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.
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.
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.
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.
One of the ongoing questions about the Singapore GP from people new to F1 is how they stay awake running that late at night. Even with the drivers and teams using their European timetable, it’s a wonder anyone was left awake by the end of the race. It was a dull affair that livened up a bit at the end only to fizzle out as Nico Rosberg retook the championship lead with his third win in a row.
There was a race this weekend but everyone’s focus was off the track. Sure, Lewis Hamilton lacked the mental fortitude to hold off teammate Nico Rosberg which allowed the German to close the World Drivers’ Championship to two points. However, the focus this weekend was on the silly season happenings that will affect Formula One going forward.
When you’re handed the perfect opportunity on a silver platter, your only choice is to take it. Take the two Mercedes drivers. Lewis Hamilton’s extra engines gave Nico Rosberg the perfect opportunity to win the race. Crashes and red flag gave Hamilton an opportunity to claw his way back from the back of the grid. In both cases, they capitalized on the opportunity to score the results they needed.
Is it a home victory if the manufacturer wins rather than the driver? In Italy, that is certainly the case as we know that Ferrari is a religion there. I can’t help but feel that Germany wouldn’t be as open to a foreign driver winning for the domestic constructor. That was the situation at Hockenheim after the German Grand Prix that saw Brit Lewis Hamilton take home the win for Germany’s Mercedes.
The Lowdown 