Mercedes lockout front row at Monza as Hamilton scores dominant pole, Rosberg P2; Vettel saves Ferrari’s honor with P3 in front of home crowd
The Mercedes Silver Arrows showed their true from at the ultra-fast Monza Autodromo in Italy during Saturday qualifying, with Lewis Hamilton laying down a scorching lap for pole, besting his teammate Nico Rosberg, who qualified P2, by half a second. It was Hamilton’s record-tying fifth pole at Monza, leveling him with F1 legends Juan Manuel Fangio and Ayrton Senna. After Hamilton’s miracle P3 finish last week at Spa when he carved his way through the field after starting at the back of the pack his pole once again laid down a marker for excellence and sent a clear message of dominance to his teammate and archival. Rosberg is going to have to take the belt from the champ and Hamilton, still leading in the points, ain’t giving it up without a serious fight.
Ferrari was the best of the rest of the teams, with Sebastian Vettel grabbing P3 and bettering his hot teammate Kimi Raikkonen’s P4. The pressure is really on at Ferrari in front of their home fans and in the midst of a disappointing season but it seems unlikely that the Prancing Horses have anything for Mercedes unless the two Silver Arrows teammates once again come to blows.
Williams’ Valtteri Bottas put his Mercedes power to good use to take an impressive P5 on the grid, while the Red Bulls showed their Achilles’ heel, the lack of pure pace at a speedy track like this one, with Daniel Ricciardo only good enough for P6 and Max Verstappen at P7. No doubt, though, the always well-prepared Red Bull team will have some strategic tricks up their sleeves to try to move their men up come race day. Force India continued their recent excellent form with Sergio Perez good enough for P8 and Nico Hulkenberg taking P9. Esteban Gutierrez had an terrific P10 fast lap for first year American Team Hass on the debut of their new rear wing, a very impressive result that saw him out-qualify not only his more experienced teammate Romain Grosjean but also both McLarens and the Williams of Felipe Massa.
And speaking of those latter two teams, both Massa and McLaren’s Jenson Button announced that they would retire from F1 at the end of the 2016 season. The two veteran stalwarts will be sorely missed but a new generation will be racing to take their spots. So it goes in Formula 1 just as in life!
The first race back from the summer break was marked by clashes, shunts and remarkable performances in Belgium. Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg had a flawless drive from pole, making a speedy getaway, getting the most out of his tires for long stints and leaving the drama in the rest of the field far behind. In the end it led to a dominant victory at the historic Spa-Francorchamps track on Sunday. But while Rosberg was untouchable in the win he still must have been slightly unnerved seeing his teammate and archival Lewis Hamilton charge through the field and astonishingly come home P3. Hamilton started from the back of the grid after the team made multiple strategic engine changes and somehow willed his way to the podium, limiting Rosberg’s gains on the day. If there was a thought bubble above Rosberg’s head as he looked at Hamilton during the podium ceremonies it probably read: “What the hell are you doing up here?” For surely in his heart of hearts the German contender was expecting — and hoping — that Hamilton would finish out of the points completely and that he, Rosberg, would re-take the championship lead. Instead, despite his perfect day in the Ardennes, Hamilton’s scrappy effort insured that Rosberg remained behind him by 9 points as the two head into next weekend’s tussle at Monza, where they will once again be fighting on even terms. As has been said more than once before, if you want some serious passing done in Formula 1 better call Lewis Hamilton. And if you want to beat Hamilton in the championship you better keep him out of the points on those rare days when all the cards seem to be stacked against him.
All due credit to the English defending champion but Hamilton was also helped by a lengthy Red Flag period that bunched up the field and neutralized a lot of potential tire strategy with free changes available in the pits (as an aside, it is truly a ridiculous rule that tires can be changed in the pits during Red Flag periods in F1 — absolutely incomprehensible for race that has been “frozen”). The stoppage came when Ranault’s Kevin Magnussen suffered a prototypical Spa crash on Lap 7 when he lost control at high speed coming to the top of the big uphill sweeping left-hander Eau Rouge and smashed into the tire barriers. Though it looked nasty, Magnusson suffered only a minor ankle injury and was able to limp away with help from the medical crew. But the tire wall he speared into was badly damaged by the fierce impact and required 17 minutes worth of significant repairs. It capped a hectic opening stanza to the race featuring multiple collisions and retirements but after the Red Flag period the contest would settle down somewhat.
