I'm not that sure to be honest... In the eyes of Ross Brawn and parts of the team this might be true or valid, but Nikki Lauda and to some degree Totto Wolf, I'm not so sure. Nikki Lauda has a very strong link to the RTL Formula 1 broadcast (he's a moderator there, despite his link to the Mercedes GP team), but RTL answers to a very big German fan base, where the link to Rosberg is naturally bigger than to Hamilton. I think prior to the season, a majority of people voted on Bild.de that they believe that Rosberg would have the upper hand in regards to Hamilton. Given the kind of newspaper Bild.de is, I would think this shows that those readers have a strong link to their own drivers. Nikki Lauda nor Mercedes can allow themselves to show any signs of favoritism towards Hamilton in light of their German supporters.Phillyred wrote:Rosberg is Hamilton's Massa. The season hasn't evolved far enough for Rosberg to realize this yet. Interesting to see what happens over at Ferrari if Massa continues to outperform Alonso.
When watching the post-race interviews of the Malaysian GP, this was very apparent in light of the team orders and that Nikki Lauda was asked some very hard questions and he, in front of TV, made it clear he did not agree with the teams decision to not let Rosberg pass. Later, it turns out - neither he, nor Wolff (who joined the interview) had all the facts Brawn did at the time. Rosbergs and Hamiltons gracefull interviews also helped in that not a huge deal was made of it - and the fact the focus was on Webber/Vettel.
From a drivers perspective, I do also think Hamilton will have the edge of Rosberg over the entire season. I've still been quite surprised by his pace, new team for Hamilton or not. At McLaren, I remember Hamilton usually having the upper hand through out all Qualifying sessions. So far, in the last two races, watching Qualifying, it definately seemed to be it was the other way around until Hamilton pulled out something special - be it be because of the changing conditions, his set-up or simply bigger balls / more risk, I don't know. I'll be interested to see how China turns out.
Just my 2 cents.
, unless you want to throw Alonso/Massa into everything. We've heard all that before when Button joined McL, "annihilated", "no match" and so on. Didn't happen then and won't happen now. Rosberg should be fine, especially in China. One: he is better over one lap than Button, or at least he should be on average. Two, if you mean team's preferential treatment, Mercedes can't afford to play games, for now at least. It's too competitive in F1 at the moment.
They are desperately trying to avoid "Red Bull gives you someone else's wings" type of publicity with their cool, hip brand. While doing exactly the opposite to what they say. Good thing they can always pit Webber if he's in front.