2014 Italian Grand Prix

Never mind Nico second is a good place after the shnanigans. Few races for Nico to widen the gap at the top, come on Nico I have faith in you.
All I want him to do is keep a fifteen point gap to Lewis going into the final round at Abu Dhabi. That way he can afford not to fight Lewis, and still take the title by one point. Still that means he's going to have to win a few more races before the final round, so I hope he can hang in there. Rather than let recent events harm his performances.
 
All I want him to do is keep a fifteen point gap to Lewis going into the final round at Abu Dhabi. That way he can afford not to fight Lewis, and still take the title by one point. Still that means he's going to have to win a few more races before the final round, so I hope he can hang in there. Rather than let recent events harm his performances.
Lewis will struggle to take the title unless Rosberg DNFs because if Rosberg is ahead going into Abu Dhabi and starts on the front row he can WDC by turn 1.
 
Lewis will struggle to take the title unless Rosberg DNFs because if Rosberg is ahead going into Abu Dhabi and starts on the front row he can WDC by turn 1.
So basically you're suggesting that Rosberg could take Hamilton out on purpose? Even though what happened at Spa was clearly a racing incident, and nothing more.
 
So basically you're suggesting that Rosberg could take Hamilton out on purpose? Even though what happened at Spa was clearly a racing incident, and nothing more.
He might think to himself that this is his best chance to be a WDC, if he was just ahead going into Abu Dhabi I'm sure he would think about it which isn't an unreasonable thing to suggest when you look back at F1 history.
 
I'm just saying that it will be something any driver would think about, if he was just ahead going into Abu Dhabi I'm sure he would think about it. He might think to himself that this is his best chance to be a WDC.
I was about to say I can't imagine any driver has done, and ever will do such a thing. Then I remembered Suzuka 1990! :ouch: I don't think any of Rosberg's actions this season have been malicious but believe me, if that happens, I will call them into question.
 
I was about to say I can't imagine any driver has done, and ever will do such a thing. Then I remembered Suzuka 1990! :ouch: I don't think any of Rosberg's actions this season have been malicious but believe me, if that happens, I will call them into question.

He doesn't even have to go actively looking to crash Hamilton in that situation though, but he can drive extremely aggressively knowing that Hamilton has to finish the race. All those moments where the drivers give each other room because they both want to make it to the end automatically go to Rosberg, who doesn't care if there's an incident as long as it takes both of them out.

Spa is a perfect example. If that happens in Abu Dhabi with Rosberg ahead on points, he'd be a colossal moron not to do exactly what he did in Spa. It would be all Hamilton's to lose, and there's lots of ways to take advantage of that without being the provocateur. Of course, he could be a little less obvious about it than Senna...
 
He doesn't even have to go actively looking to crash Hamilton in that situation though, but he can drive extremely aggressively knowing that Hamilton has to finish the race. All those moments where the drivers give each other room because they both want to make it to the end automatically go to Rosberg, who doesn't care if there's an incident as long as it takes both of them out.

Spa is a perfect example. If that happens in Abu Dhabi with Rosberg ahead on points, he'd be a colossal moron not to do exactly what he did in Spa. It would be all Hamilton's to lose, and there's lots of ways to take advantage of that without being the provocateur. Of course, he could be a little less obvious about it than Senna...
Quite frankly if Rosberg repeats his Spa antics at any point, I'll be extremely livid at him. While I don't believe he had any malicious intent, what he did in Belgium was monumentally stupid. If he races aggressively with Hamilton in the final round, so be it. I have no problem with that. I just hope he doesn't pull that exact stunt off again.
 
I think that the problem now is, even though all of his incidents could be attributed to simple driver error without malice (more like stubbornness in the Spa incident), he's building a case wherein the stewards may be forced to take action if he creates a situation leading to a crash.

Or maybe not. Steward decisions shouldn't decide the championship... but the fans will be very, very annoyed.

Be interesting to see if he can hold it all together (honestly, all he has to do is drive steadily to win) or if he crumbles. If he wins this year's championship, he'll deserve it. He's pushed himself very hard and has shown Lewis how "hungry" he can be.
 
For those who are thinking Rosberg can just cruise to 2nd in each race and still win the championship, you're wrong. Hamilton is 22 points behind with 6 races to go, there is a 7 point difference between 1st and 2nd in each race(except the last which is 14). If it's a Merc 1-2 and Nico finishes behind Lewis in the next 5 races, Lewis will be leading the championship by 13 points going into the final race. Mercedes have hardly been bulletproof this season and is still way to early to have any idea how it will be, going into the last couple of rounds.
 