The Grand Prix got off to that contentious start when Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s wunderkind Max Verstappen all came together trying to squeeze through Turn 1, damaging all of their cars to some degree in the process. But the Red Flag period also wound up helping that combative trio when they were able to recover valuable track position after time-consuming repairs to front wings and under trays that should have destroyed all their races. While the two Ferraris got quickly back up to speed, Verstappen could never seem to recover his poise after that early incident where he felt hard done by. And while he diced and made life difficult for both Prancing Horses to the point of dangerous blocking maneuvers, they were able to overtake him eventually and score at least some points to salvage what had looked to be a dismal day in Belgium for the Scuderia. In the end, Vettel finished P6 and Raikkonen came home P9, which is something but maybe not enough to forestall major shakeups at Maranello. Verstappen, meanwhile, finished out of the points in P11 and with his erratic performance in front of huge crowd boosted by many of his enthusiastic Dutch countrymen (he also claims Belgian heritage) it seemed like the sheer moment of the occasion got to him. On days like yesterday it’s worth remembering that while Verstappen shows all the signs of being a super talented prodigy he is still just 18-years-old. At the intense Spa circuit and under the weight of so much expectation that lack of maturity seemed to cost him.
But all was not lost for resurgent Red Bull, as their senior driver Daniel Ricciardo drove a beautiful race, keeping his nose clean and maximizing his car’s greatly improved pace to come home P2 after starting from 5th on the grid. The Aussie was all smiles after the race and his ebullient spirit seems to have reemerged in full after a bit of a down period post-Monaco, where his team fumbled away what appeared to be a certain victory. The fact that Red Bull are now 22 points up on Ferrari for second in the Constructors’ standings and that it was also his third podium in a row couldn’t be hurting Ricciardo’s mood either. Also all smiles were the Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez, who came home P4 and P5 respectively. While Hulkenberg may have been slightly disappointed that he couldn’t score his first career podium in F1, The Little Team That Could saw their drivers’ excellent efforts vault them ahead of mighty Williams for 4th in the incredibly lucrative Constructors’ standings.
And speaking of bettering Team Williams, Fernando Alonso did just that in his at long last improving McLaren, besting a game Valtteri Bottas P7 to P8. It was fine finish for the Spaniard, who also started at the back of the pack due to penalties, and the McLaren team as a whole. One has to wonder what might have been had Jenson Button, starting from P9 on the grid, not been punted out of the race early on by Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein. Bottas’ teammate Felipe Massa took the last points paying position with P10 but all in all it was forgettable weekend for Williams, where their chassis’ continued lack of downforce proved too big a challenge to overcome at this long, fast but also twisty all-time great circuit.
The next race is but a week away and it’s at yet another historical European track — the very fast, very storied Monza Autodromo in Italy. It’s Ferrari’s home circuit but the fight for victory should end up being between the evenly matched Silver Arrows of Hamilton and Rosberg. With only eight more contests to go each race becomes more and more important in determining 2016’s champion and every little twist and turn takes on added significance — hope to see you then!
Rosberg starts second half action with pole at Spa; Red Bull’s Verstappen P2 & Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen P3; Hamilton faces raft of engine penalties, will start last
The summer break is over and the F1 circus is back in action at the historic Spa-Francorchamps track in Belgium. And with unseasonably warm temperatures and no signs of the infamous Ardennes rains to be found in Saturday’s qualifying session, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg made the most of the unusually good conditions — as well as his teammate and archival Lewis Hamilton’s absence — to score the pole for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix. It was just the psychological lift that Rosberg needed upon returning from the hiatus after having been overhauled for the points lead by Hamilton. In truth, Hamilton earned his top position by winning 6 of the last 7 contests prior to the break while Rosberg had a string of self-inflicted misfortunes that cost him valuable points and positions during that time. He despartaely needs to make the most of Hamilton’s penalties this weekend, go out and win this race and perhaps regain the overall lead if Hamilton cannot recover from his back-of-the-pack start to score meaningful points.
