2014 F1 SHELL BELGIAN GRAND PRIX: RACE *** SPOILERS ***

Rather hear it from Toto or Lauda, personally. Reports are that Merc confirmed Hamilton's statements, but I haven't seen anything official yet.

 

Hardly surprising then the booing at track was somewhat justified with this train of thought running, however a good post.

Every trick in the book does not fool everyone, stewards say otherwise is a lame excuse.

The sly calculator v the fighter eh.

 

Actions speak louder than words. Its not that hard to work out is it, and as the season progresses the tally of questionable events add up.

 

this is getting awesome..nobody will remember the crap noise and ugly cars of this year

ricciardo must be thinking, keep on fighting on and off track while i slowly sneak in and have a shot

 

Yeah... Nico may have just ensured his title win, but will it be a championship to be proud of or does that even matter anymore?

If this all bears out true... I'm wondering if the FIA steps in somehow because that's serious ****. I'm wondering what Mercedes will do. They've pretty much locked up the Constructors title.

For me two other things worth noting. Vettel had some spectacular driving moments the past few races. I'm hoping to see him comes to grips with the car. It seems that all of the drivers who have lost substantial seat time in practice due to technical issues have all suffered quite a bit. He seems to have turned a corner along with Kimi.

Also noteworthy was Mattchet really hitting hard on the need for drivers to abandon full on racing due to the new rules. This time it was the engine penalty for Lewis when they were debating turning the car down. I'm glad Steve is out there publicly questioning F1 from a non-internal F1 position so to speak.

 

Rebirth of Jackie Ickx..."baby-faced assassin".

 

You know this is at the forefront of Bernie's mine. Heck, I bet he believes he could make the rest of the season pay per view with how ugly and interesting this fight is now.

 

Completely Disagree. Nico saw a gap or an opportunity and went for it at the first opportunity he could. Had he not then he is not a racing driver capable of winning a championship. Every great driver has placed other drivers in highly compromising situations before.

 

And Ham forced Rosberg off in Bahrain.

I'm baffled by this whole situation. I'm just imaging this meeting but I think it was a shouting match in there and in the end Rosberg sarcastically saying that he did it intentional and hamilton taking it as fact.

That's how I imagine how it went people.

Surely all gloves are off now...I want them to take each other of in Monza and see a proper fist fight.


----

Bernie is missing out on a serious cash cow here. Install pay per view cameras in all motorhomes/offices where battles like this happen. He could've made his 100m fine back in 20 minutes today.

 

It's funny how suggestions early on in the season about this being a prost/senna thing where shot down by many (I'm sure by me as well). Obviously I was too young then so missed it all...but surely this is close to how the Senna/Prost thing went as well?

 

everyone with a red face and blood boiling to the max level and in the same room it must be one hell of a so-called meeting and things got out of hand..rosberg is not stupid he knows how to play the team game but this is just a little crazy admitting something like this

 

Mercedes Formula 1 team boss Toto Wolff believes Nico Rosberg's comments about his Belgian Grand Prix collision with Lewis Hamilton have been misconstrued.

The 2014 F1 title battle erupted into a new controversy at Spa when Hamilton alleged that Rosberg had admitted to deliberately triggering their lap-two tangle to "prove a point".

But while confirming that Hamilton's account of Rosberg's phrasing was correct, Wolff said the German was suggesting he had simply not backed down when they were wheel-to-wheel, rather than confessing to deliberately hitting his team-mate and championship rival.

"Nico felt he needed to hold his line. He needed to make a point, and for Lewis, it was clearly not him who needed to be aware of Nico," said Wolff.

"[Rosberg] didn't give in. He thought it was for Lewis to leave him space, and that Lewis didn't leave him space.

"So they agreed to disagree in a very heated discussion amongst ourselves, but it wasn't deliberately crashing. That is nonsense."

Although he dismissed the allegation that Rosberg had hit Hamilton on purpose, Wolff said that did not mean his fury towards his driver had subsided.

"It doesn't change the scenario at all because the incident, as I see it, is not acceptable for us," he said.

