Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix was brilliant from start to finish: throughout the 44 laps of the Spa-Francorchomps circuit we seen some world-class overtaking manoeuvres; action on every lap and a twist in the title race.
The twist I'm talking about is that of an incident that occurred on lap two of the race. Lewis Hamilton got himself into first at the first corner, whilst pole sitter Nico Rosberg dropped to third as countryman Sebastian Vettel got past him. By the second lap, Rosberg was past Vettel and was breathing down Hamilton's neck.
Rosberg went on the outside of Hamilton at Le Combes and managed to get slightly ahead. However, he didn't have the racing line so it would be likely that he'd let Hamilton go, however he committed to the next corner and that's when the two cars came together. Hamilton took his line expecting Rosberg to give space, Rosberg didn't give him space and clipped Hamilton's rear left tyre - which resulted in Rosberg also losing his front wing.
Hamilton had a puncture and was in dead last when he pitted. He realised that there was no point in continuing after a while and he retired the car. However, Hamilton went out to the press and told them that Nico admitted to him that he did it "on purpose" to "prove a point".
Since Monaco, the former best friends haven't seen eye-to-eye |
Either the media took it out of context or Lewis was being melodramatic. Turns out that the Mercedes team heard it as he made the move to prove a point, not crashing into him to prove a point - and why not? Rosberg has came under criticism for not attacking enough so he tried it. Unfortunately, it all went wrong for Mercedes. Whether it was time and place to try an overtake is another matter, but the question is: Is Nico Rosberg a Cheat?
I do not believe he is. Why? Because I believe the British media fabricate to favour their home driver against one who is from Germany.
The only one I can really think of to be a possible form of cheating is at Monaco where in qualifying he went down an escape route because he apparently lost control of the steering a little and couldn't make the corner. This prevented Lewis having another lap.
Even that is a little far-fetched. If you watch Sky Sports F1, I believe you're more likely to be brainwashed into thinking "Britain is great, it's everyone else's faults" when there is more to it than that. Some paranoid Lewis Hamilton fans have went as far to think that Mercedes would tamper with their own driver's car to favour his rival team-mate. Obviously a German team are going to let their German driver win the title by sabotaging his team mate's, all at a cost of millions! Seems logical.
The reality is Nico tries to bend the rules a bit and sometimes gets away with it whilst Hamilton has been unlucky. As much as I dislike Hamilton (mainly because of those paranoid fans) he has been really unfortunate not to be leading the championship so far. Nico has been lucky, Lewis hasn't. But to go as far as sabotage is moronic. I wonder why Lewis fans don't complain when Sebastian Vettel suffers from the same number of mechanical misfortunes as their hero? Because it's just bias that people believe.
It can't be all down to the media though. Hamilton usually uses the media as a sob story opportunity to play himself as the victim of a crime. Crimes committed by Rosberg. Yes, Nico was more in the wrong because he made the move on Lewis that resulted in the crash and in other races he's involved in controversy, but Lewis' hero Ayrton Senna was worse yet Hamilton condemns Rosberg at nearly every race.
Anyway, opinions aside, it has to be said - with the exception of the lack of drivers fighting for the title - that this has been a really exciting year for F1 and whether you think Nico Rosberg is a cheat or not, I think most want to see this feud carry on for the sake of entertainment.
For updates, follow me on Twitter: @TrainInVainn
Let me know what your opinion is on the matter by commenting below.
No comments:
Post a Comment