Hamilton finds himself in that predicament because he elected to take multiple engine-change penalties for this race and so he didn’t run at all in qualifying, as he was guaranteed to be starting from either the back for the grid or the pit lane after all those penalty points were racked up no matter what he might have done on the track. So Mercedes were in essence writing off the Belgian GP for Hamilton while insuring that he would likely not face any penalties for the rest of the season, having run multiple engines in the 3 Practice sessions to inoculate them from the dreaded “new” label going forward. It should be interesting to see if the pugnacious Englishman is able to fight his way through the field and grab at least some points out of the contest or if he is sanguine enough to simply concede this race and the attendant points to Rosberg, save his car and come back strong next week at Monza. My money’s on Hamilton charging his way through and at least getting into the Top 10. I don’t think he knows how to do anything else but compete even when the odds are stacked against him and in the end he is the fastest guy driving the fastest car out there.
With Hamilton not participating that opened up grid spots for other drivers. Red Bull’s wunderkind Max Verstappen, who seems to have been responsible for a major uptick in ticket sales due to his Dutch-Belgian heritage, capitalized to grab P2 for the race tomorrow, besting his teammate Daniel Ricciardo’s P5. Likewise, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen continued his solid form since being re-signed by the Scuderia, qualifying P3 to teammate Sebastian Vettel’s P4. Sergio Perez had a lap good enough for P6 and his teammate Nico Hulkenberg qualified P7. The Williams of Vatteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were P8 and P10 respectively and Jenson Button will start P9 for McLaren, a much needed lift for the team after Fernando Alonso could not finish a lap in Q1 when his engine died early in the session.
Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 7:30 Eastern on NBC Sports here in the States. Can we really have three warm, dry days in the Ardennes? I wouldn’t bet on it and wouldn’t that put the cat amongst the pigeons with everyone married to a dry set up…
Hamilton lays down the hammer in Hockenheim, Rosberg relegated to 4th by mistakes; Ricciardo & Verstappen P2 & P3 for ascendent Red Bull
Nico Rosberg desperately needed everything to go right for him at his home Grand Prix in Germany to stanch the hemorrhaging of his once-dominant tally of championship points. Instead the Mercedes driver frittered away a hard-fought pole position with a dreadful start off the line as the lights went out, muffing his clutch bite point and bogging down. He was then overtaken not only by his hard-charging teammate and archrival Lewis Hamilton but also by the two surging Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. Once again on the back foot, the would-be contender compounded his difficulties by obviously pushing Vertsappen off track on Lap 29 while attempting to claw back a position and the stewards handed down a 5-second stop-and-hold penalty. With an extra-conservative Mercedes team seeming to hold Rosberg even longer than the penalty demanded, the German’s race was effectively destroyed and he was unable to drag himself any higher than fourth for the rest of the 67-lap race. Despite threatening skies towards the end, no rain fell to shake things up and give Rosberg a chance at redemption. The German will no doubt be mulling over this poor performance — the latest in a recent sequence of disappointments since an aberrant win in Baku — for the entirety of the long upcoming August break.
For Hamilton, his results and momentum have been the complete opposite, as the English defending World Champ swanned away from the rest of the field in Germany after his excellent getaway and stayed ahead for the rest of the race. In truth the Red Bulls had nothing for Lewis and with his teammate self-destructing behind him, Hamilton was free to fly home for the victory, his fourth win in a row and remarkable sixth victory in the last seven contests. Ever since the two Mercedes took each other out in mid-May in Spain, another incident where the majority of commentators put the blame on Rosberg, Hamilton has seemed to grow in determination while Rosberg has seemed to crumble under the pressure. When push came to shove earlier this month in Austria and the two Silver Arrows came together again in the dying laps it was Rosberg who came off second best in an attempted blocking move trying to hold on to to a win but instead losing a sure podium while Hamilton sailed away unscathed to the victory. And while early in the season Hamilton suffered mightily with his starts now it is Rosberg who seems to have the yips when the lights go out. Continue reading →
Rosberg grabs pole with last gasp run in Q3, pipping Hamilton; Ricciardo P3 for Red Bull in Hockenheim
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg took pole for Saturday qualifying at his home Grand Prix in Germany, hooking up the best lap of the day after he had been unable to bank a timed lap in Q3 due to electrical issues. That put it all down to the last 3 minutes of the session and with the pressure on Rosberg came through, pipping his teammate and archival Lewis Hamilton by 0.1 seconds. Rosberg desperately needs a good result after a string of dominating performances by Hamilton saw the Englishman wrest the championship points lead from him so he can take some momentum and confidence into the upcoming August break.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was right behind Hamilton and his wunderkind teammate Max Verstappen took P4, showing once again that the Red Bull chassis-engine combo is the most improved in the paddock, outstripping Ferrari for the claim of second best to mighty Mercedes. As if to prove that point, the Ferrrais of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel lined up behind the Red Bulls in P5 and P6 respectively. Force India continued to show renewed strength, with Nico Hulkenberg grabbing P7 and Sergio Perez taking P9 on the grid. Perez split the two Williams, a team that has definitely taken a step back this year, with Valtteri Bottas only fast enough for P8 and Felipe Massa back in P10.
