Yeah, Mercedes are now pretty much saying the call was an error, along with Lauda's opinion Lewis was right. I don't think there's really much left to debate about it now - Lewis was clearly right to keep Nico behind.

Hamilton left Rosberg some room.

When you've got cars on track with shagged-out tyres, you can't expect them to adhere to the racing line and, as a racing driver, you have to be prepared to deal with that via radical strategies such as.... passing on the inside.

Besides, if Rosberg had shown anything like as much enthusiasm for passing Vergne, earlier on in the race, as he was showing for passing Lewis, he wouldn't have actually been in that position at all.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, it'd be nice if Merc' clarified what they actually meant by an "error".

I mean, there's errors as in "an accidental mistake" and there's errors as in "a very poor decision which we should have made differently" and it'd be handy if they clarified which happened here.

Course, I suppose it'd be easy for them to claim it was a "we just dropped the ball" kind of "error", even if it was actually the other kind so I guess it's unlikely we'll ever really know.

Yes it would be nice to know which sort of error (cock-up vs. wrong decision in hindsight) but it's a step in the right direction that they admit an error at all.

In my opinion, you can only force someone off the track if they are significantly along side you and you then keep moving over. In this instance Rosberg was behind on the outside & had plenty of time to back out of the overtaking move when he could see the space closing.
Hamilton had already been mugged by Ricciardo at that point, knew that it was Rosbergs only chance & defended brilliantly.
It's a shame that Rosberg didn't show the same hunger to overtake people like Vergne earlier in the race as he did in the last 10 laps. If he had there would be no arguments over team orders or the overtaking manoeuvre as he would have been way up the track and gone.

There seem to be several teams where bad luck afflicts one driver much more than the other. It's too small a sample to apply statistics so we're left with gut feeling and a sense of unfairness - and wondering it it really is all just random.

When mechanical problems are concentrated on one of two identical cars or one driver is much more prone to be the innocent victim of other driver errors it just doesn't feel random.
/rambling

In the spirit of rambling incoherently....

I think the first thing that we have to accept is that a lot of "random" problems probably aren't actually random at all.
Even if the cars do start off identical, you've got 2 different drivers who'll manipulate the car in different ways and that can be responsible for different levels of reliability.
One driver might be harder on the tyres, more aggressive in their gear-changes or use of the clutch, brakes or throttle, drive over the kerbs more, not hit their marks in the pit-box etc and that'll often be the cause of reliability issues.

Course, teams have simulators for a reason and, while it's true that Hamilton might have been responsible for his brake-failure in Canada, for example, you've got to wonder why the team didn't flag this up as a potential problem after all the sim' work that Hamilton will have done prior to the race.

Beyond that, you're always going to get simple mistakes creeping into things and those are the truly random failures.
Course, it could be argued that proper testing and analysis stands a better chance of discovering random faults before they lead to catastrophic failures.

Last weekend, for example, if Hamilton's car was leaking fuel then it must, surely, have been pumping more fuel for a given engine-output than was expected.
Ideally, somebody should have noticed that on the telemetry or Hamilton, himself, might have noticed he was using more throttle for a given output than expected and stopped the car before it was engulfed in flame.

It's certainly true to say that you're talking about far too small a data set to form any meaningful conclusions about "fairness" or "randomness" of failures but it'd also be naive to dismiss things as being "random" without stopping to consider, objectively, whether more could be done to detect a similar fault in future.

Speaking as somebody who's done a fair bit of testing stuff in the construction industry, I've lost track of the number of times we've seen "unexpected" catastrophic failures of things but then, when you review all the data, you can definitely see signs that indicate that something was wrong before the failure occurred.
You just have to make sure you learn all the lessons that experience provides.

Stupidly forgot to record this and only managed to get the last 15mins or so of Skys' highlights without any post-race discussion.. But from what I could see I must agree with most on here (and now bizarrely with Toto who seems to be having an argument with himself) that it was easily the wrong call to ask Lewis to make way. I also find it odd that they decided that they (Merc team) would broadcast that transmission aside from the fact that they shouldn't have been asking it in the first place.

A great race yesterday.
What can you say about Ricciardo? he is making Vettel look *very* ordinary, mechanical problems not withstanding.

Very pleased for Alonso, he's been plugging away all season with that Lame Pony, its great to see him get some reward for it.

Great stuff from Lewis, strange call from Mercedes but I suspect they expected it to be ignored which is why it came from engineer rather than Toto... any way you cut it.. pitlane to podium is a hell of a drive and that's what people should be concentrating on.. forget all the other bollocks because that's all it is... bollocks

lastly, anyone who truly believes that Mercedes are deliberately sabotaging Lewis are clearly mentalists. Lewis runs closer to the edge than Nico, he's bound to fall off it occasionally , its how he recovers, that's what's important.

More rambling based on the above...

I think there's an interesting divergence in the team developing there, as a result of the driver's differing styles.

If we take Hamilton on his best day as "100%" then Rosberg gets given a race strategy, goes out and drives at "80%" in every situation, without any dramas, holds to the strategy and comes away with a haul of points befitting his drive.

Hamilton, in contrast, is more likely to be driving at "100%" (unless, of course, he's half a minute in the lead or summat) and, as you say, that's when there's less margin for error and mistakes happen and then, because of this, the team need to be able to revise the strategy on the fly and if they don't make a good job of any recalculations, Hamilton doesn't get the best result and he feels like the team has let him down.

How many times, this year, have we either heard Lewis moaning that the team have made poor decisions or, alternatively, seen Hamilton making a decision by himself which turned out to be a bad idea?

I kinda wonder if, perhaps, Merc' are used to the Rosberg mentality, where the driver just goes out and follows the strategy exactly, and they're struggling a bit to adapt to a driver who needs more dynamic strategy calls?

