Rosberg vs Hamilton: The race for the championship v1.5

lewis was excellent in 2012,and he has been this season.on race day he has been very strong most of the time.nico has won only 4 races,and today was the 6th time he didnt win when starting from pole,that is not very good in that car,be honest.lewis has now won 8 races,3 in a row now.lewis is the more deserving of the wdc at the moment.you can see he still has the hunger,otherwise he would have folded after all the bad days he's had this season.but most of the time,he has bounced back strongly.he needed to win 4 in a row after the dnf in aus,he did it.now he's at the point where he needed to string more wins together,and he's also done that.lewis is actually a better driver than he used to be.but ofcourse you cant race the same as in 07 and 08.

 

he's not saying anything about his racing, he's saying he's perceived as a spoiled sulky arsehole, which he is.

 

Peculiar fact, even if Hamilton wins every race left in the season (including the double points), he'll still have less points than Vettel managed last season (391pts out of '20' races Vs 397pts from 19 races).

 

Hamilton has had more points taken off him by his teammate. Vettel was allowed to stroll home to the title without a challenge.

Shows that this season is actually quite competitive despite what a lot of naysayers have been coming out with.

 

I find this statement by Rosberg very incredible.....

Asked if he was looking to end Hamilton's three straight wins in Sochi, Rosberg said: "I wasn't even really aware of that [statistic], until I heard another question about it. It's really not something that I've dwelled on in the last couple of weeks, trying to put together a statistic that would go against me - which is exactly that statistic! It's not something positive to go into a race weekend with. I believe and know that if I do a good job on Sunday.


Your teammate is starting to wipe the floor with you and you didn't notice...wow. You are not putting together a statistic that will go against you, Hamilton is doing that for you!

 

He's just trying to save face, don't want to sound horrible here but Bianchi's accident has saved him from receiving more criticism.

 

Rosberg's main crumb of comfort will be that he beat Hamilton in qualifying, which most claimed to be Hamilton's forte, and gives him an advantage of track position, though he needs to convert it into race pace more. (He's also been struggling with set-up recently, I think)

 

Now this part is interesting.... And if Mercedes has to take only one of these drivers into a war against Alonzo, Vettel, Ricciardo and maybe Button on top performing cars this admission from Rosberg will give them only one choice. Both he and Hamilton had the exact same setup but Hamilton was saying he car felt fine. The difference I guess was how Hamilton was able to drive taking different lines and think on his feet without the driving aid from the pit wall. Rosberg is blaming the setup... They knew the rain was coming... What could possibly be that wrong with the setup? Is it that Hamilton understands the car much better than Rosberg that is why he was able to drive the pants off the car? Also people tried to find all kinds of excuses about how Hamilton was able to pull out the gap on the field in the previous race, well the Japanese race told the story. At one stage the Red Bulls were faster than everybody but then when Hamilton started to put down the hammer even when the rains were heavy he began reeling off fastest lap after fastest lap...even in a car that Rosberg admitted had a dry setup and was awful in the wet. The Red Bulls had a downforce setup for the wet track yet Hamilton's pace was just crazy in the wet. So how do you explain that? Anyway Rosberg had this to say.



Rosberg struggled with oversteer in Suzuka and admitted after the race Hamilton had just done a "better job" in the conditions. Having analysed what happened in Japan, Rosberg thinks Mercedes' set-up explains why he had such a tricky race.

"The summary is that as a team we had a poor set-up on the car. Not because we did a bad job but because it was unpredictable circumstances. We were not able to prepare for those circumstances, we were not able to prepare for those circumstances the whole weekend. We get to the race, we've set the car up for qualifying and we got the rain. We knew it was coming so it didn't surprise us but we did not expect the car to be balanced in the way that it was in the rain.

"It was very unpredictable to have it like that and there was massive oversteer, which is why we had so much more degradation than, for example, Red Bull. They were better than us on the inters just because our balance was so far off. The only conclusion I can get to is that my team-mate got to grips with that poor car balance quicker than I did. For me, I really lacked the confidence in that car at that Suzuka track where you are twitching all the time. I wasn't able to push as a result and that's the explanation."

