Apparently Jackie Stewart thinks it was deliberate.

Not locking up is good driving, not bad, and with that escape road you'd probably lose more time trying to make the corner than backing out early and going straight on.

Lewis was faster all weekend, and it's a bit of a shame in a way we didn't get to see a proper overtake, but it was inevitable that he was going to get past Rosberg.

I thought the star of the race was probably Perez - great racing with Button in particular. Which brings up the question: what's happened to Hulkenberg? He's been nowhere for a while now.

 

I agree on the not locking up bit as in a 1 stop race, flat spotting a tyre is a bit silly. But everyone else seemed to manage it and just ended up missing the apex with a slight lock, so either Rosberg missed his braking my miles or he manufactured it. If he missed his braking zone by that much, it does make him look rather silly.

For his reputations sake, I hope he was 'encouraged' to do something like this, otherwise it does make him look rather average in a fast car. Like I said, any of the top 10 would be winning races in that Merc.

 

Agree about the racing - Riccardo and Perez were superb, Button I think we are seeing the last of - but looking at the Mercedes team's Drivergate from the corporate point of view: We have Rosberg with a signed contract and he is solid and dependable, only seems to make the odd mistake ;-). Hamilton is excitable popular clearly the better racer but is a bigger risk, too often finding a new way to make it difficult or too unlucky with his mechanical failures. Rosberg has had only one out-and-out mechanical failure, his gearbox at the British GP - Hamilton has now had four. I exclude the Austrian where they both had brake problems (but Rosberg was not so badly affected and won) and the various self-inflicted incidents. We can't know about the Rosberg driving straight at the chicane (twice) or doing something similar at Monaco in the final seconds of qualifying, all we can do is speculate. After the Spa contact we can safely assume they have both been 'put on notice' by Mercedes.

Given that any of ten drivers would win in that car, it is not surprising that the Mercedes bosses are taking the 'wait and see' approach to keeping Hamilton and, reportedly, are talking a contract that is not so different from Rosberg. They are sanguine about Hamilton deciding to leave: they can simply take on a junior driver as second string to Rosberg and for a lot less money.

Assuming STRONG team orders are now in place it will be interesting to see if Rosberg hangs on to win the drivers' championship. Regardless of that, I can see Hamilton going back to Maclaren and the Honda engine, as the Williams seats are taken. It will take time and he's not getting any younger, but his switch to Mercedes worked (well, nearly!) when everyone said it was a real gamble.

Interesting that Williams have two rival drivers who raced but there is a big difference in Massa, the father figure to Bottas the young. Similar situation at Red Bull too. Rosberg and Hamilton are too close in age/experience and the car is too much better than all the others, as was Red Bull when their drivers fought foul - Webber versus a German

 

Anyone notice the chink of Champaign bottles between Rosberg and Hamilton on the podium?

 

using Google translate I got;

"well done mate, but you didn't have to do it twice you numpty, now everyone will think you did it on purpose..."

 

Why would Rosberg choose that way to drop the place if it was deliberate?
- It would muck up his tyres going through a dirty part of the track
- There are additional risks of debris on other areas of the track
- More difficult to control how much time you lose
- Makes you look a numpty for making a mistake

Better to have a "technical glitch" that is resolved by a different engine mode (nudge-nudge, wink-wink)or fluff a few seconds in a pit stop
- Tyres stay better
- Less risk to the car
- You can control exactly how much time you lose
- You don't look a numpty

Quite an interesting comment I heard from Trundle in the Sky commentry too.
Hamilton has a very fuel efficient style of driving and was using a lot less fuel than Rosberg. That despite the fact he is pretty much the most aggresive driver out there. Seems mostly down to he carrys huge amounts of speed through the apex relative to a lot of drivers

Heard this morning Kvyatt drove the last few laps with no brakes......now that take cajones

 

Have you been reading Motorsport? Because there was a feature on Hamilton where they said exactly that.

I noticed the fuel usage in the race again showed Hamilton had used less than Rosberg, but interestingly the lowest usage was by Bottas. And that's with Bottas having to fight through the field which you'd expect to use more fuel.

Also there was a max speed graphic that showed fastest through the speed trap was Ricciardo - not really what you'd expect of a Renault engined Red Bull.

 

Rosberg was surprisingly cheerful on the podium, considering he'd lost.

Also I couldn't help feeling that speaking Italian (and knowing Massa could too) was a bit of a ploy to make Hamilton look like a bit of an uneducated oaf ;-) Rosberg spoke French to the crowd in Canada too, whilst alongside Hamilton...

 

If Rosberg was under any kind of instruction to let Hamilton overtake him if the situation arose, i'm sure that he would have done it in a blatant manner and then clung on to the back of Hamilton's car like a limpet to make the point that he could have gone quicker if he'd wanted to.

Rosberg has been prone to making mistakes like this in the past and i'm sure that Hamilton won through merit, not Rosberg's instructions or charity.

On another note, I've been a long term supporter of Button and will be disappointed if he's not in the McLaren next year. Unfortunately, if Hamilton, Alonso or Vettel are available then i'm sure that McLaren will want them in the car long term instead of Button who is starting to get long in the tooth in the F1 world.

 

The commentators on the BBC footage commented on that and said that if you had a faster car you'd tend to use less fuel if you were being held up by someone else because you'd be at full throttle for less time and using the energy recovery system more than if you had a clear track in front of you. I guess the tow on the straights helps with that too.