Originally Posted by
Doc Austin
It sure did look suspicious.
However, perhaps Nico swerved too hard to miss the hump and got himself into a tank slapper right as he approached the braking zone. The cars are always dodging to the right to miss the hump and it's not inconceivable that Nico just swerved too hard and upset the car's balance. It did look like the car was yawing back and forth a bit.
Then again, he made no mention of that in his excuse, so it certainly looks like he did it on purpose. I've never seen him do anything overtly dirty on the track, so I am willing to take his word for it, at least for now.
Having said that, none of us really knows what Rosberg was thinking.
Everyone needs to be really careful here. There is a lot more at stake here than a simple, solitary pole position.
First, Nico and Lewis are supposed to be friends, and you don't cheat your friends if you want to keep them. Some of the recent talk (admittedly fueled by the media) suggests that tensions are high between the Nico and Lewis. These two really need to work this out fast.
On top of that, Mercedes stands to lose everything if these two go to open warfare on the track. I would hate to see it, but if this continues, Mercedes might be forced to nominate a lead driver, with the other placed into a support role. There is more than sporting interest here considering Mercedes' euro investment and they could care less which driver wins as long as it's a Mercedes 1, 2.
The Prost/Senna thing was mentioned, but we certainly can't forget how the Villeneuve/Pironi feud finished. Ferrari had that championship in the bag and then ended up losing both drivers before the season was past Hockenheim.
So far the two have raced cleanly, but if Rosberg wants to take the gloves off that could explode everything from the harmony in the team to their friendship. Rosberg needs to be careful not to force this sort of thing because as long as both Mercedes were running, Hamilton had always come out ahead. If you were running the team, who would you think gives you the best chance at the championship?
Personally I am sad to see this sort of thing develop because I like them both. Equally sad is that the worse this gets, the better it will be for F1 because it will create a lot of interest.