F1: Spa Francorchamps

[hrd]

Given they won the last 4 WDC's and WCC's I reckon they'd argue their approach of preferencing laptime over straight line speed was the best approach for them.

yeah for the bloke who could get out in front and run away, it worked very well. They've always struggled to pass if they're in the pack, and are normally sitting ducks for DRS overtakes. When they finally did something about that for a fast track where they knew they would be fighting in the pack with faster cars, people call it a masterstroke to go for a bit more speed...

[Rona]

Those Mercedes cars are fucking impressive, Rosberg's speed especially. If the incident with Hamilton never happened they would have absolutely romped the rest of the field yet again.

People keep saying this but them having incidents is becoming more common than having a clean race/weekend at the moment. They have the car but they keep self destructing and at the moment tensions are getting higher rather than lower so it's a pretty safe bet they'll have more troubled race weekends ahead. RBR is a team in relative harmony at the moment, Vettel did a great job of holding up the challengers for Dan.

Dan has now won only 1 less race than Rosberg for the season that's pretty fucking good from a car that most had written off before the year started.

[[ryan]]

People keep saying this but them having incidents is becoming more common than having a clean race/weekend at the moment. They have the car but they keep self destructing and at the moment tensions are getting higher rather than lower so it's a pretty safe bet they'll have more troubled race weekends ahead. RBR is a team in relative harmony at the moment, Vettel did a great job of holding up the challengers for Dan.

Well hey, can't say I'll be sad if Lewis and Nico continue to ruin each others race weekend so that RBR (Daniel especially) can take advantage of the situation :D

[IMOA]

rosberg did an excellent job i thought, recovered from the hamilton hit, had to get a new wing, then had that piece of string in his face for a while, and still comes a close second.

Ultimately Rosberg fluffed the start, was a major contributor in a second lap incident which took his teammate who was leading the race out, completely fluffed overtaking vettel which flatspotted a fairly new set of tyres which meant he couldn't get through a slower cars, stuffed a pass on Button which he had to give back which cost him another ~5 seconds and was beaten by a car which was around a second a lap slower who he was only a 4 seconds behind on lap 14 even after the nose change. The focus has been on the accident with Hamilton but even apart from that it was a really poor race from Rosberg where his constant mistakes overtaking slower cars cost him the win.

[hrd]

Merc are talking about team orders or at least a new set of rules for their drivers. Won't be suprised if they say whoever leads into the first turn stays there, and you're free to race int he last 10 laps or something. Their resident crazy old man said it would be OK if this crash happened at the end of the race...
Or maybe, although much less likely, they'll call it off since we're at basically 2/3rds through the season and play the team game of backing their lead driver in the WDC.

Agree with IMOA though, Rosberg cost himself that win. Mainly the big lockup trying to pass Vettel, which made him make another unplanned stop was the one that cost the win. The off track run up on Button before the overtake was a bit of a stuff up, but didn't cost anything like as much. He got past again a lap later, so it only cost a couple of seconds in reality.
The WDC pressure is on both those Merc drivers and the team obviously isn't managing it enough. Both drivers have been a bit underhanded at times to each other through the season, and they keep on pushing the limits or outright defying what the standing protocols are. They need to reign them in or they'll obviously keep doing this to each other.

[willsy01]

$7.50 I think.

Will be interesting. I don't think RBR have anywhere near the speed on the Mercs as first appeared - their speed along Kemmel was similar, but the Benz was only in 7th.....

Only 82% welly though

[Rona]

Hamilton will never play the team game though, he'd expect Rosberg too if he was leading the championship but no way the token will play nice and support Nico when in his mind he has sabotaged 2 races plus used engine modes etc against team orders (even though he has done the samee). Look at Hungary when given the order to release Nico he refused to let him pass.

[TJ]

Because it was wet and he was backing off before braking at the markers...

[TJ]

Hamilton will never play the team game though, he'd expect Rosberg too if he was leading the championship but no way the token will play nice and support Nico when in his mind he has sabotaged 2 races plus used engine modes etc against team orders (even though he has done the samee). Look at Hungary when given the order to release Nico he refused to let him pass.

Hungary was 100% right, the team, and pretty much every pundit agreed. Rosberg was never close enough.

[Rona]

Hungary was 100% right, the team, and pretty much every pundit agreed. Rosberg was never close enough.

I certainly agree but every time he gets the same order regardless of whether Nico is close enough his actions will be the same. Hamilton will not yield to Rosberg for the rest of the season it's just not in his nature.

[TJ]

Yeah totally agree with that. Will go both ways now too.

[[ryan]]

Personally I'd rather see them duke it out than yield to team order nonsense anyway.

[Rona]

Oh hell yeah especially if they run into the side of each other and let Dan win some more races.

[id]

There's not yielding and there is trying to overtake when nowhere far enough ahead.

I don't think Rosberg intended to deflate the tyre or anything like that. But it was an ambitious move, too early in the race, in a poor position to do so.

Nor further action officially, but it's a matter for the team - Rosbergs impatience and general inability to work through the field and overtake has meant they have missed out on important constructor points.

I think Hamilton is a spoilt little shit. But I don't get how this is his fault. He took his racing line like every other driver would have done. It's up to Rosberg to make a clean pass.

[rolin7]

Not that ricciardo needs it, but hopefully the mercs will continue their tit for tat crap and something like that happens!