Originally Posted by Si_Crewe:
“Uhuh,
Related to the above, I'd imagine he was a bit pissed-off at losing the lead at the start and then getting dumped into 3rd place.
He'd blown past Vettel on the straight and was probably just in "maximum attack mode" when they arrived at LC.
If he was working on the assumption that the debrief would remain private, he probably figured that he'd already lost the sympathy of the public but he could make use of the incident by claiming he did it deliberately in order to make Hamilton think twice about going wheel to wheel with him again.
Course, he probably didn't count on Lewis coming out and broadcasting that information in public and then other Merc' people confirming that he'd said it.”
The 'maximum attack mode' that you mention shows a big flaw in his driving imo. He may well have been annoyed at losing the lead, but at that point and with a faster car than Lewis, he just had to be patient and wait for an opportunity.
Had he waited a lap and then got the same run up to Les Combes with the DRS he'd have blown straight past him and been clear to run his own race, and it's probably what the likes of Alonso or Ricciardo would've done in that position, not try a highly ambitious overtake on lap two of a 44 lap race and then allow a collision which could easily have ended just as badly for him as it did for Lewis to happen.
The reality is that unless the two drivers keep tripping each other up, it's Mercedes' title to lose, and so for Nico to risk everything on that move so early on was wrong. He wasn't desperately trying to work his way through the field like Lewis in Germany or Hungary, he was in second place and that stage able to run faster than the one man in the race ahead of him. If he'd waited one more lap he'd probably have made the move.
Whatever point Nico wanted to make, he went about it in completely the wrong way, and it ruined both his and his teammate's race.