2014 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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LMSCorvetteGT2
perhaps his entire lap was crap
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His sector times until then suggested he could have easily taken pole. It wasn't just a lock-up, either - he ran wide in the penultimate corner, then locked up, took an awkward line into the final corner and was forced to counter-steer to correct it. Altogether it cost him half a second.
 
Once no car issues or tire issues (puncture) Ham will win the championship .

Nico can have the win .
 
I see Hamilton catching Nico, but somehow I don't see Nico budging. I think Ham needs to be prepared to let this one slide providing Nico is tough to pass. We've all seen what happens when Nico Rosberg tries to race wheel to wheel with his team mate under less crucial circumstances. Title should be Lewis's for the taking, but then again let's not speak so soon.
 
Hamilton's best chance of winning is T1 or the pit stops, it's too much of a risk trying to pass Rosberg at any other point.
 
Yeah I don't trust Rosberg will keep it fully clean if Hamilton attacks, he will likely cruise to second if the gap to Williams is the usual massive.
 
mustafur
Yeah I don't trust Rosberg will keep it fully clean if Hamilton attacks, he will likely cruise to second if the gap to Williams is the usual massive.
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Really? Why on earth would Rosberg want to tangle with Hamilton tomorrow? It's going to be hard enough for him to win the title; damaging his car will flush any chances down the drain.
 
OctopusPine
Really? Why on earth would Rosberg want to tangle with Hamilton tomorrow? It's going to be hard enough for him to win the title; damaging his car will flush any chances down the drain.
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Because that literally is his only hope of winning apart from reliability which is completely random.

Im still not convinced Monaco was an accident even if it is an innocent until proven guilty situation so I can't say it would be outside of his scope of things he would do to win the title.
 
Peasantslayer
Hamilton's best chance of winning is T1 or the pit stops, it's too much of a risk trying to pass Rosberg at any other point.
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But what's the point? He doesn't need to win.
 
OctopusPine
Really? Why on earth would Rosberg want to tangle with Hamilton tomorrow? It's going to be hard enough for him to win the title; damaging his car will flush any chances down the drain.
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It's true that Rosberg won't win the championship if both crash, but if both finish first and second he won't win the championship anyway. If they come together and Hamilton comes out better, Rosberg still doesn't win but again nothing then changes. However, if they come together and Rosberg gets the better end of it, as was the case in Belgium, Rosberg wins the championship.

Rosberg doesn't need to deliberately cause a crash, though. He could just get aggressive defending and a crash results from that.
 
mustafur
Because that literally is his only hope of winning apart from reliability which is completely random.

Im still not convinced Monaco was an accident even if it is an innocent until proven guilty situation so I can't say it would be outside of his scope of things he would do to win the title.
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IceMan PJN
It's true that Rosberg won't win the championship if both crash, but if both finish first and second he won't win the championship anyway. If they come together and Hamilton comes out better, Rosberg still doesn't win but again nothing then changes. However, if they come together and Rosberg gets the better end of it, as was the case in Belgium, Rosberg wins the championship.

Rosberg doesn't need to deliberately cause a crash, though. He could just get aggressive defending and a crash results from that.
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Problem is you're both just assuming that Rosberg could take Hamilton out of the race, and get away from the incident with little to no damage whatsoever. Nico barely touched Lewis in Spa, yet it still severely damaged his front wing. As a result he lost downforce, couldn't pull away from the field before the stops, and lost the race as a result.

Now imagine what a deliberate, much heavier contact could do not just to Hamilton's car, but Rosberg's too. You only need to look back through history (Japan 1990, Australia 1994, Europe 1997) to see that the instigator of a supposed 'deliberate' contact, has never come off better than the victim. They've only ever come off just as bad, or worse.

And that won't work for Rosberg this weekend. So why'd he do it? Formula One cars are fragile machines after all, and the drivers know this. They're not tanks.
 
Rosberg's strategy will be simple: go all-out, and make Hamilton work for it. He knows Hamilton won't settle for second, so he can tap into that and force an error. No doubt he will try and drag Williams into the fight as well. Mercedes have the Constructors' title, and a Mercedes driver will win the Drivers' Championship. Nothing that Bottas or Massa could do will change that, so they have no reason to hold back.
 
OctopusPine
Really? Why on earth would Rosberg want to tangle with Hamilton tomorrow? It's going to be hard enough for him to win the title; damaging his car will flush any chances down the drain.
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Except that he cannot afford to let Hamilton past, especially if it's into the lead. Rosberg is better off provoking an incident on the pass and hoping that somehow Hamilton comes out of it worst.

OctopusPine
Problem is you're both just assuming that Rosberg could take Hamilton out of the race, and get away from the incident with little to no damage whatsoever. Nico barely touched Lewis in Spa, yet it still severely damaged his front wing. As a result he lost downforce, couldn't pull away from the field before the stops, and lost the race as a result.

Now imagine what a deliberate, much heavier contact could do not just to Hamilton's car, but Rosberg's too. You only need to look back through history (Japan 1990, Australia 1994, Europe 1997) to see that the instigator of a supposed 'deliberate' contact, has never come off better than the victim. They've only ever come off just as bad, or worse.

