Where does Nico Rosberg go from here?

[Nitrodaze]

And if the Pit crew had a problem changing the tyres on Rosbergs car and been 12 seconds and not 2.8 or so Lewis would still have won pit stop or not.Not long ago Mercedes pitted Lewis when he was supposed to have time for an unplanned pit stop.Hamilton pits,and Rosberg passes,Hamilton says to the team I have just lost the race havnt I .They had to admit their mistake lost him the race

Just a point to notice, for Hamilton's stop, his new tyres were out of the heating covers for 2 laps as they discussed if he should come in for tyres. When did come in for the pit stop, the tyres had got quite cold to cost him a further net 2 seconds lose of time to Rosberg. His 2.5 sec gap before the pitstop became over 4 seconds.
Hence, so can see why the pitstop was a bother for Hamilton.

[The Black Knight]

I guess it's why stewarding decisions can be so difficult .
There are always two sides .

Again , it was a great vid to illustrate that , to be sure .
I can certainly see your point .


It's close ones like that which may help us be able to get to the bottom of this .
It comes down to that space thing again .

If you're really there first , then you should be able to take it , but if you know that there's car car in close proximity you should leave yourself enough grip to at least be able to give the other guy room if he gets there with you .
If you slide through on the attempt , like Dan did at first , when he was fully inside , then it's fair game .

But , on the exit , it was Nico who misjudged how close Dan was , and moved into his path too early .

It's that space thing . You need to leave enough . It's what they told Kimi .


Sorry for arguing the point again .
We need not agree .

No need to apologise, all good. I guess it comes down to this point, is a driver entitled in a situation like that to cut across another driver? To me, I think yes they should be able to as they should be entitled to do anything which should not end up in contact to defend their position. In this case, I feel Rosberg had the racing line, he took it and at the time he took it, there was really no way he could have known it would end up in contact. Danny was coming from off the racing line onto it. In that situation, where the driver has the racing line, if an incident occurs, I think fault should like with the driver coming back onto the racing line. I can see your viewpoint however, and it's really a matter of what stance you take. Maybe both are valid points and, if that's the case, it's just a racing incident.

[Big Ben]

The racing line is the track

[Nitrodaze]

The racing line is the track

mmmm, the racing line is the optimum path on the track that gives the fastest lap time. It may be partly off the track limits.

[Bagwan]

No need to apologise, all good. I guess it comes down to this point, is a driver entitled in a situation like that to cut across another driver? To me, I think yes they should be able to as they should be entitled to do anything which should not end up in contact to defend their position. In this case, I feel Rosberg had the racing line, he took it and at the time he took it, there was really no way he could have known it would end up in contact. Danny was coming from off the racing line onto it. In that situation, where the driver has the racing line, if an incident occurs, I think fault should like with the driver coming back onto the racing line. I can see your viewpoint however, and it's really a matter of what stance you take. Maybe both are valid points and, if that's the case, it's just a racing incident.

Both points are valid , but there needs to be a definitive rule that covers even ones as close as this .

And , I believe there already is .
If you look at the Kimi/Valterri cases , all and sundry called kimi an idiot(except Mia , of course) , and that was because he knew he was there and that Bottas was on the curbing already , unable to give more room .

I don't think I ever read any comments that criticized Bottas for not lifting to avoid either contact , and the second contact had Kimi climbing over his front wheel , so it shows that Kimi was ahead .

So , given that the first one had Kimi chastised for not giving space , and the second one didn't have Bottas penalized , it gives us two consistent rulings which both seem to say you need to leave space .

In neither incident was Bottas expected to lift , though , and it might have saved him a collision both times .
Same logic should apply to your example , I think .

[Nitrodaze]

I don't think I ever read any comments that criticized Bottas for not lifting to avoid either contact , and the second contact had Kimi climbing over his front wheel , so it shows that Kimi was ahead .

Bottas and Kimi were side by side going into the corner, slowing at the apex is more dangerous because whoever is behind would not be expecting Bottas to slow down drastically. They would be expecting both cars to continue though the corner side by side. Kimi could see Bottas was right there next to him, hence trying to move into the racing line; which is occupied by Bottas who was on the inside at the apex, was going to cause a collision. Ferrari would not be very happy with Kimi for the unneccessary DNF, especially since Vettel also crashed out.

I like Kimi but l have to say this was his fault and needs no investigation or clarification.

[jens]

I suppose Hamilton would argue that considering he has nothing to loose it was worth the risk. The constructors championship is won and a 1-2 is not necessarily important. I think Nico needed the win more than Hamilton and Mercedes supported that.

Okay, I see what you mean. However, the point I want to make. Even if teams totally dominate F1 seasons and have long ago secured championships, they prefer to maximize race results till the very end. Ferrari kept securing 1-2s till the end of 2002, likewise Red Bull in 2013. Teams, even if everything is "done", do not want bad PR and do not want to look unprofessional. Yeah, they could have told drivers "do what you want, titles are safe, let's have some fun". But they don't.

Hamilton may have had nothing to lose, but Mercedes felt they didn't want to look unprofessional by barely getting through the last few laps of the race.

[jens]

EDIT: Oh man I shouldn't really post under the influence of a bit of alcohol on me night off. Just scrap this.

Don't worry, other posters, I don't hate you. Peace and goodnight

I don't know, what did you write. But I am sure there have been worse things on the forums! Anyway, all is forgiven!

[Nitrodaze]

Hamilton may have had nothing to lose, but Mercedes felt they didn't want to look unprofessional by barely getting through the last few laps of the race.

Come on buddy, Is Bottas finishing in 3rd place with a very worn tyre unprofessional? Or Perez finishing 8th with a one stop strategy unprofessional? It has nothing to do with it. But l agree with you that a 1st and 2nd place in the driver's championship would make the season complete for Mercedes. And l agree completely that this is the right way to finish the season.

I just wonder if they [Merc] thought that talking to Hamilton about the game plan would not go down well with the World champion. Or they felt it would not be good for Rosberg's esteem to be seen to win a prearranged race. When you look at it from these two perspectives, then you begin to see how hard it is to manage a team with two great drivers.

[jens]

I don't think it was a pre-arranged race. We were on a new circuit for teams and tyre durability was unknown - even during the race teams were unsure which strategy to opt for. I think Mercedes initially hoped to make a 1-stopper, but during the race data showed that it might have been too optimistic. And of course, if the team took the decision during the raec to alter the strategy (due to new data/information, which had emerged) they wanted to treat both drivers equally and bring them in.