For those who are thinking Rosberg can just cruise to 2nd in each race and still win the championship, you're wrong. Hamilton is 22 points behind with 6 races to go, there is a 7 point difference between 1st and 2nd in each race(except the last which is 14). If it's a Merc 1-2 and Nico finishes behind Lewis in the next 5 races, Lewis will be leading the championship by 13 points going into the final race. Mercedes have hardly been bulletproof this season and is still way to early to have any idea how it will be, going into the last couple of rounds.
I never said that. Read my post again carefully. I said that Nico can cruise to second place and win the title in the final round, providing he wins a few more races/beats Lewis on several more occasions, before Abu Dhabi. He needs to maintain at least a fifteen point lead to avoid a tie-breaker situation.
 
Realisticly Rosbergs chances fully depend on Hamiltons Reliability and whether or not Hamilton loses his mind, it's pretty clear that Rosberg isn't as fast.

That being said it looks clear to me Hamiltons side of the garage isn't working as hard because the Reliability record compared to Rosberg is consistently against Hamilton.

In the last 5 races Hamilton had a Reliability issue in 4 of the weekends compared to Rosbergs 1, although that was a retirement.
 
It will be interesting to see how the engine penalties will spice this up, I imagine they will both get one before the end of the season.
 
I think that the problem now is, even though all of his incidents could be attributed to simple driver error without malice (more like stubbornness in the Spa incident), he's building a case wherein the stewards may be forced to take action if he creates a situation leading to a crash.

Or maybe not. Steward decisions shouldn't decide the championship... but the fans will be very, very annoyed.

I think it's interesting to discuss Machiavellian antics in this case... I agree Nico has already had some questionable incidents this season (which I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but...)

Senna at least made the claim of unfair actions (especially, pole starting on dirty side of track) that made him decide on something so blatant as turn 1 at Suzuka 1990 (not to mention evening the score for Suzuka 1989). And of course, by then they were no longer teammates.

Schumi got a DQ from the entire championship for what he attempted to do to JV. Plus at least he had some cause for calling what happened with Damon Hill a "racing incident". And again, neither were teammates.

So, if Nico tries something silly, not only could he fall into disrepute among the fans, but if it's too blatant the stewards would have every right to consider it unsporting and hand out a penalty that effectively gives the WDC to Lewis. If I were Nico I wouldn't want to give the impression that I could only get a WDC in a dominant car while ruining my teammate's race more than once through dirty/questionable tactics. I also hope the stewards consider that sometimes in competition it's possible that drawing a foul still is more beneficial to the one being penalized, and adjust the penalty accordingly so that the advantage is negated.
 
Senna at least made the claim of unfair actions (especially, pole starting on dirty side of track) that made him decide on something so blatant as turn 1 at Suzuka 1990 (not to mention evening the score for Suzuka 1989).
Not to go off topic but there is no case for that what so ever since he started on the same side the year before and said nothing.
 
Yes, but the year before he wasn't on pole, which was the basis of his argument.
Senna was on pole in 89 and 90, he and Berger went to the Japanese stewards and asked for it to be changed and they agreed, only for Balestre to overrule them later that night.
 
Realisticly Rosbergs chances fully depend on Hamiltons Reliability and whether or not Hamilton loses his mind, it's pretty clear that Rosberg isn't as fast.

That being said it looks clear to me Hamiltons side of the garage isn't working as hard because the Reliability record compared to Rosberg is consistently against Hamilton.

In the last 5 races Hamilton had a Reliability issue in 4 of the weekends compared to Rosbergs 1, although that was a retirement.
I agree. On occasions when the track suits him, we've seen Rosberg is able to match Hamilton's speed at least; but never really exceed it. When Lewis is really on form however he seems to have an extra tenth or two over Nico, which of course makes all the difference.

However I think Nico has something over Lewis in that he takes care of his car. I find it hard to believe that Hamilton's poor luck with reliability is down to his engineers, as when it comes to making the car as reliable as possible, there is no two sides of the garage; the whole team works together to solve issues.

Put simply, Lewis has no mechanical sympathy. Even if the wheels were falling off he'd still be pushing to the limit of how quick he could go at that present moment which, while admirable in spirit, is pretty foolish to say the least. This is the reason why not only has he had an unfortunate trend over his career of having suffered more car failures than any of his team mates, he's also been more succesful than them at sticking it in the barriers. He's a driver of amazing ability, but he doesn't understand that exceeding the limit isn't always the best idea.
 
He couldn't do anything about the brake failure in Germany and the fire in Hungary which both came either on warm-up laps or immediately after, I think Hamilton's first mechanical failure was in Abu Dhabi 2009 (nearly 3 complete seasons up to that point) so he hasn't always been suffering from car failures.
 
The latest I can find is prior to Monza, I'm surprised Rosberg and Hamilton have used the same number of components, I think I heard that Mercedes had somehow salvaged components from Hamilton's Hungary fire. Basically anyone on 5 is on the verge of a 10 place grid drop.

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