Tomorrows race airs live from Hockenheim beginning at 8AM Eastern on NBC Sports Network here in the States. Can Rosberg put a stop to Hamilton’s blistering momentum before the summer break? Hope to see you the to find out!
Hamilton overhauls Rosberg with victory in Hungary; Ricciardo 3rd for Red Bull
In something of an anticlimactic procedural of a race, Mercedes Lewis Hamilton jumped his pole -sitting teammate Nico Rosberg right at the start and then drove flawlessly to take victory at the Hungaroring. Hamilton’s third victory in a row and his remarkable fifth in the last six contests saw the current World Champion leap past Rosberg into the points lead for the first time this season. Rosberg, who had never been out of the top position in 2016 and trails Hamilton by 6 points, did come home P2. But now he will now have to face the psychological pressure of once again finding himself behind his nemesis and archival just as he has the prior two campaigns when he was runner up. After getting off to such a blistering start by winning his first 4 GP, Rosberg’s season has foundered amidst controversies and internecine warfare between the two Silver Arrows in which Rosberg always seems to somehow get the blame and the short end of the stick. He will be desperate to get a decent result in Germany next week to regain some sort of momentum to take into the long. lonely August break.
Further back in the field, the two Red Bulls diced all race long with the two Ferraris, with Daniel Ricciardo able to hold off Sebastian Vettel for the last podium spot and wunderkind Max Verstappen playing rough with an increasingly irate Kimi Raikkonen to best the veteran Finn, P5 to P6. Fernando Alonso did excellent work for McLaren with a solid P6, finally showing signs of the legendary F1 powerhouse getting back towards the top with a solid P7. But his teammate Jenson Button was plagued by mechanical gremlins and had a nightmare race, running 60 laps at the back of the field before retiring, so reliability on the Honda-powered McLaren MP4-31 chassis remains a serious issue. Carlos Sainz was string again for Toro Rosso, coming home P8, while Valtteri Bottas had to settle for P9 in his rather uncompetitive Williams, a team which has definitely taken a step or two backwards this year after a couple of improving seasons. Nico Hulkenberg grabbed the last points paying position for Force India with P10 and his teammate Sergio Perez might also have been in the mix had the team not inexplicably been caught unprepared on a pit stop for tires.
The next race is in but a week, the German Grand Prix from Hockenheim. It’ll be the last race for nearly a month as the F1 circus gets ready for its enforced summer break. Hope to see you then to find out whether Rosberg can recapture some of his mojo or if Hamilton will keep laying down the law!
Rosberg nabs pole as Hamilton catches ill-timed yellow, Ricciardo starts P3 for Red Bull in wet & wild qualifying
On a wet and wild qualifying contest Saturday in Hungary featuring multiple Red Flags and crash outs in the first session and rapidly drying conditions in Q3, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg pipped his teammate for the pole when Lewis Hamilton came upon a yellow flag in Sector 2 when McLaren’s Fernando Alonso spun, forcing the Englishman to lift. By the time Rosberg came to the scene Alonso had got back underway and the yellow flag was gone, enabling the German championship points leader to go flat out for the entire lap and beat Hamilton to the pole by half a second. It was a much-needed boost for Rosberg whose luck turned after his sterling start to the season and who saw his once-might points lead dwindle to a measly 1 after Hamilton’s victory two weeks ago at Silverstone, England. But come Sunday, the two Mercedes combatants will find themselves in the familiar position of duking it out from the front row and, should they make it through Turn 1, likely all race long. With this contentious dynamic duo’s history of contact throughout the 2016 season, is it so far-fetched that we might see another race-altering donnybrook in the second-to-last last race before the long August break?
