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.