In one of the biggest surprises of a very topsy-turvy 2016 Formula One World Championship, the biggest twist hit us after the season concluded. World Drivers’ Champion Nico Rosberg announced his retirement from motorsport less than a week after clinching his championship. While Mercedes had a couple of days notice, it caught the F1 fraternity off guard.
So what happens next at Mercedes and how will that impact the grid going forward?
Like it or not, the Formula One World Drivers’ Champion is the driver who scores the most points over the course of the season. Sure, older championship formulae saw some low results eliminated so only the best finishes counted but that’s not the system we have now. You have to be consistently fast to be the WDC today.
While Lewis Hamilton may be the fastest driver in F1, he wasn’t always at or near the front of the field. Love him or hate him, that’s why he isn’t the champion for the third-straight year. The consistency, speed and luck of Nico Rosberg won him a well-earned first Formula One World Drivers’ Championship.
No matter how boring the race might be, all eyes will be on the two championship leaders. With a 12 point lead in the championship, all Nico Rosberg needs is a podium to win the championship. For Lewis, he needs more luck than skill to win the title. No one expects the Red Bulls to factor into the championship battle except Christian Horner but Lewis needs two Red Bulls between he and Nico to have a prayer.
So while the F1 Power Rankings take the grid for the final time this season, the Rankings won’t directly try to predict the outcome of the championship, just the race. But the Rankings’ favour the Championship leader.
This weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix was an absolute masterclass of driving. The safety car led 28 laps having led the field on five occasions during the race. Well, that and there was this Lewis Hamilton bloke who led the rest of the way on a daring no-stop strategy as rain, safety cars and red flags fell his way. While Hamilton did his part for his championships, so did Nico Rosberg who finished 2nd on the day despite not being well-regarded as a wet weather driver.
As we reach the end of the season, the Power Rankings is starting to get divided along constructor lines. With the exception of Williams and McLaren (and who would have thought they’d be neck-and-neck twelve months ago), every team’s drivers are right next to each other in the power rankings. That includes the two Mercedes drivers. Even though the Power Rankings show who has the momentum and has the advantage this weekend, the Power Rankings aren’t here to predict the World Drivers’ Champion.
The 2016 Mexican Grand Prix will be better remembered for what happened in the Stewards’ office and over the radio than it will be for what happened on-track. Lewis Hamilton stormed away with a boring victory having escaped a penalty on Lap 1. All the real fun happened behind two Mercedes as a late battle between Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo stole all the headlines.
The plan for Lewis Hamilton is quite simple. All he can do at this point is win every race from here to the end of the season and hope for some luck to go his way. For Nico Rosberg, the counterattack is also quite simple. Finish first or second from now through Abu Dhabi and he wins his first World Drivers’ Championship. Both men did what they needed to in Austin, Texas, at the US GP but that means that it’s still advantage Rosberg.
We’ve previously covered the Formula One video game franchise along with the fall and rise of Codemasters on the blog. Their most recent effort, Dirt Rally, showed that some of the greatness of classic Codemasters games still remained in Birmingham which was a much-needed revelation after the underwhelming F1 2015. Now that they’ve had time to work on the current-gen Formula One games, can F1 2016 live up to the expectations of gamers and F1 fans alike?
When you make a mistake or get caught up by someone else’s mistake, skill doesn’t really play a deciding factor in getting you through the field. Rather, it’s about the pace of your car relative to the competition and how much luck falls your way. So after complaining about luck in Malaysia, it all fell Lewis Hamilton’s way.
No, he didn’t win the race. That honour went to Nico Rosberg who dominated the entire weekend. Hamilton finished in 3rd which was the best he could have expected after an appalling start.
To finish first, first you must finish. I’m sure that Lewis Hamilton has those words ringing through his head after this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix. A sure win after his teammate’s bad luck to start the race would put him back on top of the World Drivers’ Championship. Instead, he’s now 23 points behind Rosberg after his car spit more hot fire than he does on his album.
The Lowdown 