Also, related to that, I get the impression that Lewis has probably made a few bad calls himself, probably because he's been wondering if the team are going to suggest something and then, when they don't, he insists on doing that thing simply 'cos he thinks it's something they haven't considered.

I think the main problem has been Lewis having to play catch-up after the first race of the season. 25 points is a massive deficit to have to make up when you have the best two cars by far, and even though he did it eventually, he probably had to drive on the limit to do it, taking more out of his car in the process. And then, it went pear-shaped again so he's having to play catch-up all over again!

Even if he catches Nico again after the next two races, this could come back to bite him later in the season as he's used more engines, gearboxes etc. than Nico, so he's going to struggle to win the championship now, IMO. It will be fun watching him try, though!

I agree in every respect.
I'm fairly sure that if the situation were reversed that Nico would not be as close because ultimately he doesn't have that "do or die trying" mentality.

I think that's true plus he doesn't have Lewis's sheer pace.

Strange because Nico's dad couldn't have been more different. The first GP I saw live was Keke's first win, the 'Swiss' GP at Dijon in 82. A terrible year F1 wise for me, being a huge Gilles fan, but Keke was the next best thing, flat out sideways brilliance.

S'funny, I tend to think of them as being very similar, in attitude if not in driving style.

I think Rosberg sr only won a single race in his championship year.
At the time it was said that the key to his WDC was that he was always there or thereabouts, even though guys like Prost, Lauda and Watson were more likely to be occupying the top step of the podium on any given Sunday.

Certainly seems like that's a lesson that's been drummed into Rosberg jr.

To me they could hardly be more different, both in temperament and driving style. Keke was a macho, balls out car control maestro, and drove for wins rather than accumulating points. This doesn't sound like Nico at all. Keke's consistent podium finishes but only the one win in 82 were due more to the Williams generally not being the quickest car, although it was obviously pretty reliable. Many events also transpired for him to be world champion. Tragedy, with Gilles' death and career ending injury to his treacherous teammate, and of the other cars which were faster, Prost and Arnoux took points of each other at Renault (notably at Paul Ricard), and the same happened to an extent at McLaren. The Brabham turbo on its day was probably the quickest of all but very unreliable.

He had brake problems at that point and maybe was nursing it throughout the race.

Worth noting that Rosberg had been told that Lewis would let him pass, and was holding back expecting a lift on the straight.

That's irrelevant, it's still his responsibility to get past if he wants it enough - he stayed miles back so no wonder Hamilton wasn't slowing down!

Its reasonably relevant, why risk the car if you think the guy in front is going to move over.

Why would Rosberg think for a moment that Hamilton would move over when he was a second behind, losing at least a couple of seconds in the process? He is fully aware that Hamilton isn't bonkers enough to potentially throw away points (to either himself or other drivers).

Rosberg must have realised very quickly that unless Toto or Paddy got involved, it wasn't gonna happen! One thing Rosberg and Hamilton have in common is that neither of them is stupid.

Because the team told him he was going to be let through.

But as a driver you still need to think I need to get into position to make the pass, so as not to disadvantage his team mate too much. Like Martin Brundle was saying Lewis would lose at least 2 seconds dropping back as it was, and with Rosberg further back he would have lost more time.

Keke's 1985 Silverstone pole lap has gone down in F1 folklore as possibly the most bonkers lap ever. The first lap ever over 160mph average speed and the fastest single lap until 2002. A friend of my Dad's was a marshal at Woodcote and he said they literally ducked when Rosberg came through the chicane as he basically ignored it was even there. They changed the layout of Woodcote by the next Silverstone GP in 87.

Let's dispel the myth that team-mates are driving identical equipment. Even apart form the elements that are down to driver preference (Lewis' preference for Brembo brakes for instance) or development parts where the team may only have one new wing the manufacturing process dictates that there will be tiny but measurable differences between the mechanical and electrical parts that make up the cars within a team. All parts that make it onto a car have to pass a QA process where very accurate tolerances are measured but even within those parts that pass there will be differences in quality. Some teams historically have admitted to ensuring one driver received the best parts which will have had a direct impact on reliability. It's pretty obvious that Red Bull did this with Vettel over Webber and that Lotus have been doing it with their drivers.

I'm not sure you could say Mercedes have been supplying the better parts to Rosberg, though. It's possible that they have a policy of giving Rosberg the better parts but I would expect that at Mercedes the quality is such that there wouldn't be a major difference. That said it's pretty clear that reliability issues are creeping in as the season progresses and if Hamilton bears the brunt of them it would be possible this is the reason. It could also be down to his driving style being that bit harder on the car.

So, how do you reckon that actually went down?

Rosberg caught up with Hamilton, despite apparently having "dodgy brakes", and then sat behind him, making no attempt to pass, then the team got on the radio to Lewis to tell him to let Rosberg through, got on the radio to Rosberg to tell him that Lewis would let him through and then Rosberg carried on sitting behind Hamilton, not making any real attempt to pass, for 9 laps?

You think that Hamilton, Vettel, Raikkonen or Alonso would have sat there, for 9 laps, like a shag on a rock?

You snooze, you lose.

Got to love the double standards in this thread

Vettel disobeys team orders and he gets slated in this thread and the media. Hamilton does the same, and everyone makes excuses for him including the media.

Disobeying team orders is a serious offence, we have not heard the last of this. Toto may have said we "owe Lewis one", but that was just PR speak. Behind closed doors he would have had the book thrown at him. I would not be surprised if in a future race, when the drivers are in a similar position, Rosberg wont have to move over for Lewis.

Great race though, although it doesnt make up for some of the dross we have had in the previous races. Well dont to Ricciardo, for the win, he deserved it. Alonso bringing that piece of junk home in second, just goes to show he is a class driver.