Austria 2016

[The Black Knight]

“Nevertheless I was confident I could defend and bring it home, and I had the inside position, strong position, and I went a bit deep into the corner, but that’s fine, you know, I dictate, I’m on the inside.

“Then I was just very surprised that Lewis turned in, that caused a collision.”

So , that's what Nico said about the incident .



This is significant because of his reasoning .
He stated that he dictates his position on track because he was inside .

We have heard Lewis state this position multiple times in the past and I suspect that this is , or was , an accepted position for either driver , at least within the team , itself .
Given that this was only recently demonstrated to have been the position of the stewards when Nico was forced out when outside of a first corner , dropping him down to ninth from 2nd on the grid , which wasn't investigated by the stewards to my knowledge , I guess we should assume this is the case .

I don't agree with forcing another driver off track .

His brakes were sketchy , maybe worse than he knew , but in the heat of the moment , it's hard to blame him too much from there , with Lewis coming in hot to the left , any driver would be tempted to stay of the whoa pedal .
But the other side of that is that he knew they were rough , so maybe should have accepted his car was crippled , and taken a respectable second . There's an easy argument there , but , for sure , he would have been pilloried if he didn't put up a fight .


So , not that I agree with the tactic , but if holding a guy outside is acceptable , then the lack of turn in for Rosberg that has been pointed at as the main point of guilt , is an acceptable tactic .
Understeer was the reasoning given in the first corner that I mentioned earlier , that had Nico off , apparently acceptably .

This time , no brakes certainly inducing rather severe understeer were rather obvious , then restated multiple times by his team .
They also stated that they were not able to tell him just how bad they were , so , a bit shocking for the driver , given it was stated that the brake-by-wire went out only on the straight before .


Looking also at how late Nico waits to turn , we see it only after Lewis does so .
In effect , Nico is right that Lewis turned into him .

Lewis said he had Nico in his blind spot , so couldn't see him when he turned in .
I guess that's ok , but he had to have known he was there , and he must have been expecting to have Nico leave space for him on the outside .
So , that's fair , but inconsistent with his feelings in many cases in earlier races .




To get to the heart of it , no , I don't like what Nico did .
It doesn't seem consistent with the rules about leaving room .
It will be interesting what the stewards say about it .


On another topic , Nico was criticized for not letting Lewis back on track .
But the rules state the driver re-entering must do so safely , so in reality , almost a foul on Lewis .

On another , Nico's driving with a broken front end , he stayed out of the way of drivers who were clearly faster , and would not have been able to see most of the damage , only feel it from within the cockpit . Given he made it around without affecting the results too much with strewn CF , especially with the yellows , should let him off , but , who knows ? Maybe they need to give him a reprimand to even it up a little .
It wouldn't surprise me .


I hope I didn't disappoint anyone here with my assessments .

I was waiting your reasoning. I knew it'd be bananas and you'd attempt to exonerate Rosberg in some way somehow. But it was good to see that even you couldn't find a way to blame Hamilton despite clearly trying very desperately to do so.

At the end of the day it boils down to this: Lewis left bags and bags of room, he had to turn in at some point and left it as late as he could. It was amateur from Rosberg and 100%, once again, his fault as it was in Spain, Belgium and Monaco.

Nico is an amazing driver, one of the quickest ever in the sport, in my opinion. It's a shame he resorts to these antics as that will ultimately what he will be remembered for opposed to the amazing talent he displays week in week out on track. It is his biggest weakness. And there is no need for it either as has it within him to beat Hamilton over the course of a weekend and then he goes along and does something like this. A real pity he does these kind of thing continuously.