The Red Bulls once again showed that they have succeeded Ferrari’s early season position as Mercedes’ main competition, with Daniel Ricciardo besting his teenage teammate Max Verstappen, P3 to P4. As if to prove how much their own luck has done a 180, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was also slowed by Alonso’s spin and was only able to muster P5 in his Ferrari. Meanwhile his teammate Kimi Raikkonen got caught out by the rapidly drying track in Q2 and could do no better than a disheartening P14 for the Scuderia. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz was an impressive P6 and both McLarens made the Top 10 for once, with Alonso’s earlier pre-spin Q3 time still good enough for P7, bettering his fellow veteran teammate Jenson Button by one grid spot. Rounding out the upper echelon, Nico Hulkenberg was fast enough for P9 in his Force India and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas took the last top 10 starting spot.
The first quali session was delayed by deluge of rain, interrupted by 4 Red Flags and disrupted by day-ending accidents by Williams’ Felipe Massa, Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson and Manor’s Rio Haryanto. Hopefully the weather on race day will be better, although the sketchy conditions made for an exceptionally exciting and scrambling qualifying session.
Hamilton triumphs for 3rd straight win at Silverstone; Rosberg loses P2 to Red Bull’s Verstappen on radio penalty
In a remarkable race in front of his countrymen and with typically rainy English summer weather as a key subplot, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton triumphed over the elements and his rivals, taking a remarkable third consecutive victory at the historic Silverstone circuit in Great Britain. Not only did Hamilton beat his points-leading teammate, Nico Rosberg, but he continued to ratchet up the pressure on the German contender by taking victory in four out of the last five contests. Hamilton even got a bonus — and Rosberg another psychological blow — when the stewards penalized Rosberg and his race engineers for disclosing too much “driver coaching” information over the radio late in the Grand Prix when he had a problem with 7th gear. The 10-second time penalty subsequently imposed meant that P2 went to Red Bull’s wunderkind, Max Verstappen, rather than to Rosberg’s true positional second-place finish, doubly galling for the Mercedes driver, as he had spent so much of the second half of the race trying to get by Verstappen. After his win at the British GP, Hamilton now sits only one slim point behind Rosberg in the Drivers’ Championship and also seems to have the lucky breaks back on his side again. With only two contests remaining before the long August break, Rosberg has got to try to recapture the momentum that propelled him to four straight wins to start the year, lest his fragile psyche crumbles in the face of Hamilton’s typically ruthless onslaught.
For Verstappen and Red Bull, Rosberg’s technical misfortune was their boon. The 18-year-old Dutchman and his RB-12 chassis excelled in the wet conditions that prevailed in the early part of the contest. With a little more oomph from the “Tag Heuer” (really a beefed-up Renault) engine, it’s possible that the Red Bulls could be a legitimate threat for victories against the mighty Silver Arrows. And Verstappen is certainly living up to the hype despite his tender years. With more wet weather performances like the drive he put in at Silverstone, Verstappen could well inherit the “Rain Meister” title that has been in mothballs since Michael Schumacher’s retirement. Daniel Ricciardo was again not as fast as his precocious teammate and something about his demeanor seems to have darkened considerably since his massive disappointment at Monaco this year when poor pit work by the team literally threw certain victory away. The normally ebullient Aussie did manage a solid 4th-place finish but his 18-second deficit to Vertappen extinguished his normally electric smile.
Ferrari had another tough race weekend and must be wondering if their early season improvements have been caught up by the other teams. Continue reading →
Mercedes lockout front row at Silverstone as Hamilton tops Rosberg for pole; Wunderkind Max Verstappen qualifies P3 for Red Bull
Lewis Hamilton continued applying the pressure to his points-leading Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, with a blistering lap to take pole late in the third Qualifying session on Saturday at legendary Silverstone. Performing in front of his English countrymen in the stands, Hamilton scrambled for the top time after seeing his previous fast lap deleted for exceeding track limits. That issue seems to bedevil both stewards and drivers with certain efforts being penalized for the track limits violation while others went unscathed for seemingly the same infraction. In any event, Hamilton pulled one out of the bag late in Q3 and pipped his teammate for the top starting spot in tomorrow’s race. Coming a week after the two Silver Arrows came together on the last lap of the Austrian GP and Rosberg saw victory slip away to his archival, Hamilton will be looking to pull ahead of his German teammate in the points and earn his third straight victory at Silverstone.
