Has Hamilton fallen out of favour with Mercedes?

[Nitrodaze]

Watching the Mercedes team dynamics in the races that transpired this season, it seemed to me that the chemistry of the team seemed off. A bit manufactured and fake. The all is well over here facade did not hold up a couple of times in recent races. And Mercedes star driver is looking increasingly outside the favour of the team. I am sure this statement would pique your concern or interest . But let us take a look at a few things:-

The first observation is the swapping of the engineers. Has it made the slightest bit of different to a healthy chemistry within the team? The engineers who were on the losing side last year are on the losing side this year. Hamilton who has given up his engineers and has embraced the willingness to go along with the experiment; having faced the number of problems he has faced so far is bound to be thinking he got the bum end of the stick on this one.

The reaction of key members of the Mercedes racing team to the incident at Spielberg, was quite revealing and the paddock would not miss that fact. There was a clear reluctance to apportion any blame to Rosberg for what was clearly a calculated attempt to cause a collision. If anything is clear by the Austrian GP, it is that hostility has taken hold in the internal competition between the Mercedes drivers. At least enough for one Mercedes driver in particular to consider it an option to take the other Mercedes car out if it was in his interest to do so.


The team principal was keen to make his feeling known that the situation was unacceptable. Talks of team orders was quickly brought to the fore. Sanitized racing that secured Mercedes one two was highlighted as the preference of the future. We saw the Mercedes team orders in 2015, it was boring and it compromised the driver's ability to take the race to his teammate who he must beat first to be able to beat the rest of the grid. The epicenter of the drivers championship fight of 2016 is in the Mercedes garage. The front runners of the championship fight is firstly between Rosberg and Hamilton. To impose team orders; especially at this stage of the season and the way the points are poised at this stage of the fight, would be tantamount to Mercedes seeking to control the outcome of the driver championship.

It would raise controversy that would be equivalent to their drivers crashing into each other at races. The net gain is zero.

Let us look at the trend so far this year. Rosberg wins when Hamilton is not competing at the front to challenge him. Both Mercedes cars collides when Hamilton competitively challenges Rosberg. If we say Spain was a 50:50 fault of both drivers, the stewards at Austria saw it as a 100% Rosberg fault. But many also say that Hamilton in the past has been quite aggressive in his maneuvers on Rosberg and this is a tit for tat situation.

Whichever way you look at it, Mercedes cannot afford to lose one or both cars to ill conceived maneuvers that result in costly damage and loss of otherwise assured points. Clearly, team orders is not the answer and the drivers are not showing the level of discretion that is in the interest of the team securing the maximum points possible on the race weekend. What is Mercedes' option going forward? At the back of most peoples mind is the question, is Mercedes trying to secure the driver's title for Rosberg? It is clear from the the evidence that Rosberg seem too brittle to do it on his own.

Ok what l mean by that is, Rosberg do not seem to play the percentage game. Finishing second in Spielberg would have ensured that he lost the minimum number of points possible and still be comfortably ahead in the points. Instead, in a red mist moment, he clunks into Hamilton, losing two further places in the process and losing more points than was necessary. Hence it would seem that Rosberg needs help to win the WDC. Hamilton on the other hand would win it against the odds if given a reliable car and a fair whack at it.

[AndyL]

Re the swapping of the engineers, it's not correct to say that those who were on the losing side last year are on the losing side this year. They didn't swap the entire teams, they mixed them up. So of those who were on the losing side last year, some are on the losing side and some are on the winning side this year.

If Mercedes want to prevent this sort of thing then surely team orders are the answer, from their point of view.

If Mercedes are trying to engineer a Rosberg victory, why did they give Hamilton the chance to undercut Rosberg in the second round of pit stops yesterday? Normally, the leading driver (Rosberg) would get to pit first. But they pitted Hamilton first, to even out the fact that they'd also pitted the "wrong" way round, for strategy reasons, in the first pit stops. It looks to me like Mercedes are bending over backwards to be as even-handed as possible in the treatment of their two drivers, as they have always done.

[The Black Knight]

Re the swapping of the engineers, it's not correct to say that those who were on the losing side last year are on the losing side this year. They didn't swap the entire teams, they mixed them up. So of those who were on the losing side last year, some are on the losing side and some are on the winning side this year.

If Mercedes want to prevent this sort of thing then surely team orders are the answer, from their point of view.

If Mercedes are trying to engineer a Rosberg victory, why did they give Hamilton the chance to undercut Rosberg in the second round of pit stops yesterday? Normally, the leading driver (Rosberg) would get to pit first. But they pitted Hamilton first, to even out the fact that they'd also pitted the "wrong" way round, for strategy reasons, in the first pit stops. It looks to me like Mercedes are bending over backwards to be as even-handed as possible in the treatment of their two drivers, as they have always done.

Well, that undercut was never going to work because the tires took so long to fire up. Even I knew this at the time so I'm sure Mercedes did also. While it may have been a nice looking gesture on their part from the outside, it didn't really mean much. To really address this they'd have had to left Rosberg out a couple of laps longer and not brought him in the next lap.

