Schuttelberg wrote:2 points separate the first two guys in the World Championship, yet there is an inevitably about the driver's championship that most F1 fans feel.
Rosberg's 7 wins this year-
Australia - Hamilton falls away at the start.
Bahrain - Same as above, contact with Bottas and Ricciardo.
China - Hamilton started last due to mechanical error.
Russia - Hamilton starts 10th due to mechanical error.
Azerbaijan - Hamilton was awful during qualifying and started 10th.
Spa - Hamilton started last.
Monza - Hamilton botched up the start.
Rosberg has out-qualified Hamilton ON MERIT only at Hungary this year, by a mere tenth.
There is a lot of illusion that's sold that Rosberg is close to Hamilton. I have an immense amount of respect for Hamilton, but fact is that he's been a bit unlucky with a whole heap of mechanical failures and also been off the bottle in certain situations. If Hamilton gets his act together for the remaining 7 races, Rosberg doesn't have a prayer!
While I agree with all of the above, unfortunately, this is just a side effect of having a 2-way championship race. When one has trouble, the other is more or less guaranteed to take the win and with that, at least a 7 point swing in his favor. Take Belgium; Hamilton wasn't near the front and anyone in that other car would sleep walk it. Same thing the other way around too if Rosberg has the bad luck and starts further behind.
Sadly, F1 is so competitive that even a botched start as happened at Monza in Hamiltons case means that it's an impossibility to get a fighting chance of the win if you find yourself 10 seconds off the lead at any one point. A driver might be able to close such a gap, but even to have a fighting chance to pull off a pass in two identical cars, on similar strategies yields a too small time differential to have a realistic chance of pulling it off. The only hope for the driver who has fallen behind is to be gifted an advantage, either through circumstance (i.e. a safety car that nullifies the gaps) or alternate strategy that somehow ends up being the lucky strike. I haven't watched the race, but even if Hamilton had somehow found a way to make his tires do the impossible and close such a gap, he would then find himself eventually at the rear, in dirty air with tires no longer in a state that would give that edge to make an overtake realistic or achievable. In fact, the odds would be that the strategy would then be compromised, forcing another pitstop, compromising that position and to make matters worse, you will have also overused your components (relatively) over the races still to come where those very components will have to be used.
But apart from that, that slim chance of circumstance, you have tire wear forcing drivers to manage them excessively and also fuel to consider. And then of course engine and other components usage, power maps because their performance needs to be spread over multiple races.
I will have to watch the race - and I will eventually - but I do find it increasingly odd that this year, every time both Mercedes are on the front row, it's the car starting in position 2 who seems to have a better grip on starts. Is it because the car starting in position 1 is that few seconds longer completely still and waiting? Is it the pressure? Or is it simply a matter of luck to a certain degree because the line between perfect clutch temperature and perfect driver ability and anything other than that results in either good start and horrendous/bad start?
What ever it is; I think it's clear that the Mercedes is a unique car that suffers this problem more than any other (front running) car on the grid. I can't remember either the Ferraris or the Williams, nor the Redbull having these inconsistent starts on such a regular basis from either driver. Meanwhile at Mercedes, it seems to be an issue with both drivers, perhaps slightly more so on Hamilton's side (though it's harder to judge, because on various occasions, he wasn't starting on the front row to gauge his starts properly).
One way or the other; I still maintain this could be the year Rosberg clinches his first title. He is an awesome qualifier and even if he puts it on 2nd at every remaining race this year - if he somehow nails the start into the first corner, the statistical probability of that driver ahead to also win the race is extremely high.
On some level, I also think Hamilton not winning Monza is a severe setback, also psychologically. He utterly dominated qualifying. He usually dominates this grand prix. For it to go so wrong in a matter of seconds and throw away what was supposed to be a slam and dunk race and victory... that must be a severe a setback, even if he somehow salvaged 2nd place. And the remaining races will be more difficult to ace, more difficult to pass. And with that Mercedes being nearly guaranteed to be starting from the front row every single time, it's all about acing starts and the first corners for the most part.
