Head To Head Nico Rosberg vs Lewis Hamilton

[snowy]

snowy you say it's the function of the stewards to penalize. Well, they didn't, they either thought there was nothing wrong or that is was a racing incident.

A massive amount of what the FIA does is nothing at all. They stand idly by while Rome burns, waiting for a complaint from one team or another. Without a complaint from Mercedes against themselves in Bahrain, Hungary and Belgium they are content to act as if nothing is happening. The FIA are a positive force for the abolition of government.

 

[Hamberg]

What was Rosberg specifically doing to make a point? Do we know what specific point or thing he was retaliating to?

Hamilton took that he basically caused the collision
Wolff said Hamilton misinterpreted it

There could be so many reasons behind this but we're taking the word of a man who accused stewards of racial discrimination and tweeted his team mates data. I know that's not a popular thing to say but Lewis has history of jumping to conclusions.

Let's not forget Rosberg has not been best pleased with some of Hamilton's aggressive moves when they are fighting for a position, he was told to hold position behind Hamilton, he was told Hamilton would move over for him last race he didn't, there was some overtaking button pressing against team orders in Bahrain was it?

Perhaps last race was final straw for Rosberg as although he has had bad luck, Hamilton does seem to behave how he pleases and the team allows it. Rightly or wrongly Rosberg may have just been behaving in the same way he thought Hamilton might in that situation, not backing down, thus proving a point.

Why people immediately has to jump to the conclusion that the other driver is evil if it's against Hamilton is depressing. Rosberg history shows he is anything but.. He may have been a twat but he's no Maldonado or Schumacher.

 

[snowy]

I am also going to have to explode the myth Martin Brundle expanded upon after the GP. Whilst I am sure the statistics he quoted from Pirelli are accurate he neglected to mention that if you swipe the side of a tyre with your front wing there is a 90% chance you will make contact with that critical part of the side wall. The chance of making contact with the tread is zero, since you are not ramming the back of the car, and the rim negligible. That critical area is the area that you will almost certainly make contact with unless you just happen to miss the car in front entirely.

They used to do it all the time in CART and Indy Cars and introduced specific legislation and penalties to discourage drivers from doing it!

 

[Wombcat]

Hamberg, I think you're spot on.
Rosberg was probably thinking "Hamilton doesn't back down, why should I?" Although it was the wrong situation to prove that point.

And Hamilton indeed seems to do what he pleases, so Rosberg will do the same from now on. so far as he didn't already. Unless Mercedes Management get a grip on their drivers, but so far they haven't been really succesful in doing that.

 

[Wombcat]

snowy, you have the data that supports that 90%?

 

[snowy]

snowy, you have the data that supports that 90%?

No. There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and Martin's analysis didn't take the direction the contact was coming from into consideration at all. A swiping movement of a front wing creates a whole lot of force over a very narrow but quite a long band. The critical area is almost entirely impossible to avoid contact with unless you happen to make contact with the rim first and it destroys the end fence completely and instantaneously.

 

[snowy]

There is an element of luck involved in making contact with another car. But if your intent is to make a point it is entirely pointless to destroy your front wing or any part of your car if you don't believe it will have any effect on the car of the driver to whom you are making a point.

Just for the record I do not believe Nico drove into Lewis maliciously, I suspect that he is content to make it appear malicious as it serves more purpose than an apology.

 

[Hamberg]

I suspect that he is content to make it appear malicious as it serves more purpose than an apology.

That's a really interesting view.

However, my issue is that we don't know for certain that Rosberg has tried to make it look, or was being malicious.

This is all based on Hamilton quoting, potentially paraphrasing something that we have no context or tone behind. Rosberg may have used the words 'prove a point' but all you married men will know that innocent comments can be taken and used against you. The media are constantly doing it to create something out of nothing. Maybe Hamilton has clung onto some words and not listened to the rest of the discussion, heard what he wanted to hear because he was fired up and his mind went elsewhere.

 

[RasputinLives]

The last paragraph snowy is exactly my view and I also think Rosberg probably has a smile on his face that Hamilton has gone to the media with it.

I think its all mind games and as Nico was already the villian in this piece he decided to play up on it. I think the declaration was made in the hope Lewis would do something silly in anger or at least be second guessing whats going to happen next time he and Nico are together on the track.

Nico was silly not to back off from a move that wasn't going to work but I think he did it out of fear that if he pulled out of it then Vettel would be past him and Lewis would be off down the road.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

I wouldn't disagree with your point Hamberg, except that shortly after Hamilton's claim was made public, a mysterious, unnamed Mercedes spokesperson is said to have confirmed that it was an accurate description of the discussion that took place. Then the mighty Merc PR machine quickly kicked in and Toto Wolff issued his 'clarification' of the situation.

 

[snowy]

And Toto stated that Lewis wasn't misquoting Nico, just that he had misunderstood what Nico was saying.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

I am also going to have to explode the myth Martin Brundle expanded upon after the GP. Whilst I am sure the statistics he quoted from Pirelli are accurate he neglected to mention that if you swipe the side of a tyre with your front wing there is a 90% chance you will make contact with that critical part of the side wall. The chance of making contact with the tread is zero, since you are not ramming the back of the car, and the rim negligible. ....

