2015 United States Grand Prix - Austin, October 23 - 25

[NathanOlder]

To anyone thinking Nico was wrong to try and brave it out round the outside here is a video below of Webber pulling it off in the WEC a few months back.

If Lewis and Nico got to turn 1 and had enough grip to hit the apex, Nico would have pulled it off. The fact that neither of them had enough grip meant it didnt work for Nico. It was purely a gamble, 50/50. Unfortunately for Nico it didn't work. He wasn't wrong for trying in my opinion. If he had the inside for T2 , he would have had the chance to run Lewis wide.

Start is about 20 seconds in

https://youtu.be/jHzl6Xtr1Tk

[Just_a_fan]

One key difference: the track was wet in the F1 race. In the WEC race the outside car ran on the kerbs and was able to put the power down. If Nico had tried to do that he'd have spun.

[i70q7m7ghw]

If you can't see how much the Merc's are understeering in this shot, you must be blind.

They both nearly lost places to the Red Bulls. This footage seals it, case closed, no incident.

[aral]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ECNJESg8M

If you can't see how much the Merc's are understeering in this shot, you must be blind.

They both nearly lost places to the Red Bulls. This footage seals it, case closed, no incident.

oh for goodness sake! there are photos showing close ups of hamiltons car with no lock on it. (understeer would require full left hand lock on a left hand corner) and rosbergs car with right hand lock on it (indicating either oversteer or trying to avoid being pushed off too much)

[Andres125sx]

Ill add my 2 cents.
1. From the top view you can see that no other car took Hamiltons line, or a line any where near that wide from the inside.
2. Hamilton lost time to the cars behind going that wide, it wasn't the fastest line and others didn't have terminal understeer.
3. Rosberg would have gotten cut off by the cars behind had he tried the undercut.
4. As Alonzo said - You must always leave room!

I don't really like seeing racing like that. If you aren't stand up enough to do the right thing and leave room for a competitor on track when they are beside you, then you should be penalized. Didn't like it when Senna did it or when Schumi did it, don't like it now. They were all good enough to win w/o being a poor sportsman in doing so.

When we are going to penalise these kind of moves, we can stop calling F1 racing. Every person involved in motorsport knows what's going to happen when you are on the outside during such a move. It was entirely predictable, but Rosberg refuses to learn.

Some of the best wheel to wheel racing happened because people didn't push other people out. If anything we have lost that in F1. No skill involved in pushing people off the track on an outside maneuver, the skill is racing them wheel to wheel and coming out the victor.

Amen to that!

[Shrieker]

try reading the rules again ;

20) DRIVING

20.5 Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

[WaikeCU]

try reading the rules again ;

20) DRIVING

20.5 Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

It wasn't deliberate, because it was tricky conditions and the car understeered into turn 1 losing grip.

[aral]

try reading the rules again ;

20) DRIVING

20.5 Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

It wasn't deliberate, because it was tricky conditions and the car understeered into turn 1 losing grip.

Do you know what understeer is? it is when you have the wheels locked over but the car does not follow them. now, look at the on board from Hamiltons car...he does not have the wheels locked over. His steering wheel is in the straight ahead position, showing that he was NOT trying to steer into the corner, let alone have understeer.

[Felipe 92]

20) DRIVING

20.5 Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

It wasn't deliberate, because it was tricky conditions and the car understeered into turn 1 losing grip.

Do you know what understeer is? it is when you have the wheels locked over but the car does not follow them. now, look at the on board from Hamiltons car...he does not have the wheels locked over. His steering wheel is in the straight ahead position, showing that he was NOT trying to steer into the corner, let alone have understeer.

Start at 14:24


What Brundle and Crofty said about that overtake?
Brundle : He didn`t turn the steering wheel as much as he could.
Crofty : If Nico was in the other team he would complain on the radio that Lewis forced him of the track.

[Shrieker]

Some of the best wheel to wheel racing happened because people didn't push other people out. If anything we have lost that in F1. No skill involved in pushing people off the track on an outside maneuver, the skill is racing them wheel to wheel and coming out the victor.

What are we taking about here, late 50's early 60's?

2015. Even in iracing it's frowned upon. And you get more satisfaction from racing clean and beating your opponent. Pushing someone out is the easy way. Fair racing is way, way harder...

[GrizzleBoy]

Do you know what understeer is? it is when you have the wheels locked over but the car does not follow them. now, look at the on board from Hamiltons car...he does not have the wheels locked over. His steering wheel is in the straight ahead position, showing that he was NOT trying to steer into the corner, let alone have understeer.

That is not what understeer is.

You can have understeer with any amount of steering lock. A great deal of lock ups happen under braking where drivers turn the wheel just a little under braking and that causes the fronts to lose their friction. With wet conditions and front tyres both drivers already complained were not working well during the formation lap, understeer after a drag race for track position into T1 is more than possible.

You don't put in lots of lock during a braking phase. Especially when trying to outbrake someone side by side with you. ESPECIALLY on a wet track. You just don't.

If you start to understeer with only 5 degrees of lock, increasing your steering angle will only reduce grip further, make the time to regain grip/control longer, and worse case induce snap oversteer when the fronts grip up.

Actually watch Lewis' onboard one more time. He turns a tiny amount on the run up the hill and the car visibly responds.

Later into the corner when Nico starts coming towards/across him, he swiftly puts in about 90 degrees of steering lock and the car goes absolutely nowhere. Understeer. Right in front of your eyes.

[turbof1]

Later into the corner when Nico starts coming towards/across him, he swiftly puts in about 90 degrees of steering lock and the car goes absolutely nowhere. Understeer. Right in front of your eyes.

Exactly. I don't follow Gilgen either when he says that Hamilton's steering wheel was in the straight ahead position. Hamilton clearly turned the wheel and when he and Nico got closer to eachother, he turned it ever more. Just that the car did not respond to that. Looks like a clear case of understeer to me too.

[Shrieker]

Grizzle, and Turbo,

You have reached to sensible conclusions by what's available. We'll never know for sure though if Hamilton intended to push his team mate out wide one way or another.

[turbof1]

Grizzle, and Turbo,

You have reached to sensible conclusions by what's available. We'll never know for sure though if Hamilton intended to push his team mate out wide one way or another.

I don't have any doubt he tried to push him wide, which I also feel that few people have an issue with. The issue I think is that they banged wheels, which Hamilton tried to avoid. Perhaps Hamilton was too agressive in the sense of he did not consider enough the possibility of understeer in those treacherous conditions.

[WaikeCU]

Also could be fighting for grip and making corrections, which causes the cars to go straight deeper into turn 1. fighting for grip to turn the car in that is. I think it's way easier for us to sit here and judge what happened, but both Nico and Lewis buttocks felt the best what happened.

Let's not forget. It's wet conditions: brakes and tyres that are way below in heat for their ideal operating window and sitting on the grid awaiting the cars to complete the grid before the start. Tires and brakes will start to cool down and that may lead to both Mercedes cars going long into turn 1.