An incredibly poor Monza has seen Nico Rosberg fall even further behind his team-mate, and nearest championship rival, Lewis Hamilton. The gap is now 53 points, which is more than two race wins, and with the last section of the season now upon us, many critics and fans are believing that the title race is already over. It is easy to follow this consensus, but a closer look into it shows that not all is lost for the German.
All Is Not Lost For Nico Rosberg
What can he do to change the tide? Out of the 36 Free Practice sessions, Rosberg has beaten Hamilton 16 times. He has also completed more laps in these sessions than the Brit. Whilst Hamilton has done 798 laps in practice sessions, Rosberg has clocked up 96 more. In an era where drivers on either side of the team garage can read the data and see in which areas their team-mate is doing well, is Nico giving away too much information? Hamilton is able to take the information, add it to his set-up, and improve his performance by the race. It is apparent this year that come the Sunday, the race seems decided on which car has been able to use the information gathered on the Friday better. If this is playing into Hamilton’s hands, then Rosberg will have to carefully re-evaluate how he approaches the practice sessions. It will be difficult to do less running, as the team will have a programme, but holding back on his runs may give the Brit less information on where to find the performance.
One of the biggest factors of this season between the pair has been in qualifying. Out of the first 12 races, Hamilton was claimed pole position in all but one of them. The exception was Spain, where Rosberg took the pole and eventually the race win by a comfortable margin from his team-mate. Hamilton has converted seven of his 11 pole positions into race wins. Nine of the 12 races has seen the driver who is leading into the first corner comfortably control the pace, with hardly any threat, and go on to win.
Track position at the start is key, and that is where Rosberg is suffering. Last year, he had the better qualifying record, and needs to rekindle that form. Even when he gets good grid positions, Rosberg needs to work on his starts. In the last four races, he has lost places from the getaway. With Hamilton suffering similar issues, this may well be a team issue and not so much the driver. However, with the new regulations introduced at Spa, there is more control given to the driver for the starts. Rosberg has to quickly master this over his team-mate, and hope he can get track position on lead down to the first corner.
As things stand, Rosberg can win the seven remaining races, but if Hamilton were to come in second in all of these, he would still win the title by four points. Already, it is out of the German’s hands. So what else needs to happen to turn the course of the title? First of all, the likelihood of Mercedes scoring seven consecutive 1-2 finishes until the end of the season seems extremely low. Rosberg’s retirement in Monza was the team’s first of 2015, but as the season progresses, and the demands on the power unit and the components increases, then the possibility of more non-points races seem likely. If this is the case, then it may fall on Hamilton, and a couple of retirements for the Brit will open up the championship again.
The talk now is of the records that Hamilton can reach and break this year. He claims not to be reading much about it, but Lewis has shown that he is a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, and can’t be helped if he focuses on his legacy in sport. It is well known that Ayrton Senna is his idol, and he can equal the number of race wins of the Brazilian, in the same number of starts, in Singapore. Will the talk and attention of equalling Senna, and the other records on the offering, change Hamilton’s focus and make him lose sight that the title is not over yet?
The safe money on who will claim this year’s championship is on Hamilton. With 11 poles, seven wins, and a 53 point gap to Rosberg, then it does seem that he is now going to cruise to the title. Such thinking is foolish though, as with 175 points still up for grabs, there is still a lot of racing to be done before the season is up. As Murray Walker said: “Anything can happen in motor racing, and it usually does.”
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