Rosberg vs Hamilton

[Armco Bender]

Rosberg has got more of that Red Baron killer instinct about him.

[wnut]

[QUOTE=Peter Cammish;3410995]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

comments about how hungry Lewis is really should be moved to the drivers weight thread!

Chilli is pretty good!

Originally Posted by Peter Cammish

Lewis should dig deep , keep his head down and win because he will not win a war with Lauda he is too hard and experienced and Lewis needs advising It will end in tears.

This is the war he can't win, and he is not only taking on Herr Lauda but the board of Mercedes and here is why:

"What I did not like, and I have to say, and I will tell him this on Monday, is that when you are up there [on the podium] and you don't say hello to your team-mate, which Nico has always done, that is not good.
"It's not because I am well educated, but it's for the brand Mercedes. This is something I start to worry about now, but it's easy to fix."
http://www.f1reader.com/news/lauda-h...9-s-mood-98802

Mercedes is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to get Mr Hamilton on the GP podiums of the world to promote their brand, not because they think that he is the only person walking on the earth that deserves to be world champion.
Mr Hamilton's behavior is ruining the marketing appeal of getting him there, and he needs to go and take a long hard look at himself!
If Lewis doesn't sort himself out, Herr Lauda will, in fact Herr Lauda has to, and Lewis is definitely going to lose that fight!

[Paradise City]

I think that's overstating things to say Hamilton's temper hurts the Mercedes brand. A little bit of tension infuses the championship with high drama. The Mercedes marketing bosses maybe thinking along such lines but I wouldn't be too prudish about any marketing consequences.

Lauda is correct to chastise Hamilton from an operational level though, if Hamilton gets pulled into a vortex of feuding his performance will be subpar.

[deeks6]

How to destroy harmony in an F1 team ... hire Princess Hamateur

[JeremySmith]

This what James Allen had to say about weather Nico's mistake was done on purpose ..

It was inconclusive

So he might have done it deliberately but there is no smoking gun ..

[F J Nedos]

Fews Nlash - Hamilton returns to McLaren next year with Honda power - and tells Herr whoever to copulate off.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

This what James Allen had to say about weather Nico's mistake was done on purpose ..

It was inconclusive

So he might have done it deliberately but there is no smoking gun ..

James Allen is being disingenuous here. Nico was investigated to determine whether, in the reasonable opinions of a bunch of experts with access to the driver and all the available data at their disposal, he deliberately did something to impede those following him from doing faster laps. The outcome of such an investigation is a binary YES/NO... not 'inconclusive'.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by FAS33

he's driving for a german team, and getting a beating by a german, and the british pplez do not like that at all.

'Getting a beating'? 4 wins in a row and 4-2 to date doesn't quite sound like a beating to me.....

[garcon]

But ze German is four points ahead with eleventy twenty races left. That's conclusive!

[Derwent Motorsp]

How much of this is a contrived sopa opera to create more interest in the sport?
Over the years I have got fed up with Lewis's mood swings, petulance and feeling the world is against him if he does not win. It really is time for him to grow up and either his manager or team need to tell him that.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by garcon

But ze German is four points ahead with eleventy twenty races left. That's conclusive!

Nico Rosberg: The *new* TGF?

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Nico Rosberg: The *new* TGF?

Ooh please no!

The difference in the 2 guy's mentality was evident in how they answered the same questions post race. Lewis with brooding one word answers or just shrugging. Nico still smiling, fairly at ease and almost saying exactly the opposite to Lewis.

What frustrates me is how Lewis spouts off with all the psycobabble yet seemingly struggles to maintain any composure when things don't go as he feels they should do and just starts going off on one.

I'm not saying Nico is completely angelic here, as he has had a few moments where he's having a massive sulk and he may well be a smiling assassin!

If it's like this for the rest of the season I will actually find it pretty tedious. I want to watch heroes and proper blokes racing hard, not stroppy kids!

[FAS33]

Lewis is a great driver and very fast, Nico has a great driving style, very smooth and for Lewis to beat him in qualifying shows how fast this guy can drive, we all know that, but still doesn't mean you express this sort of attitude that's quite embarrassing tbh, the same attitude I saw at school, but each to their own. he is a pom after all

this battle will be interesting as the year progresses, imo the best two drivers on the grid atm.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Ooh please no!

The difference in the 2 guy's mentality was evident in how they answered the same questions post race. Lewis with brooding one word answers or just shrugging. Nico still smiling, fairly at ease and almost saying exactly the opposite to Lewis.

What frustrates me is how Lewis spouts off with all the psycobabble yet seemingly struggles to maintain any composure when things don't go as he feels they should do and just starts going off on one.

I'm not saying Nico is completely angelic here, as he has had a few moments where he's having a massive sulk and he may well be a smiling assassin!

If it's like this for the rest of the season I will actually find it pretty tedious. I want to watch heroes and proper blokes racing hard, not stroppy kids!

To be honest, my *TGF* comment was really a tongue in cheek counter to what garcon had posted, I certainly wasn't being serious!

