It was a day of very different emotions for the two Mercedes AMG Petronas drivers, as Lewis Hamilton took the World Drivers’ Championship lead for the first time since May.
Hamilton, off the back of his stunning Monza win, won yet again from pole barely breaking a sweat. In Qualifying he narrowly beat his teammate and title rival Nico Rosberg to pole position, winning by seven hundredths of a second. Hamilton was glad to secure the clean side of the track for the start of the race and the opportunity to close the then twenty-two point gap in the Championship arose.
In fact, the only things which looked like hindering Hamilton were a safety car on lap 31, where Hamilton lost his six second lead over Fernando Alonso, and his inability to get the extra 1.6 seconds over Sebastian Vettel which would guarantee his coming out in first after his pit stop with eight laps to go. However, after the safety car Hamilton drove like a man possessed, looking to get the twenty-seven seconds or so needed to keep him in first after his pit stop. He built up a lead of twenty-five seconds in fourteen laps, meaning that he would be very close to Sebastian Vettel when he came out; the question was, could he come out in front? Not quite. He ended up 1.6 seconds behind the World Champion, but any questions of whether Vettel would be able to keep the Briton at bay were quickly answered as Hamilton cruised into the lead within two laps, won the race by over ten seconds and became Championship leader for the first time in four months.
Hang on, what about Nico Rosberg? Surely this isn’t yet another media luvvie only banging on about Lewis Hamilton. I probably should’ve mentioned this earlier, but Nico Rosberg didn’t finish the race, losing the most number of points possible – twenty-five. Roughly half an hour before the race, as the German prepared to get his car going, found that there was a wiring issue in the gears column of his steering wheel. Unable to get his car off the grid for the formation lap, he had to start from the pits. Rosberg found himself barely able to keep up with the likes of Max Chilton, and when he dragged his car at a very slow pace into the pits on lap fourteen, after the Mercedes team had switched off the car and completely rebooted the system – perhaps Roy Trenneman was on hand to suggest they turn it off-and-on again – all hope was lost and Nico was forced to retire.
Rosberg remained calm, cool and collected as he watched on from the pit lane and took defeat with a touch of class; the relations between the two Mercedes drivers have been tense to say the least, so Rosberg’s behaviour was ideal.
Hamilton said after the race:
“At the moment I’m not sitting here thinking I’m relieved, because all year I’ve had that gap and all year I’ve had to be chasing it and catching up and then it’s gone again.
“So I know what could happen. I came here thinking I’ve got to get those seven points (the difference between those awarded for first and second place) and keep chipping.”
Both Mercedes drivers have lost ground in the title race due to mechanical issues and retirements – though it is fair to say that Mr Hamilton has been the worst off of the two – and it seems that reliability will be a key issue in the remainder of the Drivers’ Championship dogfight; Rosberg voiced his concern, saying it’s the point on which Mercedes need to focus most.
Despite the reliability issues, a lot of this Championship race so far has been about the racing. Whenever the two Mercedes drivers have had their cars in good condition there has almost always been very exciting racing, causing plenty of controversy; just what all F1 fans want. It would be a shame to see this incredible fight settled by the machines and not the drivers; I want to see them fight it out in the remaining five races – winner takes all. However, the double points offered for the winner of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix means that this is not entirely possible; Rosberg could win the next four races in succession, but should he then finish second to Hamilton at Yas Marina, he would still lose the title. I suspect there’ll be much longer rants on this particular subject in the future.
At Monza and Marina Bay, Hamilton took two stunning victories. Rosberg has had a tough few weeks, but remains firmly in the title hunt. There have been endless changes to the title story so far this season; let us hope that the final draft isn’t decided by a (rather fast) man-made thing.
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