built on strong consistency, whilst
Hamilton hasn’t had huge amounts of luck with car failures at the Australian
and Canadian Grand Prix, along with two qualifying nightmares recently that
have seen him at the back of the field on raceday.
In Hungary
last time out, Hamilton ignored a team order to allow Rosberg through. It was
an unnecessary instruction given out by the team, as they were on different
strategies at the time. Rosberg was unimpressed by the handling of it and
Hamilton’s refusal to work with the team. You sensed something was brewing
before the summer break. As they arrived back in Spa, it became clear that body
language was becoming strained and the previous friendship had all but been
shattered.
Rosberg
grabbed pole position in qualifying, but bogged down at the start on Sunday,
handing the lead to his championship rival. What happened next was inevitable.
On the second lap, Rosberg got into Hamilton’s slipstream and tried to pass
around the outside of the Les Combes chicane. Hamilton gave him space, but was
clearly ahead on turn-in. Rosberg had a chance to back out of the move, but
didn’t. He left his front wing in the danger zone and clipped Hamilton,
puncturing a tyre immediately on his rival. Despite needing a new nosecone at
his first stop, Rosberg benefited hugely from it by still finishing second, but
it has opened up the biggest story of the 2014 season.
Did he do it on purpose?
Looking at
the onboard footage and the live action at the time and I don’t think you can
say that Rosberg did what he did on purpose. If he did, then he did it
extremely cleverly, so no-one would know. It wasn’t as clear-cut as when Nelson
Piquet binned his car deliberately into the wall at the 2008 Singapore Grand
Prix. You would expect Rosberg to be precise and not make things obvious.
If it is true
that he did admit to crashing into Hamilton to prove a point, then it is
unprofessional and totally unsporting. Effectively, he is cheating his way to
the championship and if he wants it so badly, he can have it. However, we can
only go from Hamilton’s version of what was said. It came in a post-race debrief
when obviously tensions were high and emotions still pretty raw on the surface.
It is the
kind of behaviour that we don’t want to see. Ayrton Senna and Michael
Schumacher have both deliberately tried to take opposition out of an event to
try and win championships. In Schumacher’s case (1997), he failed and his
creditability took a battering for it.
I would say looking
at the various angles and agree with many observers that it was a clumsy and unnecessary
overtaking attempt, especially so early on by the championship leader but would
put it down as a racing incident. If he did it on purpose, the book should be
thrown at him, meaning severe penalties or even removal of his FIA super
license because you can’t do that. Unfortunately, only Rosberg knows what he
did and I don’t think he will be telling us in a hurry.
Hamilton is no saint
Hamilton is
no saint either though. He hasn’t forgiven Rosberg for screwing him up in
qualifying in Monaco, when Rosberg went down the escape road and caused yellow
flags in the dying stages of Q3, preventing Hamilton from taking pole position.
It is time he got over that and he admitted to the BBC yesterday that “Monaco
was worse than this.”
He drove back
to the pits like an absolute lunatic. I don’t know what speed he was trying to
do through the flat-out Blanchimont corner on three wheels but it wrecked the
bodywork and cause more damage to his aerodynamics. That made the car even more
difficult to drive and led to inevitable retirement in the closing stages. If
he had taken greater care in getting back to the pits, less damage would have
been caused and he might have recovered to rescue some points.
From lap 20
onwards though, he was constantly moaning on the team radio about the need to
save engine mileage and they should stop the car. Mercedes showed no leadership
in this situation and should have told him to be quiet and just drive. For
Hamilton to mentally show no heart in racing before half-distance and basically
give up though lacks class. We want British sportsman to go down fighting, even
if they come up short. He failed that test and you don’t see Fernando Alonso
and Sebastian Vettel say or do that, when you consider the limited machinery
they have been given this season for all their talent.
Hamilton
should take stock of the situation. Of course, he was unlucky in this scenario
but react better to it all. By provoking reactions with what he said
afterwards, he should have kept things in-house. Still, at least he hasn’t
attacked his teammate on social media yet…free telemetry anyone!
He has a
supporting family, a gorgeous girlfriend, a championship-winning racing car and
earns millions of pounds through driving and various sponsorship endorsements,
yet he still at times acts like a spoilt kid. Lewis turns 30 next year, and
these tantrums should be long out of his system.
What happens now?
With seven
races left, it will take a miracle for a Mercedes driver not to win the
championship, although if they keep fighting amongst themselves, Daniel Ricciardo
has the ability to sneak in and shock them, just like Kimi Raikkonen did to
Hamilton and Alonso when they fell out as McLaren teammates in 2007.
It is
important for racing to be the focus, and therefore, Mercedes need to try and
regain some form of control. Getting their drivers to say absolutely nothing in
the next nine days before the paddock reconvenes in Monza for the Italian Grand
Prix would help for starters.
Then, they
need to get their warring drivers to call an uneasy truce in the short-term,
because if they carry on like they are and throw away this championship, you
can be sure that someone will pay the price from the racing team. The board in
Stuttgart should be concerned with what they witnessed.
After that,
one of the drivers has to move on and with Rosberg tied down to a multi-year contract;
Hamilton will probably have to leave. It is clear that he can’t work together
with Rosberg. The relationship has broken down past repair on a long-term
basis. With a new partnership about to start with Honda and Ron Dennis back at the helm,
could a return back home to McLaren be looming? Do not rule that thought out...
Formula One
in 2014 has been a quiet season in all forms. As only a casual viewer nowadays,
what happened in Belgium yesterday though makes it box office material between
now and the unpopular Abu Dhabi double points finale in November.