I didn't see the post race interviews so can't comment on that, but although I'm generally a fan of Lewis, I agree with you that he does appear to get the hump and throw his toys out of the pram when things aren't falling right for him.
Nico (as you say) generally seems very composed and adult about things (certainly in public). I've also generally been very impressed with Nico, both with his driving and off-track attitude. (I could well be biased here as I was also a huge fan of his Dad's). He seemed quite happy to carry on in his own way whilst having Michael Schumacher as a team mate which is something I don't think Hamilton would have coped with so professionally.
I do think that Lewis needs stronger management, or certainly managing better in 'these types of situation'. He's a damned good driver when he keeps his focus, and that's what he should be trying to do as much as possible, letting his driving do the talking for him, because he does appear to be far better at that than the talking bit!

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by davyboy

Lewis is baffled as to why there's a feud...

Well, apart from the fact that the media stirs this all up, maybe accepting Nico's apology and being courteous on the podium might explain some of it, Lewis!

I really think that Hamilton has matured a lot as a driver in the last 2 to 3 seasons, and I had thought as a person too, but every now and then he lets his head off the lead. Of course, he has been paired with drivers of apparently greater cerebral ability (Alonso, Button, Rosberg) which probably hasn't helped his equanimity.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

I think that's overstating things to say Hamilton's temper hurts the Mercedes brand. A little bit of tension infuses the championship with high drama. The Mercedes marketing bosses maybe thinking along such lines but I wouldn't be too prudish about any marketing consequences.

Lauda is correct to chastise Hamilton from an operational level though, if Hamilton gets pulled into a vortex of feuding his performance will be subpar.

If Lewis was acting at the post qualifying interviews, he missed his vocation, he is a far better actor than he is a racing driver!

That was the most ****** off gnome I have ever seen in my life!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Mercedes impossible task: Bouiller

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/114157

[davyboy]

The 'trial of Nico Rosberg'...

I really thought Autosport was above this kind of tabloid drivel... but apparently not. Edd Straw has gone to extraordinary lengths to pad out the minute amount facts he has on this with his own hypotheses and set the whole thing out as a trial !

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by davyboy

The 'trial of Nico Rosberg'...

I really thought Autosport was above this kind of tabloid drivel... but apparently not. Edd Straw has gone to extraordinary lengths to pad out the minute amount facts he has on this with his own hypotheses and set the whole thing out as a trial !

I'm not a paid up subscriber to Autosport but just reading what I could of that article, was pretty cringeworthy. The title alone is bad enough.

[MarkG]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Ooh please no!

...... I want to watch heroes and proper blokes racing hard, not stroppy kids!

Like you get with motorcycle racers.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by wnut

If Lewis doesn't sort himself out, Herr Lauda will, in fact Herr Lauda has to, and Lewis is definitely going to lose that fight!

earlier on in the season Toto Wolff was touting this Merc strategy of 'letting our drivers drive' and 'for the good of the sport we owe it to the fans to do this' type stuff.

at the time most of here were saying that while very noble of them there will be fireworks at some point and low and behold we are starting to see the beginnings of that.

is this a case of to many talking heads at Merc? one boss encouraging this behaviour and now another boss saying that the behaviour needs to fixed.

mixed singles imo.

as for brand, World Cup starts in a few weeks and then its pretty much F1 summer break...by then the WCC will be sown up and many casual observers will have tuned out. Merc's dream season is going to go largely ignored by the public unless this driver row moves from palpable tension to outright physical altercation (preferably out of the car but i suspect they both fight like little girls so they will fight on track).

[Paradise City]

I think having a single strategist is an attempt and approach by the Merc bosses to unify the team rather than have two camps working against each other. The driver that beat the other, got the fruits of the strategy.

Hamilton was happy enough with this arrangement until he found himself in decisively in second place for the first time to his teammate. He didn't like that one bit - and wasn't shy about making it known.

[chillibowl]

of course he was happy while it was working for him and less happy now that it isnt...is there any other way for an intensely competitive person to act?

anyways i would be curious to know more about how Merc determine their strategies going forward. having both their cars on different compounds at the end of the race does suggest to me that they do have two different camps making strategy calls.

[chunterer]

I'm a bit puzzled by Lauda's comments that a top driver has to be a 'barssteward' and that we shouldn't be surprised by Lewis or Nico's attitudes (or similar) towards each other.

I don't actually think Lewis is tough enough to be what Niki describes, he struggles with the resilience and composure to really focus on what he's doing and shut out the 'other driver.'

It seems like the Alonso rivalry all over again, to me. At the time the blame for disruption was firmly laid at Fernando's door, but we can clearly see that Hamilton (egged on, or not by a Manager) is more than capable of stirring up a hornets nest when things aren't going his way.

What truly surprises me is how Button escaped largely unscathed from their McLaren time together, as Jense quite often threatened him and benefitted from strategy calls that may not have been good for Lewis?

[chillibowl]

good question about how JB managed to avoid any drama with LH.

possibly JB is just above that sort of stuff and/or has adeptly dealt with difficult teammates before (JV and iirc Barri started getting vocal in 09).

also the Mclaren's were not consistently at the sharp end in the years he partnered with LH. if they were competing for titles perhaps it would have gotten more acrimonious.