And that won't work for Rosberg this weekend. So why'd he do it? Formula One cars are fragile machines after all, and the drivers know this. They're not tanks.
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Rosberg is already hoping for luck to win the championship. When forced to choose between a certain loss (Lewis passes into the lead) and a one in a thousand chance (an accident that favours Rosberg and leaves him undamaged enough to win), he'll take the one in a thousand chance. And he'll be planning all these situations before the race, if he knows what's good for him.

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My idea of strategy:

Assuming Rosberg ends up in the lead after the first few laps, he then needs to see if Hamilton will actually come after him. If so, his best chance is aggressive defense. He can't just Maldonado the guy, but he can make it very dangerous for Hamilton to pass. If there's an incident, he has to hope that it ends up in his favour, and it's kind of to his detriment that Abu Dhabi has miles of tarmac runoff so that Hamilton can just bail off to the side of any move that is getting too risky. A side benefit of all this is that it will slow them down and back them up into the cars behind.

If Hamilton shows that he's not going to pass and he's just going to sit behind Rosberg, then I figure Rosberg's best chance is to try and back him up. Keep him in dirty air so that his tyres are suffering, and try and push him back into the pack where other people can try and bring the fight to him. Hamilton then gets the option of either staying behind Rosberg and risking combat with Williams or whoever is in third, or pushing for a pass in which case Rosberg can revert to plan A.

None of which gives Rosberg a particularly good chance of coming out with the championship, but the man has to do whatever he can at this point. I hope to see the best race of the season.
 
I think Rosberg can back the pack up like a Trulli train but Lewis has shown some good overtakes so that might play into Hamilton's hands.

If Rosberg pushes hard he could run wide and hand it to Lewis.
 
Don't all the cars get scrutinised? If so, then I presume the RBR was only one to fail the flex test. What's his problem?
 
axletramp
Don't all the cars get scrutinised? If so, then I presume the RBR was only one to fail the flex test. What's his problem?
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Technically they didn't fail the flex test as you're probably thinking of it. They got pinged for the flaps being designed to move under load. The actual main plane of the wing passed the deflection test as far as I know.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/116907

I wouldn't be surprised if most teams are doing this, but then most teams are probably bright enough to know that whatever solution is used has to appear to be a byproduct of the construction of the wing rather than a designed feature. You can't stop wings from flexing, but you can stop teams from including elements specifically designed to flex, or that appear to be so.

It would appear that Red Bull fell on the wrong side of that line.
 
prisonermonkeys
"But everyone else is doing it!" seems to be the crux of Red Bull's argument.
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The obvious retort is "well, everyone else is smart enough to do it in a way that they don't get caught". :)
 
I was hoping that I would be able to hold out long enough for the race, but then I realised that it starts at midnight and I have class in the morning.

Probably for the best. I have no interest in watching a championship settled by who has the most Twitter followers. I'm still hoping Rosberg can win it, but I'm resigned to the fact that tomorrow morning Hamilton is likely to be champion.
 
Apologies for the blur but just so we know where we are, it's been a crushing season for Mercedes-Benz.

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More dominant than 1988. 11 1-2s to 10, both on 15 wins, 5 retirements against 3 retirements and a DSQ, 12 2nd places to 10, 2 3rd places and a 4th against 1 4th a 6th and a 10th.
 
There were only 16 races in 1988 and not 20 though.
 
If RBR have a problem with their front wing, what about McLaren, since their new front wing is identical?
 
Imari
Rosberg is already hoping for luck to win the championship. When forced to choose between a certain loss (Lewis passes into the lead) and a one in a thousand chance (an accident that favours Rosberg and leaves him undamaged enough to win), he'll take the one in a thousand chance. And he'll be planning all these situations before the race, if he knows what's good for him.
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It's too big a risk to take for such a minuscule chance that it will work out. There's a much bigger possibility that Lewis will experience technical issues with his car during the race, and be forced into retirement. That is the chance Nico will be relying on!
 
Sebastian vettels drive from pit lane in 2012 was praised by many people
Lets see how big balls he got with the 3rd fastest car on the grid
 
Iceman220
Sebastian vettels drive from pit lane in 2012 was praised by many people
Lets see how big balls he got with the 3rd fastest car on the grid
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It's still quicker than the seven other cars on the track, so chances are he'll still make mincemeat of a good portion of the field...

So it will be interesting to see what Ricciardo will make of them! :lol:
 
Ricciardo is starting behind Vettel too so we'll see how he deals with him.

Also a little bonus.

Martin Brundle has been discussing the title fight with Mercedes’ Niki Lauda:

What would you do if you were Lewis Hamilton today?
“I spoke with him this morning and I told to watch out as to win the championship with a 17 point lead is more difficult than fighting from the back. So watch out, your enemy is not Nico.”

Do you think he has the mind-set to do that? He keeps talking about winning the race and driving the car like crazy?
“You are right. The mind-set is there, but I think he understands what it is all about. I am very happy with the way he came out of his negative practice to because to lose four tenths yesterday is a disaster, but it is absolutely neutralised. I think with the right passage he will make it.”

Nico Rosberg – how should he approach this afternoon?
“He will go flat out because he has to win the race, nothing else he can do.”

Any thought of him trying to back Lewis into the pack?
“No that won’t work because Lewis will pass him.”
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Another bonus.

Lewis Hamilton, speaking to Sky F1, on what will be going through his mind if he trails Nico Rosberg through the first corners:

"If I'm behind, I'm going to be wanting to win the race. I know how to get by because I've done it many times to him."
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