I have no issue with drivers being upset, annoyed visibly pis*ed off when they lose. if they are not then they are not the driver you want in your team.
I have no issue with drivers driving fairly & within the rules to win races/championships.
What I do have an issue with is drivers that either do things deliberately underhandedly &/or show little to no respect to the other drivers and their teams.

Schumacher was undoubtedly a great driver as was Senna & possibly Vettell is. They all however have stains on their records as far as I'm concerned. Schumacher & Senna for resorting to taking their opponents out of races & Vettel for his treatment of team mate Webber & the team in a couple of races.
Hamilton, whilst not being underhanded in any races (yesterday was fair but an forced/unusual tactic) has shown recently that he does have a lack of class/sportsmanship. He's seems to want to be the nice guy whilst also being a bit petulant & spiteful at the same time. His comments on the podium and in the pressers after the race were just not needed. Yes he lost, yes he is unhappy & yes his team mate took the championship & yes he thinks that it's all down to car reliability, but that is nothing to do with Rosberg.
Rosberg is given a car and does a job in it the same as Hamilton. Hamilton basically saying during Roberg's moment of glory that it's only because he broke down is simply classless. His repeated use of phraseology to imply he thinks there is something happening behind the scenes to orchestrate Nico's win or his engine failures is not pleasant to watch.
As for disobeying the orders given to him during the last race, I have no issues with that at all. I think that it was appalling that Merc were trying to intervene in the race. They had the WCC & WDC 1st/2nd places sewn up. They would gain nothing by telling Hamilton to speed up & in fact probably lost respect of quite a few racing fans from what I've seen on social media.
Nico asking to be let past was hilarious as he genuinely didn't realise what was going on or was trying to avoid saying "I'm too afraid to try & overtake him". At this point it was duel between the two of them. One that the team should have respected and one that made the last race far more interesting than it could have been.

If Hamilton had been 15 seconds down the road, Rosberg would have been 12 seconds down the road & Vettell would have had no one to try & overtake.
At Ferrari's full tilt they could not have over taken a Merc running at 95% or probably even have caught up with them.

2 years time, the only contender against Vettell for the WDC is Verstappen who is in third place challenging Lewis for 2nd. If Verstappen gets past Hamilton he'll take enough points to win the WDC leaving Vettell in second.
Do you really think that Hamilton is going to put up much of a fight having heard that Vettel didn't want to get involved in the 2016 decider?

He's a liar. That may be what he thinks he would have done but until he was in that situation he has no idea.
He was one of the hardest drivers around & would not have conceded defeat by simply driving flat out

Hamilton did all he could to try and retain the WDC and none of it was unfair, dangerous or against any rules so I don't see why anyone is griping about it or why Mercedes interferred in it. Unfortunately for him Vettel and Verstappen didn't manage to pass Rosberg.

Mercedes want a 1 - 2 finish, and have every right to expect their employees to try and achieve this. I can understand why Lewis did what he did in the circumstances, but I can also see why Mercedes are not impressed, and that Lewis may face consequences. He is their employee. You flout your employer's instructions at your peril.

However good Lewis is, and he is, the only reason he was within a shout of the driver's championship this year was because he was driving for Mercedes.

You are forgetting/ignoring, that if Hamilton taken the inside line, there would have been no accident. He chose to take a line where he was bound to end up on the grass. It was his fault for causing the accident. Nico messing up the gear change didnt cause the accident. Hamilton running onto the grass and losing control of his car is what caused the accident.


Mercedes wanted a Merc to win the race. Using their calculations, Vettel was going to win the race, hence the reason for the hurry up. I thought this was made clear yesterday in the numerous press conferences and interviews. If Mercedes want to interfere, that is their right - their team their cars. The drivers also have a clause in their contract, that states they must obey team orders. Hamilton by refusing to listen, broke his contract. Hopefully he will get a large fine, or Merc give priority to Rosberg next season.

I've no idea what is in drivers' contracts about team orders over how fast to drive the car in front of your team mate but as Mercedes got a one two finish I doubt they'll take any action in a race that was for the WDC and they'd already won the constructors' title. Some might say their instructions to Hamilton were giving priority to Rosberg, imo they should have stayed out of it. As for Vettell he was never going to win the race, at best he might get past Rosberg due to Hamilton slowing him up but he couldn't manage that.

Nig a liar thats not very polite. Is a great like Mansel to be tossed on the pyre of hamiltons 2016 championship.

They wanted a 1 & 2 finish, that is what matters to the team, the WDC is no concern to the team....the calculations by Mercedes for the race suggested that Vettel could disrupt the 1 & 2 finish, hence why Hamilton was told to speed up. Yes they got 1 & 2 so it worked out in the end, apart from Lewis effectively told his employers to f off very publicly...would that go down with your bosses well, even if the result was fine?

????
No idea what that means at all. Mansell was never in that position and was a fierce competitor. there is no way that he would have let a title go without doing everything within the rules to try and win it.

He did take the inside line. They came off a right hander and headed towards another right hander. He made a move on the right of Rosberg that Rosberg spotted late and tried to cut off forcing Hamilton on to the grass.