"What we saw there was that Nico was not prepared to take the exit, and that caused the collision.

"That is not something we want to happen.

"We had a collision that could have been avoided, a second-lap collision, it was Nico who attacked and he shouldn't have done it.

"It was also to show he was not prepared to give in.

"With hindsight, if he could turn back time, Nico would probably not do it again in the way he did."

 

Action packed race. Nice to see Kimi have a good run.

 

so it's misinterpreted

Belgian GP: Wolff says Rosberg's crash comments were misinterpreted - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com

 

So, what did we learn?

Ricciardo > Vettel
Hamilton crowd booing Nico was low class
Hamilton blaming Nico even lower class
Eddy Jordon is pure class
McLaren still the worst of the Merc powered cars
Mattiacci still has some more purging to do
Bottas shines, Massa SUCKS

 

That you are quite wrong about Massa --

Felipe Massa, 13th
"Unfortunately at the beginning of the race I had some tyre debris stuck in the floor that came from Hamilton's car and this made the car very slow, losing about two seconds per lap. This wasn't removed until my second pitstop and after that I was nearly three seconds quicker and the fastest car on track, but at this point it was too late for me to really do anything. Obviously I'm very disappointed that something like this has hurt my race and I just hope that in Monza my luck will change and I am able to put the car in the sort of position it is capable of."

Rob Smedley, Williams head of vehicle performance
"Valtteri had a brilliant result today, putting in a really mature drive and passing cars when he needed to thanks to the impressive chassis and power unit package. The strategy worked perfectly for us as well; we stuck to our plan and this paid dividends. Felipe was incredibly unlucky, picking up a large amount of debris from Hamilton's tyre that stayed under his car for 20 laps and probably cost him about 40 seconds in total with his compromised pace and strategy. As we are continuing to do, we need to improve our operations. This has not been a straight forward weekend so to finish with a car on the podium is a decent result and we look forward to Monza."

 

Nico holding his line during a failed passing attempt, and asking the leader (Hamilton) to give him room... lowest class move of the year!

 

I think it was a racing incident. Now his comments are being misconstrued. I think he said he placed his car there on purpose (i.e. keeping his line) but not that he meant to hit Lewis's tire. Anyone that thinks he had planned to hit and cut Lewis's tire on purpose is crazy.

Why would he take the chance of ruining his front wing and race? Ive seen many times where someone hits another driver's tire and doesnt cut the tire down.

Racing incident, but the British media will latch onto this and go crazy.

 

May have missed it but WTF was Ferrari doing at the start? Ruined Alonso's race.

 

Keep dreaming. Alonso outqualified Kimi at both races, beat him at Monaco and would have beaten him again today if it wasnt for the stop and go. Alonso's season has been one of the most dominant over a teammate in F1 history.

 

The troubling comment by Toto is "Nico was not prepared to take the exit" meaning he was going to stick his nose in and force Hamilton to yield or cause a collision. It sounds like even Wolfe's explanation suggests Nico was taking Hamilton out. Also, Toto is interpreting what Nico said while Lewis is quoting him.

I don't know if I'm just going with Toto's explanation as he's in damage control mode, but still they are assessing full 100% blame to Rosberg.

 

What class would you assign to Wolfe/Lauda for blaming Nico? How low-classed is it to take your teammate out of a race?

The fans booed what they felt was a deliberately dirty tactic. There is enough info surfacing to conclude that what Ros was did deserved to be greeted with jeers.

 

Asleep at the wheel, as per usual. The car looked fairly capable this weekend, which is unfortunate.

 

Do you expect anything more from the Hamilton crowd? They are just showing their true colours.

 

Nico could easily have sabotaged his own chances due to the incident and lost 25 points as a result. Not sure it was worth the risk to deliver a message and Nico seems too pragmatic to drop the ball. I'm wondering if his comments are fabricated to, 1) cover a slight error in judgement and 2) have 44 on edge in future battles.

I'm certain Keeks has given junior advanced lessons on racecraft apres parc ferme.

On to the next race.