RA
RAC E A NA LYS I S
Finals
CRITICAL CALL FOR ROSBERG
3
That gave Rosberg and his team a headache that they
hadn’t anticipated.
“Each Ferrari caused us a release delay which is
unfortunate,” said Lowe. “But not too much damage, apart
from with Max in his offset strategy in the way, that created
a little bit of difficulty for Nico. Eventually we called him
and said he couldn’t wait any longer, we had to push for
the overtake.”
Indeed, we heard Nico’s engineer tell him that it was
“critical” that he pass Verstappen.
“That was not a nice thing to hear,” Nico joked after the
race. “Really? Critical to pass Verstappen? Honesty, that was
bad, that was really bad. That was a horrible feeling!”
Given Verstappen’s reputation for making life difficult,
and the fact that they’d already had moments together on
track in Montreal, Germany and Mexico, not to mention
Max’s bold outside pass in the wet in Brazil, Nico could be
forgiven for being a bit wary.
But to his credit he got his head down and made a bold
pass, and Max gave him just enough space.
The feelings that I had in the
battle and right after when
I realised that I’d passed
him, I’ve never had that in a
racecar ever in my life,”
said Rosberg. “And I don’t want ever want to have them
again I don’t think...”
“It was a great move,” said Lowe. “Considering that Nico’s
main risk of the day was to have some sort of shunt that
took him out. It was still brave, but well controlled, close
racing. So a great overtake from Nico which was critical to
his championship.
“And respect to Max, he didn’t do anything silly either
that would have distorted the championship.”
So as of Lap 20 Rosberg was back in second place. He then
put in a series of fastest laps, closing the gap to Hamilton
down to 3s before Lewis pitted on Lap 28, with Nico coming
in a lap later.
Then it became apparent that there was another potential
spanner in the works as Vettel took over the lead and
continued to stay out, in effect shortening his third and final
stint – for which he had a set of supersofts safely stashed away.
It was clear that he would be the fastest guy on the track
in that last stint, fast enough to be a threat to the Mercedes
drivers. Indeed it was just a couple of laps after the stops that
Hamilton was asked why he was so slow, and it was pointed
out that he could be vulnerable to Vettel.
12 | GPG A ZE TTE
4
3. S
ebastian Vettel
gave champion-to-be
Rosberg a hard time
late in the race.
LAT Photographic
4. R
osberg’s race also
included needing
to find a way past
Verstappen.
XPB Images
HAMILTON TAKES A STAND
The next 25 or so laps were highly unusual as Hamilton
received a stream of messages from the pitwall about
his pace.
After his final stop and the move to supersofts Vettel
was flying, lapping a couple of seconds faster than the
Merc drivers. He passed Raikkonen, Ricciardo and then,
crucially, Verstappen.
It was around that time that Lowe himself got on the
radio and told Hamilton that he had to pick up the pace,
making it clear that “this is an instruction”.
“I can’t answer for the pace of the car, I’m not driving it,”
said Lowe.
“In the end Lewis is driving the car, he knows where
he’s at. When you are in the lead, you control the race,
and that’s your position to do so. All we can do is give
recommendations, advising about the threats. We reached
a point where the win was under serious threat from
Sebastian, and we were giving him that information in
very clear terms.
“In the end, like I say, I can’t know the pace of the car,
in case he could go quicker and was choosing not to. We
were making very clear to him that this was the pace that
was necessary to protect the win. What he does with that
information in the end was up to him.”
It could be argued that Rosberg’s second place was
under threat, but the win itself was not. Surely Hamilton
would simply have put the hammer down as soon as he saw
red in his mirrors? But Lowe is adamant that there was no
attempt to favour Nico in asking Lewis to speed up.
“The very plain objective of an F1 team is to win every
race, and ideally get a one-two.
And it was clearly expressed
to the drivers, we don’t
mind which order it’s in,
but we’re after a one-two,
and we were not going to
distort those objectives in
favour of the drivers’ world
championship.”
In the end Lewis couldn’t quite get his ploy to work,
although it came pretty close. When he crossed the line at
the end of the 55 laps Rosberg was there behind him, as
he had been at the three previous races. And that was just
enough to secure the title.
“The last 10 laps I could see them coming really close,”
said Rosberg. “And with what Lewis was doing, I didn’t
know how far he was going to push it.
GPG AZET T E |
13