Red Bull’s wunderkind Max Verstappen out-qulaified his more senior teammate Daniel Ricciardo, P3 to P4. Newly re-signed Kimi Raikkonen bested his Ferrari teammate, Sebastian Vettel, P5 to P6 and worse for Vettel, he faces yet another 5-spot grid penalty for a gearbox change. After a bright start, Vettel’s 2016 season has devolved into a long, tough slog with a series of crashes, technical DNFs and other issues hampering the 4-time world champ’s aspirations to take it to Mercedes.
Valtteri Bottas ran well enough for the seventh-fastest time despite the Williams’ chronic lack of downforce. Carlos Sainz took P8 for for Toro Rosso, Nico Hulkenberg was P9 for Force India and Fernando Alonso qualified P10 for improving McLaren. All three of those drivers will move up one spot due to Vettel’s penalty, with Sergio Perez of Force India inheriting the last top 10 starting spot on the grid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ29-6t0-yo
Marcus Ericsson of Sauber had a scary crash in practice that necessitated a trip to the hospital for further evaluation. Ericsson is questionable for tomorrow’s race start pending more medical tests. Continue reading →
Mercedes’ Hamilton & Rosberg come to blows again — Hamilton emerges victorious; Red Bull’s Verstappen, Ferrari’s Raikkonen pounce to take P2 & P3
Nico Rosberg thought he had a brilliant come-from-behind victory in the bag at the Red Bull Ring in Austria this Sunday. After being pushed back 5 spots on the grid from a qualifying effort that should have been good enough for P2 when his Mercedes team had to heroically rebuild his car and gearbox following a crash in practice, the German championship points leader made an excellent start, rushing by the two Red Bulls into fifth place. Rosberg continued to methodically work his way up, eschewing an early pit stop and making his tires last while others around him pitted. With Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel running P1 and also on a long tire stint, Rosberg was right behind his countryman to see the Ferrrai’s rear right tire disintegrate on the start-front straight on Lap 27, ending the 4-time World Champion’s race. That left Rosberg, whose Silver Arrow picked up a lot of Vettel’s shredded rubber, leading the race under the Safety Car and upon its withdrawal. Hamilton shadowed him from P2 and the two Mercedes’ aces traded fast laps for much of the middle part of the race.
When Rosberg had a superior pit stop to his teammate on Lap 56, it looked for all the world that he would keep his edge because Hamilton was now stuck behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. But working diligently, Hamilton finally managed to get by Verstappen and into P2 on Lap 63 of the 71 lap race. And the drag and damage on Rosberg’s car from Vettel’s tire debris seemed to tell over time with Hamilton steadily reeling him in as the laps wound down. On the final lap Hamilton made his move into Turn 2 with a wide outside passing attempt and abrupt reentry on to the racing line that clipped Rosberg’s front wing, causing it to collapse as Hamilton sailed towards victory. Not only that but Rosberg lost his chance at a podium, as first Vesratppen then Raikkonen flew by his wounded Silver Arrow. While Rosberg was later found at fault by the stewards for the crash and given a time penalty, he managed to hold on to his P4 and his Championship lead. And it appeared there was plenty of blame to go around with Hamilton’s aggressive overtaking move vs. Rosberg’s defending. Afterwards Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was fuming at both of his drivers for once again losing out on maximum points, threatening to impose the dreaded team orders. One thing is for certain, the Hamilton-Rosberg relationship is arguably the most toxic since Prost and Senna… or at least Vettel and Webber. And with only three tightly-packed races remaining before the summer break and a mere 11 points separating these Mercedes title contenders don’t look for any cooling of this white hot intrateam rivalry in the weeks to come.
Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com
As mentioned above, Red Bull’s Wunderkind Max Verstappen drove an excellent race to be in position to capitalize on Rosberg’s misfortune and take P2 on the team’s home track and in front of a delighted Red Bull impresario Deitrich Mateschitz himself. Continue reading →
