The Mercedes duo tangled at turn two as they fought for the race victory with the end result seeing Rosberg damage his front wing and slip to fourth place while Hamilton took the win.
Advertisement
Rosberg was handed a 10-second time penalty following a post-race investigation by the stewards into his last-lap clash with Hamilton. Hamilton won the race while Rosberg limped home fourth.
Lewis Hamilton could head into the British Grand Prix forbidden from racing his championship rival Nico Rosberg, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has warned. And while the Brit took the chequered flag to cut his championship deficit to 11 points Rosberg was hammered with a ten second penalty by the race stewards for causing the accident. “The cars in front of me were pulling away, they were just quicker, but I was pulling away from the cars behind, so there was no reason to stop”.
“I didn’t come into this sport to be in that situation, so I will pray and hope that that’s not the case”.
“I think they’ve got sufficient margin over the rest of the field why do they need to consider that”.
Rosberg has previously said he expects to be with Mercedes for “many more years” to come but was not in any rush to get a deal sorted.
“The drivers were right on the limit with the brakes, having raced hard all the way through, and Nico’s brake by wire system went into passive mode on the penultimate lap”. He says he left a lot of room on the inside, and he guesses he locked up and crash into him. It was disappointment for Raikkonen’s Ferrari team-mate, four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who crashed out of the race on Lap 27, after his the tyre on his auto delaminated.
“The team want to finish first and second, that’s our goal”.
“I don’t feel anyone is above or below, regardless of how you live, wealth, religion, whatever it might be”. Wolff said something had to change.
“We have to cool down a bit and in the next couple of days we will know”.
Hamilton is well aware how annoyed Wolff was after what happened on the last lap in Austria, but has stood by his claim that he never meant to cause a collision.
Advertisement
The championship leader was also awarded two penalty points for the accident and a reprimand for not having stopped while his auto was damaged. “From there on I did my own race, Kimi was catching fast but I managed to hold him off until the end”. “I’m the guy that suffered from the collision and he didn’t”.
