Rosberg lost it by not getting past the torro rosso.

 

Superb race from start to finish, and Hamilton did exactly the right thing not allowing Rosberg passed, now he just has to learn to live with it, but it sends a proper message that he wants to win the title and he won't be a pushover ... Rosberg was never close enough to be requesting the pass through anyway.

 

I don't think he got within a second of Hamilton. Nobody could have reasonably expected Hamilton to move over; he'd have lost about 2 seconds to Alonso not to mention that he'd probably have ended up being beaten by Rosberg. I can't imagine the more senior members of the team will have a problem with it. This was the fourth time for team orders in 2014: once by Williams, which everybody was up in arms about. Twice when Red Bull asked Vettel to move over for Ricciardo, which strangely nobody minded at all, and now we have Mercedes doing it, which is probably far worse as team orders from Mercedes could well decide the championship.

Another uneventful predictable F1 race.

 

Absolutely nothing I should expect.

Hamilton didn't disobey an order, he was told to let Rosberg past and he said "if he catches me I will" but he never caught him, so either Nico wasn't faster and it would make no sense to let him past, or Nico was trying to play a clever game of making Hamilton give up more time than he needed to allowing the switch to hurt his championship position. In either case Hamilton wasn't even driving defensively and was going at a pace to protect his tyres. All Rosberg needed to do was use DRS to get on his gearbox and then Hamilton would have opened the door, but he couldn't.

Merc will still take the constructors and ultimately Hamilton is fighting Rosberg, no one would expect him to just give points away to someone who can't take them, not after all the points the team have lost him through reliability issues.

Yesterday when the fire started I said "that's it, Rosberg has won the championship". But that was an unbelievable recovery. The pass on Vergne has to be the pass of the season. When I saw his tyres dip off the track I winced and waited for the accident.

Rosberg deserves some respect though. Not throwing away championship points going for podium glory. He had the luxury that Hamilton didn't of not taking risks on passes because ultimately he is still ahead thanks to the small gap in points awarded between positions 2-5.

As power circuits Spa and Monza should be a return to form for Mercedes with the Williams low drag high speed car the biggest threat and save for any more upsets should see Hamilton back in the lead ready for the Redbull resurgence in the final leg of the season.

 

Rosberg was just inside a second occasionally but not solidly or consistently. He was just too far back. That said the Hungaroring doesn't lend itself to letting cars get much closer without punishing their tyres and Rosberg seems too mechanically sensitive for that.

Interestingly enough was the interview with Charlie whiting about DRS calculations and that they need 700 metres to make it work and be within 0.3s.

 

Yeah I saw that section and it doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. That level of accuracy for the DRS can surely only be achieved by team mates with the same setup?

I mean a Redbull VS a Williams for example with the speed differentials wouldn't see the same effect as vice versa with the same distance of DRS.

For me DRS was a success in this race because it didn't seem to allow many, if any passes. Most of the passes we did see were down to drivers on new tyres charging against drivers on old tyres such as Ricciardo taking the lead or just the inherent gulf in pace of cars such as Hamilton on Vergne.

 

Rosberg couldn't get past verne...but Hamilton breezed past.

 

Dull as ditchwater this new format F1, bring back the screaming v8's!

 

the conspiracy theorists (me) are banging the drum again... and it seems Hamilton and Coulthard have 'concerns' that someone is spannering in the garage with an agenda.

I think Merc need to be really careful and it's getting a bit obvious now. I wander if they could explain why Hamiltons pit stops take circa 1 second (if not more) longer than Rosbergs on average? I'd like to see the stats throughout the season so far and see how many seconds Hamilton has left in the pits when the same guys do the same job time and time again to both cars, but seemingly can't achieve the same times for both drivers (averages should even this out).

I am a Hamilton fan, I also agree he does whinge a little too much for my liking, but I can't help but feel a little sorry for him as I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, an ex merc mechanic squeels and tells of foul play behind the scenes.

Rosberg will still win the championship as I fear Hamilton has more reliability issues to come.

The big red 'Destroy Engine' button on Hamiltons pit wall clearly didn't work in the race this weekend, only in qualifying.

 

I really struggle with these conspiracy stories - why the heck would Mercedes pay Hamilton a huge salary, and certainly more than Rosberg, only to sabotage his effort in quali and race.

Just make no sense whatsoever to me.