2015 Mexico GP

[Nitrodaze]

Why would it have been dirty? Because he would have taken the initiative and not blindly followed the team like he did in Monaco? I'm disappointed he didn't ignore the team orders. If he felt the tires were good enough to the end of the race then he should have continued on, imo. There was no safety concern with those tires either, that was just BS by the team.

I think Hamilton did the right thing conforming to the teams instruction to pit. This is a race he did not have to win and a bit of good will and team play is good for the future. But it was definitely a race that Rosberg had to win to take full advantage of Vettel's DNF. All in all, it was great how it turned out. And very good for Rosberg's confidence; that he could win races if he applied himself.

The BBC commentators found the call to Hamilton to pit abit suspect. If we look at how Bottas was able to do 50 laps on the same tyre and still had the pace to fight his way up to a podium position, then it gives some cause to question the Mercedes insistence to override Hamilton's decision to not pit when asked to. Especially when Hamilton is stating that his tyres are fine.

Which ever way you look at it, l think it was necessary that Rosberg win the Mexico Grand Prix to ensure his 2nd place in the championship was relatively more secure than it was at Austin. Hence, even if Hamilton could have won the race, l would have expected him to give it to Rosberg. Now this is a hard thing to ask a hardened racer like Hamilton or Vettel [if you remember his move on Webber in similar circumstances]. If anything, it shows that Hamilton is more compliant than Vettel, as Hamilton could have easily ignored the team and took the victory, which was very much on the cards. He had track position and the tyres to do so.

It would be great if this sort of thing do not happen in situations where the instructed party have something to lose from such a call in the future. Merc has been very fair and simply the most exemplary team in the history of F1, in my humble opinion. Very few front end teams operate an even handed policy that lets their drivers race themselves without hinderance or favouring one driver over the other. The old Nos 1 and Nos 2 setup is fading from F1 as a result of Mercedes. We see in other teams that typically operate the old model adopting the Mercedes style which has allowed Kyvat to take the fight to Ricciado and Bottas to emerge from the shadow of a more experienced Massa.

The Mercedes era is a beautiful one from this perspective in my opinion.