That's actually not quite what he said. He said if you hit that part of the tyre with your wing then there is a 90% chance of causing a puncture. The chances of hitting that part of the tyre is dependent on luck and/or skill of the driver hitting the car.

 

[snowy]

That's actually not quite what he said. He said if you hit that part of the tyre with your wing then there is a 90% chance of causing a puncture. The chances of hitting that part of the tyre is dependent on luck and/or skill of the driver hitting the car.

The point I was making is that with a sideways swipe the critical part of the tyre is actually a greater proportion of the target and is not as hard to hit as he was implying.

 

[marksawatsky]

Whenever racing wheel to wheel, a racer takes into account the driver he is racing against and drives accordingly. In Bahrain, Lewis trusted that Nico wouldn't take him out and he drove accordingly. I believe Nico intentionally maintained his position in that turn to change Lewis's impression of what Nico will and will not do in the future. That way, Lewis will give Nico room where maybe previously he would not.

 

[canis]

snowy I think you might find it is harder to hit than you would feel. You are trying to direct a slightly wobbly (please don't tell me you think that the front wings are static during motion of the car) piece of body work onto a section of tyre that is moving independently from the wing at a reasonable speed, during a turn. Oh, and to make life a lot harder you can't actually see either the wing or the target section of the tyre.

What they were trying to point out is that if Rosberg was actively trying to cause the puncture then it was very hard to do on purpose, not that if you got the wing and tyre to come into contact it was hard to cause he puncture in the first place. The piece wasn't very well explained, but for Rosberg to try and do what he did during the race he stood more chance of taking himself out by contacting with the wrong part of Hamiltons car than he did of actually achieving his goal.

The comment about it being on purpose was purely about the contact, Rosberg has indicated that he chose not to back out of the rapidly closing gap on purpose, the result of that choice just happened to favour him a lot more than it did Hamilton.

I have just had the pleasure of looking at a few life sized demo models of last years cars and we did a bit of a test to see the target area you get with a front wing and a rear tyre. I know I am not an F1 driver or skilled to their level but just looking at the front wing end plate and the rear tyre on last years cars as well as the fact that me as a 6' person could not actually sit in the car and be able to see the points that needed to connect I don't think it is as easy as anyone may think. Try attaching a 4' pole to the back of your car, out of the drivers view and reversing your car towards a wall and stopping with the pole between 0" and 5" from the wall without actually touching?

I know F1 drivers have a lot more practice at driving and know the cars a lot better than any of us on this forum, but even taking that into account I wouldn't put money on someone being able to do what Rosberg did and get the same results more than maybe 2 times out of 10. Rosberg actually risked his own race by deciding not to back out of that attempt a lot more than he risked Hamiltons.

 

[Hamberg]

just that he had misunderstood what Nico was saying.

And it's that point that I think is important. We don't know what was said before, after, how, why. Which can be very important in ascertaining Rosberg's intentions.

 

[snowy]

canis An F1 driver has critical and heightened sense of where his front wing is. Without an awareness of the space his car occupies, racing wheel to wheel would be impossible. During a pit stop a driver needs an almost mystical sense of where his wheels and front wing are and are going to stop. A rear wheel is an enormous target, you don't have to be aware of where it is at all, just where it has been and where it is going.

 

[canis]

snowy I did acknowledge that an F1 driver is better aware of his car than the rest of us, but not to the point where you think. If you check pit stops you will see that in all cases there are mechanics sat at the points where they want the front wheels to stop with a visible marker on their arm so the driver can use the top of the wheel to gauge where to stop, nothing mythical about it.

The rear wheel on an F1 car is not actually as big as it would appear, especially not when turning through a 90 degree hairpin and under control of someone else where you don't know where the wheel is going to accelerate or brake or even the line change due to the other drivers actions. You have to remember you are not talking about the whole wheel, just the specific section where end plate can meet side wall of tyre. If Lewis had been a 10th of a second later on the power, turned a few extra degrees into the turn or even managed to carry more speed into the turn than the previous lap by a few mph then Nico was bang out of luck and was putting his car on the dirt at the very least if not taking out his whole front wing and needing an emergency trip to the pits.

Easier to hit if going down the straight at a constant speed without change of direction, and if Nico wanted to cause a puncture then this would be the place to do it, not at a point where he does not know Lewis's actions with regards to brakes, power, steering angle etc.

If Nico intentionally wanted to cause specific damage to another car then doing it at the point he chose to was the hardest thing to do and risked more damage to his car than to Lewis'.

So again I will stick with my opinion that Nico probably chose not to back out of a situation where he knew there was going to be contact, but the resulting puncture was more luck to him than anything else, even if he did wish for it.

 

[Bill Boddy]

canis.... During a pit stop a driver needs an almost mystical sense of where his wheels and front wing are and are going to stop....

Haven't some of Hamilton's slow pit stops this year been put down to him not stopping in the right place? If someone as good as he has difficulty placing his tyres at pit lane speeds what chance is there at racing speeds?

 

[Jos the Boss]

If Nico thinks Lewis will be politer after the collision, he must be mistaken, cus it appeared that Lewis gave him a lot of room as opposed to Bahrain or opposed to Seb earlier!