I'm not sure if there's been any confessions yet, but it might have just been a coincidence that they clashed...
ITV called it before the race started. It was theoretically the easiest way for Lucas to win, given the lack of overtaking spots at London and the pace advantage of the Renault that's impossible to overcome.
The team did not look pleased meaning they weren't in on it.
Well, in on it or not, you wouldn't dare to be seen taking delight in one of your cars taking a title rival off the track - that's how you immediately lose sponsors and fans. The calmness with which e.dams dealt with the crash, particularly Buemi's radio, indicates at least they'd pre-planned for such a situation.
And I think it might have been Di Grassi being a bit too aggressive trying to get by Prost and not realizing Buemi was right there..
I know you're a big Di Grassi fan so you're probably going to defend the move more than most, but that's a ludicrous thought. You think a professional racing driver who's literally centimetres off the back of his only championship rival forgets he's there? He was only racing Buemi. There was only one aim in that race - get ahead of Buemi by any means.
I came to the same realisation Alex Brundle did post-race, and it was the way Di Grassi positioned his car going into turn one:
There's easily a car's width on the outside, if he really was trying to avoid him as he claimed then that's the only logical option towards the escape road. He could still have hit him from the right hand side though, but you can see how far he's moving to the left - he's not taking any kind of racing line. If he did hit him straight in the rear, it probably would've spun Buemi backwards to the left, and Di Grassi would've been the loser in the incident. By going for the left hand side, he was aiming to crash in such a way that made it look like a botched overtake - not only that, aiming straight for the wishbone (which he managed to bend, if Buemi hadn't backed off I really think it would've been a DNF) meant that he had the best possible shot at taking Buemi out the race. It was a very calculated move - you could see Abt were being reactive instead of proactive when it got to the fastest laps because in their "both cars collide" scenario, they'd most likely expected both cars to have gone out on the spot, handing Lucas the championship.
It was deliberate, but subtly so. Di Grassi had a very good idea of what he wanted to do and he went for it, but ultimately it didn't work as intended.
