Vocal Voices

I have a theory re Nico and Lewis.

Lewis has had six fails in qualifying: one was a safety incident at Monaco; three were bad decisions on his part at Aus, Canada and Silverstone; and two were tech failures. Nico, on the other hand, has been Mr Consistency, and he comes over as Mr Cool.

The pressure from Nico and his team is not only on Lewis, but also on his garage. Allied to the fact of the mistakes made by Lewis, and his personality, that pressure must affect the garage and also lead to its members being put under more stress than they need, which could lead to them making mistakes.

I think Hamilton behaved like a total Formula 1 driver today, selfishly. He ignored team orders to move over for Rosberg and then put Rosberg on the grass as he moved to overtake Hamilton on the last lap.

Even Martin "I think that was hard but fair by Lewis" Brundle struggled to defend that one.

The rest of the season should be interesting at Mercedes. There are no team orders now and if driving your team mate off the track is allowable then there are going to be some Mercedes-shaped dents in the tyre wall before too much longer.

I don't agree Cromwell, I hate team orders and Lewis fought so hard for that place, why should he give it up? And this from me, that desperately wants Nico to win the title. If we start going along with team orders, then lets stop calling them racing drivers and just call them drivers.

OK we'll ditch the team orders then, but if the boot was on the other foot how would Hamilton respond? If Rosberg had refused to move over and then put Hamilton off the track, what would Lewis's reaction have been?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

I felt sorry for the leading four when the first safety car came out; one minute your doing well, then the next minute you are demoted to the middle of the field. This was especially unfortunate for Bottas, who went from 2nd to 11th!

Ricciardo was massively lucky with that, but fair play, he drove really well when he got the chance.

Also a big WD to Alonso. He hasn't got the best car by a long shot but he manages to keep it near to the front, in defiance of the odds. That's the mark of a great driver.

I do not like "in-race" team orders, but I do recognise that they have always existed in one form or another, especially in the pre-race briefings.

Yesterday's first safety car was a good example of unintended consequences when not only did the first four miss the option to come in, but they also lost all the lead they had built up and ended up in the pack. Imo something has to be done to outdo that nonsense. The first two to come in finished the race in 1st and 2nd.

A rolling restart behind the SC, with cars in the race positions from when the flag was thrown, might be an option.

cromwell wrote:OK we'll ditch the team orders then, but if the boot was on the other foot how would Hamilton respond? If Rosberg had refused to move over and then put Hamilton off the track, what would Lewis's reaction have been?

I think we all know the answer to that one. .

Absolutely we do Cromwell, which is why I want Rosberg to win the title.

The cars were so bunched up, that one pit stop sent you to the back of the grid

Rosberg says that what happened with Hamilton on the last lap was OK, though that might be a bit of a PR message - more team orders.

However, he has complained about the timing and deployment of the safety car saying that the way it was done affected the result of the race - outside of normal SC rules. Whether it is just a whinge or whether he or Merc will make it an official complaint remains to be seen.

It might just be a 'spoiler' to put the marshals on their toes from now on.