Whose fault is it?

[Rollo]

So who do you guys think is at fault on this one, Lewis or Nico?

Rupert Murdoch's.
I still won't see any of this race until 09:30pm tonight and even then it will only be an hour of highlights.

[Starter]

Sorry Nitro, but Hamiltons front wheel was never even next to Rosberg's rear wheel, much less past it. His front wing came close to the rear wheel of Nico's car, but he was already off the track beforehand. Both the overhead replay from the helicopter cam and his own incar replay showed that quite well. I guess we have to agree to disagree as we obviously saw two different races.

The photo from the in-car cam in post #17 would seem to indicate otherwise.

[The Black Knight]

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/124...anish-gp-crash

Have a read of that.

Toto Wolff told a packed media briefing: "I think the manoeuvre was fair enough to attempt. The result was unfortunate, but making the manoeuvre and seeing the light [on Rosberg's car] blinking and just going for it was what he should have done.

"And equally you can't blame Nico for closing the door. But the difference of speed just triggered the incident in the end."

Buddy, the overtake was definitely on.

Don't bother showing DJ any links which make sense, Nitro. Unless it's from a German news agency it's all bias, apparently.

To be fair to Sky, I think their reporting was exceptionally unbiased. Crofy, Ted Kravitz, Brundle and Davidson all had differing views on it initially and aired them. Anthony Davidson's post race analysis of the accident is really top notch. I don't agree with him that Rosberg's capacity was maxed out but I do think Rosberg misjudged the situation which happens in racing.

[Rollo]

After looking at this online... 100% Lewis.

He was behind and if you apply the rules of road accidents, he is the following car; therefore could have backed out.

[AndyL]

So the arguments begin... Whose fault is it you ask? Well, if you can be objective then these are the facts:-

1. Hamilton lost the drag race to the first corner. Rosberg overtakes on the outside which shows how Hamilton has taken care to give Nico tons of space to avoid a collision.
2. They come out of the corner in to the short straight to turn two. Nico moves left to cover that side
3. Nico discovers that he wasd in the wrong engine mode and proceeds to correct it quickly before turn two. At this point, Nico was down on power and Hamilton was clearly much faster as he was bearing down on a slower Nico.
4. From Hamiltons perspective, Nico had the left side covered but had the right side open by more than a cars width. Hamilton, seeing the opportunity on the right, decides to overtake. Meanwhile, Nico was fiddling with knobs on the steering.
5. Nico finished just in time to see Hamilton heading for the open right side then turned sharply to cut him off. But his reaction was abit late. Hamilton had to take to the grass to avoid a collision, lost grip on the grass, spun round and crashed into Nico.

So the questions are as follows:-

Would any other driver in the grid in Hamilton's position seeing the opportunity and the clear open door to Nico's right not attempt to go for the overtake?

Did Nico, knowing he was in the incorrect engine mode, hence would be slower than the cars behind him momentarily take the right action to avoid a collision from the faster cars behind him? Hence was his attempt to defend the open right side of him under his circumstance not dangerous? Both drivers walked away from that one, but it could have also easily been a fatal accident for Hamilton.

This is racing, not an effing procession. I think Nico should have left a car's width as Hamilton left for him at turn one. His late move to defend the open right side as a result of correcting being in the wrong engine mode was reckless and unsportmanlike. It is similar to his move on Ricciado that resulted in him having a puncture to the rear when he had the opportunity to take the lead of the championship going into the mid season break in 2014.

In my opinion, the stewards at the race were crap. We wanted to see a fair fight at the front, what we saw today was very sub-standard defensive drive by Rosberg that cost Mercedes easy 43 points. I was quite surprise to hear Lauda who normally is very objective about his opinions blame Hamilton before the analysis of the accident had taken place. Hamilton was abit naive today to quickly accept fault without first waiting to see all the fact of the accident before putting his hand up to accept the fault.

Should we expect accidents to occur each time Rosberg receives challenge from a charging Hamilton? At this rate, Mercedes may hand the drivers title to Redbull or Ferrari [if they get their act together].

It is not respectable to not accept fault when it is clearly yours. Nico caused what could have been a fatal accident by not leaving a cars width. You may argue that he was in front and had the right to defend. Our conversation would haave been very different if Hamilton got killed due to that accident which was clearly very reckless.

I think this is a good analysis. Nico should have left a car's width. I don't really know what Lewis should have done differently. It's true he could have anticipated that the gap he was going for might disappear, and if his goal was to come second in the race he would surely have backed off and not taken the risk. But if you no longer go for a gap that exists...

It's a fine line because if the guy ahead moves across and you hit the back of him, it's going to look like your fault. But if you get partly alongside and he crunches your front wing or pushes you off, it looks like his fault (and indeed the rules say so). The difference between the two is milliseconds. For that reason I don't agree with your conclusion that the stewards should have taken action. In this case Nico was in the wrong by mere milliseconds. I don't think the stewards should be taking action, or certainly nothing more than a slapped wrist anyway, unless the situation is more clear-cut.

[AndyL]

After looking at this online... 100% Lewis.

He was behind and if you apply the rules of road accidents, he is the following car; therefore could have backed out.

Also his car had no tax or MOT and I'm pretty sure he wasn't carrying his red warning triangle.

[zako85]

Lewis was coming so fast that there is no way he could respond to Rosberg's block without losing the control of car. At the same time, I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt to Rosberg because he may not have been able to predict the difference in speed between the two cars, so he couldn't have predicted that Hamilton would have to crash because of Rosberg's move to the right side of the track. It's Rosberg's fault, but not necessarily intentional one. I think it would be nice for the harmony of relations within Mercedes team if Rosberg came clean and apologized for his intentional or unintentional mistake.

[Bagwan]

Something that has been missed , I think , at least by myself , is that the reported speed differential between the cars was actually greatly reduced by the time they were touching because we saw Nico hit the overtake button .

Lewis saw the light flash , understood what it meant , but may not have known that it had been switched back , giving his opponent the grunt to be to the edge of the track before he was .
Easy mistake .

[Rollo]

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena.
Que tu cuerpo es pa’ darle alegría y cosas buenas.
Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena
¡PASTOR MALDONADO! Aaay!


Wait, he's not around any more...

[Bagwan]

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena.
Que tu cuerpo es pa’ darle alegría y cosas buenas.
Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena
¡PASTOR MALDONADO! Aaay!


Wait, he's not around any more...

Whose fault is that ?