What Merc & a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that Vettel/Verstappen were only catching because Hamilton was backing up. At the point Rosberg would have been overtaken, Hamilton would have disappeared. Merc know what speed Hamilton had in his pocket but were focussed only on where Rosberg was going to finish. The race was under control by Hamilton. Even Rosberg with the same power Hamilton had available was stuck behind him, a slower Ferrari would not have passed.
Hamilton was not slow because the car was slow or he was not trying. He was trying very hard to exact a plan that could win him the WDC.

It's worth mentioning that Mercedes would have prioritised Ros at the pit stops if Ham had tried it too early. He had to leave it until after the final stop and couldn't slow down too abruptly as it would have impacted badly on his tyres etc.


Chose not to try, IMO. Just as Ham had every right to back Rosberg up, Vettel had the right to choose to stay out of it - for any reason he wanted. I think Verstappen could have pushed harder too so he may have had similar thoughts. All's fair in love and war - and in F1 too, as long as you stay within the rules. And it made for a great race as none of us knew how it would pan out!

What you seem to be forgetting is Merc wanted 1 & 2 and not bothered in which order the drivers finished as long as they secured 1 & 2, it was about the team...not the drivers.

I'm not forgetting it at all!
Mercedes had zero to gain by interfering with the WDC title decider.
If the cars crashed each other off the track, Merc has the number one & number two drivers in the WDC & people are impressed that Merc let them race.
If Rosberg overtakes Hamilton through his own skill, everyone sees that maybe he has more talent than he gets given credit for & Merc has the number one & number two drivers in the WDC & people are impressed that Merc let them race.
If the Hamilton plan works and Rosberg drops to 4th giving Hamilton the title, only Rosbergs reputation is damaged & Merc has the number one & number two drivers in the WDC & people are impressed that Merc let them race.
If what happened yesterday happened but without the radio calls from the Merc pit wall, Merc has the number one & number two drivers in the WDC & people are impressed that Merc let them race.
If they make the call from the pits and try to meddle with the outcome, Merc has the number one & number two drivers in the WDC & people are annoyed that Merc wouldn't let them race out the final race to decide the winner.

In all scenarios above, Merc are already the WCC winners which is the above all else, most important thing for them as a company.

The WDC is what matters to drivers not a one two finish for a team in the last race which can decide which driver wins it and the team had already won the constructors title and one of its drivers was already bound to win the WDC. If a team don't get that then they don't know much about racing drivers. Plus of course it turned a pretty dull race into a cliff hanger which is a rare event these days.

Kind of sounds like you are saying Rosberg deserved to finish the race second. Anything else would really have been a perversion of the result.

It's interesting though that Hamilton's slowing down was both ineffective and extreme. He wasn't just going Vettels pace he was going much slower.

Perhapes ham needs to work on his blocking tactics. For instance he was always to fast down the straights. He really needed to compromise rosberg in the traction zone. Let him get along side and push him on a curb. Something like that.

Perhapes Seb just isn't up to it any more. Ham 9s off the pace and still Seb couldn't pass a car with a 9s delta. I hope Ferrari is looking in to this.

They wanted 1 & 2, they did not want their car finishing 4th...that is why they made the call. they knew exactly why Lewis was doing it...and had every right to interfere, they are the team, they employ the drivers, the drivers work for the team they don't care about the drivers championship.

Above all for the company is to have their cars finish 1 & 2 as many times as possible, and the staff do as they are employed to do, which is work for the team.

......& that is interfering with the a title deciding race in which the team has zero to gain at all.
1st in WDC, sewn up already no matter what happens.
2nd in WDC, sewn up already no matter what happens.
1st in WCC, sewn up already weeks ago.

Anyone/Any team that doesn't understand that drivers race for both themselves & the team have no idea what F1 is about.
If this race was pivital in deciding the WCC and Merc needed a 1/2 finish then the calls would be fine whilst still slightly annoying. Under the circumstances they were in they should have shut up and told Rosberg if he wants past he has to do it himself.

Unless he's going to overtake Hamilton himself 2nd or lower IS what he deserves in this race!


Kind of difficult for Vettel to catch up, which is what Hamilton wanted, if Hamilton is not driving round more slowly than Vettel don't you think?


Pushing Rosberg off the track would have been a dirty manoeuvre though wouldn't it?
If he had done that his reputation (as a driver not a person) would have taken a big hit. Plus I get the impression that Rosberg was never going to try himself to overtake.

Why don't you tweet Mansell and call him a liar directly instead of on a forum Mansell won't ever read.

And yet had Hamilton been in any other team over the last three years he wouldn't have won two titles. The team invested a huge amount of money, technical expertise and a huge backroom staff to have the best car on the grid. Hamilton should reflect on that.

Hamilton did nothing wrong yesterday and Mercedes managed the whole situation very badly which to me shows they were, shall we say, perfectly happy for Rosberg to win the title. It sounds like Hamilton has been unhappy all season, since they swapped the pit crews around and especially after the collision in Spain. I suspect he felt he'd proved himself to be the defacto No1 in the team and should have been treated better. I think he'll leave at the end of his current contract. Mercedes are far too corporate in the way they go racing.

Rosberg couldn't overtake Hamilton because he slowed down in crucial areas leading up to the first sector where he accelerated hard to defend the DRS zone. This has happened quite often in a number of races where the DRS zone is limited by shorter straights allowin the drivers to use sectors and battery to help defend DRS.