Mercedes Meltdown - Post Crash Thoughts

[Nitrodaze]

At the start of the 2016 Spanish grandprix, the worst case scenario of a grandprix weekend happened for Mercedes. Hamilton crashed into Rosberg, taking both Mercedes out of the race, in what was the hardest faceup between the two protagonists yet. Like Vettel and Webber did for Redbull some years back.

However, this Mercedes clash has different connotations. Firstly it shows a more robust Rosberg but with a twang of quite scary ruthlessness. This is probably the most startling aspect of the factors that resulted in the crash. The truth at Mercedes is they have crossed into a new realization, one where the racing between their drivers is now raw and ruthless. The glove is off you might say.

But what does this mean going forward. For Hamilton, it means he cannot be complacent anymore. If he want to win his fourth championship, he would need to shapeup and do a better job than he has done so far. For Rosberg, it means he cannot expect to get away with any sloppiness as Hamilton would certainly punish him for it. For Mercedes, the pulse rate just jumped up a couple of beats and would rise further every race weekend. The sort of ruthlessness displayed by Rosberg suggest that we may see a few more of these crashes. Is this a bad thing? For Mercedes, it could hand both or one of the championships to whichever team is doing the next best job. My money is on Redbull at this stage. For the fans, this is great. We get to see a real battle at the front. And if that washes out, we get to see another battle between Redbull and Ferrari emerge. Hopefully, Williams can smell the incredible opportunity and join the battle with Redbull and Ferrari. Now that would be brilliant :-).

Secondly, there is a danger that the Mercedes management may find the strain of the fierceness of their inter-driver rivalry too much to bear and default to their pre-season warning regarding dropping one of their drivers where things put Mercedes 2016 programme in jeopardy. One crash does not yet do that, but the next one would certainly bring about a swift decision. If you are in doubt, then seeing Parscal Wehrlien testing the Mercedes and not the Manor in the first in-season test, is a very clear indication of the mindset in Mercedes. This is a test that require teams to use for their driver programme, using a young driver with less than two F1 GP race experience. Parscal has more than two, which would suggest that a Verstapenn shuffle is about to occur at Mercedes.

Thirdly, Regardless of how you want to see where the blame for the crash lay, a maneuver such as resulted in a crash that could easily have been fatal, and goes without a strong warning at least, sets a worrying precedent. This crash asks the question, where does the limit of culpability lay? There is also the desire not to dampen the racing spirit in the drivers by clamping down on hard racing that unfortunately result in a attacking driver straying off the track. But in situations such as this where a crash results from a misjudged defensive action requires more scrutiny. This may mean, that area of the track is unsafe and needs modification to prevent future recurrence of Hamilton's loss of control due to the grass on the side of that part of the track. It may also mean that the stewards need to emphasize the need for defending driver's to ensure they leave a car's width where it is clear to them that the car attacking has a nose alongside them. I don't think any driver should be discouraged from seizing an opportunity that presents itself. The open space to the right of Rosberg would have invited any seasoned driver on the grid. To say Hamilton should have slowed down seemed unreasonable to me. Besides once he had committed to making that move, slowing down when Rosberg started to close the door would not have prevented that accident from happening. Hamilton's maneuver was not quite like Kimi's crash into Bottas last year. Or like Bottas on Hamilton in China, l think.

For Redbull, Ferrari and a growing number of fans, this is great. The first four races was crap at the front. Rosberg just drove off into the distance in his lonesome, leaving behind the entertainment of the race weekend in the midfield. The absence of a wheel to wheel fight for the driver championship, took away the excitement from the driver championship and placed it in the constructors championship, which was what the battle in the midfield was about. The unchallenged gap at the front in the last four races has created an undercurrent of desire to see a race without the Mercedes at the front at least. Bernie echoed that fact in a pre-race grid interview with Sky's Martin Brundle. Certainly to Bernie's delight along with what became an overwhelming number of fans, a race without the Mercedes was the most exciting race involving two close and hard fighting teams since the duel between Vettel and Alonso. Incidentally Redbull and Ferrari. To make it more sweeter, it produced an historic moment where the youngest driver ever to win a F1 race unfolded to a shell shocked audience still trying to make sense of the Mercedes wipeout.

One thing is also very clear, F1 is in a better place than most like to make out it is. Fairytales like Haas turning up to grid with no previous F1 experience and picking 5th and 6th place finishes in their first year, can happen even in this hard era of F1. Eighteen year old talents like Verstapenn can shine through and win F1 races at the first real opportunity. And there are more talent available than racing seats available. By all account it is looking rosy suddenly. At least until the next race