Despite receiving blame from Mercedes chief Nikki Lauda for their first pointless GP since US 2014, Hamilton insists that Rosberg was partly at fault as he was in the wrong engine mode at the start of the race. Neither driver was totally to blame.
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Hamilton went on to the grass and as he spun he took out Rosberg, making way for Max Verstappen to win Sunday’s race on the 18-year-old’s Red Bull debut.
Mercedes’ head of motorsports Toto Wolff said it was the “work of the whole team that finished in the gravel trap”. Rosberg countered: “I saw Lewis closing in so as soon as I could I closed the door to the inside with a clear, strong move to make sure he understands there is not going to be space there, and I was very surprised that he went for it anyway”. “We’re in a position where things are on the up”. That allowed Hamilton to close rapidly and launch his vehicle to the inside of the corner, only for Rosberg to shut the door by moving to the edge of the track, forcing Hamilton onto the grass where he lost control and careered into his team-mate. And then to throw the steering wheel out of the auto.
“I was catching Nico really quickly and went for the gap on the right”.
“We’ll see what happens in Monaco”, he said. It added Rosberg “had the right to make the manoeuvre that he did and [Hamilton’s] attempt to overtake was reasonable, and that the convergence of events led neither driver to be wholly or predominantly at fault”.
Niki Lauda, non-executive chairman of Mercedes”, described Max Verstappen as “talent of the century’. Was Lewis too aggressive in trying to take advantage of his teammate being considerably slower on that section of the track? Hamilton had started from pole but was passed around the outside by Rosberg on Turn One.
Lauda may be “black and white”, but boss Wolff said a major factor to consider is that Rosberg was rounding Barcelona’s turn 3 “in the wrong engine setting”. “Both Lewis and Nico are upset”.
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The race stewards deemed it a racing incident with no penalties required, but there’s still a lot of debate about who holds responsibility, as a 1300-comment thread on Reddit can testify. While the move allowed Red Bull to keep Verstappen ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, the move to switch Daniel Ricciardo to a three-stop strategy meant he needed to pass three drivers in order to win the race, having been leading at the time of the decision.