Saying that, I don't think there was anything untoward going on here. They were going for a one stop, which originally appeared to be the correct thing to do. It was just that it turned out that with the way the race unfolded, the two stop was the ultimate strategy. It's racing and shit like that happens sometimes.

[Mia 01]

Lewis in any team, the first and most important people in the World running your team?

[Koz]

Why is Lauda airing dirty laundry??
http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/n...-16070501.html

[truefan72]

Why is Lauda airing dirty laundry??
http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/n...-16070501.html

because he is a mad man
and what he calls a "lie" was more PR speak than anything.
If he considers that a lie, i wonder what he makes of wolff, and lowe when they consistently tried to obfuscate and pr speak their way out of obvious calamities
As to liars, he need on ly look at Hamilton's teammate for a series of blatant lies , because Rosberg is a smart guy and not dumb enough to believe half the stuff he says in regards to incidents.
Where was Lauda when Rosberg with a straight face looked into the camera's and said "he turned into me!"
Now that is a lie, supported by video evidence and logic.
But instead he calls Hamilton a liar for trying to diffuse a tense situation and taking the high road?
go figure

[Bagwan]

Hamilton did turn into him , but as Nico had disappeared from his vision , and was at the edge of the track , he had every right to do so .

[dj_bytedisaster]

Here's an exact Transcript of Lauda's interview. The translations in Englisch speking media are all of questionable veracity:

Situation. “Sport&Talk” in Red Bull owned Servus-TV’s “Hangar 7”. A table for four, on one side Swiss commentator Roger Benoit next to Nicki Lauda, on the opposite side, the Moderator next to Red Bull’s Dr. Marko.

R. Benoit (complaining about lack of spark in F1): This concerns Mercedes, now. The fans, you know, they all have their favourites, Verstappen, Ricciardo or whoever is toiling about out there. Hamilton-Rosberg, (exasperated hand gesture), now Hamilton, of all the things he could do, even starts acting as a conciliator.

Annotation: The German original says: “Jetzt holt der Hamilton auch noch den Weichspüler raus.”, which literally translates to: “And now, of all the things, Hamilton unpacks the fabric softener”

Using or fetching the fabric softener is a common German euphemism for either whitewashing or suddenly abandoning hostilities and switch to a concilliatory approach.

R Benoit: (puts his arm around Lauda, overacting sarcastically): “Rosberg, in reality he’s my friend, and things between us become better and better, and all that. Well, in that case it’s over. It’s like two boxers coming to the ring, arm in arm.”

Lauda interrupts Benoit: “He lied. It’s as simple as that”

Annotation: In German Lauda says: “Der hat gelogen.”

He refers to Lewis by a generic article only which is (in formal German) considered rude, however in southern Germany and Austria, it is quite common to talk like that.

Lauda: “The conciliator act was just so he so he had something to say again. But when those two start driving, he will try anything, and it become worse and worse the longer Rosberg is ahead of him.”

All four guest start talking over each other, until Benoit yells the loudest and asks: “But the whole world says they are friends again.”

Lauda and Marko (in unison): “Hello? It’s all show, pure show!”

R.Benoit: “Well, then I want to know: Why did he destroy his room in Baku?”

Annotation: It should be noted that Benoit used the verb ‘zertrümmern’, which doesn’t mean causing damage. It explicitely means significant or total destruction.

Lauda: “I was there, you know.”

Benoit: “So why?”

Lauda (laughs): “Because he drove into the wall.”

Benoit: “And who pay for the damage?”

Lauda: “He [of course]. You can rely on that. (laughs about Benoits naivete) To me he said, I’m not allowed to come in because he’s going to bash in everything. (shrugs) That’s what he did.”

Benoit wants to launch into an interpretation of the scene, but Lauda interrupts him and pats his arm. “The conciliatory act was just a bullshit story.”

(video ends)

original video (may be geolocked to Austria)

http://www.servustv.com/at/Medien/Me...uemmert-Zimmer

[Zico]

Anyone else think that Lewis is also of the opinion that his team are conspiring against him?

Some of his comments after the race seemed to hint at that... for me anyway.


I think that deep down the Merc top brass would love to have a German/Austrian WDC and I can understand that. I think I'd rather wait to see how this season pans out before saying any more though.

[dj_bytedisaster]

I think that deep down the Merc top brass would love to have a German/Austrian WDC and I can understand that. I think I'd rather wait to see how this season pans out before saying any more though.

Does have nothing to do with that. Nico isn't very popular in Germany, so no PR value. If they wanted to make the most of a German WDC, they would have ditched either Lewis or Nico for Wehrlein, who is very popular, especially among woman folk.

The striking thing is, that Lauda personally got Lewis to Mercedes and was his biggest team-internal champion since day one, up to the point that, being a comercially rated pilot, he personally piloted Lewis's private jet (for instance after China '14). Sometime between Austin '15 and the start of this season there must have been massive fall-out between lewis and Lauda, because this year he's turned into Lewis's most vocal critic.