Quote Originally Posted by journeyman racer View Post
It's a fair question, but I don't think so. Hamilton is leading by 64pts atm, which is way too big a margin to have made a difference to Vettel. Rosberg wouldn't just be taking points off Hamilton, but Vettel as well. For example Australia, Vettel won due to fortunate circumstances. But you wouldn't think Rosberg would crash in qualifying like Bottas did. SO in that scenario, even if Rosberg qualified behind Hamilton, he'd be getting the benefit of the freebie win instead of Vettel.
The damage to Hamilton would have happened in that period where the Mercedes was lagging behind the Ferrari. Rosberg may have taken enough points from Hamilton at that stage but not from Vettel in a faster Ferrari. I think, enough to cause the eventual gap to be very close or marginally ahead. At least for Vettel to be either slightly ahead or just behind Hamilton to force the fight to the last race.