Head To Head Nico Rosberg vs Lewis Hamilton

For Damon Hill they cited that his son was born in 1995 when he had the mid season slump and Schumacher dominated him

For Mika Hakkinen the slump in form coincided with the birth of his son and he seems to have lost motivation even though he was more determined to win . He was not helped by the practice crash in Australia at the beginning

For Schumacher normally a driver suffering a crash like he did would never recover to previous form. In his case it was a good thing to him because he actually got a lengthy recovery time to spend time at home with his family even playing football in the garden when he was suppose to be recovering from a broken leg so Luca found out. it helped Schumacher that he did not really have serious competition

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I expect Nico's form to tail off
 
I would not call it luck - maybe divine intervention for Schumacher that it happened

I simply don't think Rosberg will be as ruthless as previously because he's got to think about a family
 
Nico Rosberg is a case study in what happens when an intelligent young man knows on an intellectual basis that psychology has value in sport, but is just a little bit too nice to pull it off properly. The result is that in firing brickbats in Hamilton's direction, he ends up out-psyching himself, which is double trouble considering he's not good enough to beat Hamilton on merit.
 
I see Rosberg's challenge faltering because he's not good enough.
There is surely more to it than just that. Yes, Hamilton is the better driver, but this time last year their overall head-to-head results were some of the closest in the history of the sport. Even after the entire 2013 and 2014 seasons it was still 18-18 in qualifying and 17-14 in races to Hamilton (excluding races where either of them had a mechanical DNF). This year alone it is already 10-1 in qualifying and 8-3 in races to Hamilton. Hamilton was always the better driver, but this year it hasn't even been close.
 
Nico Rosberg is a case study in what happens when an intelligent young man knows on an intellectual basis that psychology has value in sport, but is just a little bit too nice to pull it off properly. The result is that in firing brickbats in Hamilton's direction, he ends up out-psyching himself, which is double trouble considering he's not good enough to beat Hamilton on merit.
And this is why you'd have to be daft not to want him as your team-mate. He does all the psych work on himself, so you don't have to do anything but race your race.
 
teabagyokel Nico had the advantage whilst Lewis was still getting himself adjusted at Mercedes just the same as Lewis had whilst Jenson Button was still settling in at Mclaren.

Lewis has now managed to come out stronger and the title has lifted his confidence like what was suppose to happen at Mclaren after 2008 but never materialised

What really knocked back Nico was the incident in Spa last year and given a public roasting which must have hurt followed by a the races after where Lewis was just able to come out on top. Apart from Spain and Austria he has not looked like getting close to Hamilton

the problem you have at Mercedes is that the first driver gets the call on the pitstops and the second driver has to follow soon after in the word of fairness So there is very little window of opportunity for him to do pit stop jumping by putting in quick laps or even consider running a completely different strategy

Would it the races between the two be more exciting if they were given open decision to decide how to run their tyre strategy? Now Prost knew he could not live with Senna's speed and had to make sure he had the car set up for the race. Nico needs to think about that if he were to beat Lewis. Maybe he should take note what Red Bull are doing recently where they've been trying to fit the hard tyre for the middle stint and not lose too much time and then fit the soft tyre where they will super quick
 
Nico has already diverted his attention and resources towards the race and race set up. That is why he is now struggling to keep up with Lewis in qualifying. The Mercedes team race strategy is overseen by a single person and doesn't appear to allow for diversity or even be capable of reacting intelligently to unforeseen events, as evidenced in Malaysia and Hungary this year and countless circuits the previous season.

Were I Nico I would try qualifying and starting the race on the harder tyre, alternatively I would disobey team orders and just dive into the pits before Lewis. Just to pep things up and perhaps force Mercedes to consider a more flexible attitude to the race and race strategy. At the moment Mercedes is obsessed with fairness and a few other totally stunted ideas about what Grand Prix racing is. They need to separate their drivers race strategies and allow their respective race engineers to participate in the duel for the championship. Not only will this benefit the F1 fans but also Mercedes would actually enjoy themselves more. Competition is what drives F1 and when the only competition between two racing drivers is on a Saturday afternoon they don't really have much opportunity for fun.
 
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snowy....Nico diving into the pits before Lewis, could almost guarantee that civil war will ensue, which wouldn't I think go down well with the Mercedes Board.

Your point regarding Mercedes having one person calling strategy for both cars is well taken, and has shown this season and last to hurt fans, from having viewed much more competitive races.
 
snowy I agree it that Mercedes need to let their drivers pick their own race strategies as there is very little opportunity for the second driver to do anything different for first third of the race

it just seems like Nico is over trying and over complicating things at the moment
 
it just seems like Nico is over trying and over complicating things at the moment

Nico doesn't as a rule give the impression of someone who is over complicating things. Clearly he has had to step out of his comfort zone, he doesn't have the natural speed or feel for the edge of his opponent. He has therefore systematically worked on his areas of weakness, what he isn't able to overcome is the fact that Lewis is also addressing his weaknesses. Lewis is a moving target, a very quick moving target. This is perhaps the thing that irritates Nico more than Lewis's nonchalant and tardy attitude to meetings, etc. Lewis keeps pulling rabbits out a hat, Nico can't even see the hat let alone the next trick. Instead of trying to work out where Lewis found his latest leap forward in performance, Nico needs to start producing his own rabbits out a hat tricks.
 
Thing is, Merc don't rerally care about which of their drivers wins the WDC, like LeMans, it's far more important for them, and the sale of their cars to have a nice picture of a 1-2 finish and podium in every race. Having them on strategies that mean it's hard for them to get too close to eachother (even if the driver behind is capable of it) which removes the element of 'will they hit eachother?'.

And without pointing any fingers, the answer is 'maybe', which is no good for the WCC and leaves you with two pissed off drivers, rather than one.

So, Nico needs to stick it on pole and convert that to race wins by controlling the race from the front, as then catching and overtaking him on the second-best strategy is Hamilton's problem, not his.
 
Do we think Lewis holds a little back in practice and even Q1 and Q2?
I'm not sure, but this year he finds a bit extra in Q3 and Nico can do nothing about it.
If he goes too fast too soon Nico can study his data. Only go 100% in Q3 and Nico can't look at his data.

The difference between 2014 qually and 2015 qually is remarkable.
He has changed something.

2014
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2015
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