 

Pretty much without fail this season the second people start to write off Rosberg or Hamilton they come back and steam roll it. Going to see a weekend owned by Rosberg I expect

 

But the thing is even though his recorded for poles this year betters hamilton, he has never overtaken Hamilton on track or in the pits for that matter to win any of his races. Hamilton has done that to him a few times this year. Even in the race where Hamilton had the DNF with brake failure he had overtaken Rosberg before the brakes went. Then Hamilton started in the pack and was still able to beat Rosberg who started on pole so that must be playing on his brain.what I would like to see is Rosberg starting a race below 10th position and see what he can do with all that mercedes power. We already saw what Hamilton did from the back and from pit lane. I believe the driver coaching ban if starting to affect Rosberg more because he seemed very lost in the Japanese race.

 

I am not writing off Rosberg I just find his statement about the car setup strange. He said they set the car up for qualifying then low and behold we had rain...come on everyone knew there was a typhoon on the way and it was a 99 per cent cance of rain so what was Rosberg's surprise? I think he is just making excuses for the way Hamilton owned his in that race.

 

I did have hope but I think Rosberg has lost now. He has a weekness that has been exposed by Hamilton.

 

Is it a coincidence that he struggled in the race now that advice over the radio has been banned? It's also then going to be interesting if Mercedes wrap up the championship this weekend because maybe then setup data between the two may not be shared afterwards.

 

I'm happy with Rosberg getting pole and watching Hamilton chase after him. Rosberg seems to be at his best at the start as at Spa but can't take the fight to Hamilton. The circumstances will be strange at Sochi though and I'm expecting something different.

 

It's probably a coincidence, because we've only had two races with the radio ban and one of those Rosberg wasn't in. It's more an issue of setup; whether he was getting data from Hamilton and isn't any more or is just choosing to back the wrong setup, he's been having issues with his setup since we came back from the summer break.

 

Hmm very odd that he is having setup issues, maybe it's because of new parts added to the car that he hasn't adapted to. If it is setup then time is running out and he could be having to rely on bad luck for Hamilton.

 

When you think about it everyone knew the rain was going to came and the track would be wet so why with a car so much quicker than all the others go for an out and out dry setup for qualifying when everyone knew the rain was coming. I don't buy that. he said and Hamilton said and the team said the cars had exactly the same setup but yet Hamilton was able to go faster and faster even the rain was falling heavier... Is it that Rosberg is not very good or not very confident in the wet or maybe trying to play it too safe is cost him in that race. Was he hoping that Hamilton would go off at some point driving at that pace and maybe he would somehow get back into the lead? Somehow he gave the impression that he wasn't even trying to keep up after Hamilton had overtaken him.

 

But they had exactly the same set up even the wing adjustments when the race was red flagged were the same...at least that is what the engineers said. Well I guess you mean the setup to suit his style if that's what you mean.
If you go back to the Japan race and you checked the lines Hamilton was using they were completely different to Rosberg's and he seemed to be getting his tyres to last longer than Rosberg. So it could be that he is missing the coaching because maybe the team might have been able to give him feedback on the lines Hamilton was taking and maybe he might have been able to adjust his driving....maybe.

 

I have to agree that this is incredible and there's something narcissistically self-sealed about it: how can he imagine that other people will believe that? The old adage, "Never apologise, never explain" comes to mind. Rosberg's not alone in this evasion, his team mate's fond of denying the obvious on occasion too, but it is a common occurrence with Nico, along with refusing to answer a question because "it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about it".

The only explanation I can think of is that he wasn't expecting the question and didn't have an answer ready; but, surely, given his current form these last races, he should have expected just such a line of questioning above anything else?

I think it must be a set-up issue and I said as much after the race. Having passed Nico at Suzuka, he sped off into the distance, just as he had at Monza. I'm no technical expert, obvs , but I cannot think of another explanation for this other than set-up: tyres, perhaps? But they can't have been so different on tyres, surely. If Nico can beat Lewis to pole, how can he be so very much slower during the race, and repeatedly?

 

It is very odd. It could be new parts, I suppose. I remember last year when Lewis was struggling with the brakes and it was affecting his performance so it's possible. But what would these parts be and why don't they affect him during quali?