2016 F1 Spanish Grand Prix

[NathanOlder]

I just cant see what anyone would have done differently in lewis position ?? Some drivers maybe would have stayed on track therfore sending Nico violently into the inside wall. Lewis did well to avoid contact before going off. Once on the grass he was a passenger. But he had to take to the grass to avoid contact with Nico's violent aggressive block. Im not quite sure what Lewis did that was aggressive ? He had a big run at Nico, he made a move for the biggest gap and got run off the road. It would have been aggresive if he stayed on the track and made contact with Nico.

[Sonador]

Hamilton got away with a lot of things where he should be reprimandend for.
He is way agressive from time to time, ust how he is and what makes him special.
Rosberg is getting more agressive, and it paid (not in spain of course)

It is a shame for Mercedes to lose out like this, but what a race unfolded later on with 4 cars fighting for victory.

[Sonador]

So for it to not to be Lewis fault, he has to stay on the track and let Nico drive in to him. Instead Lewis jumps of the track as Nico gave him no where to go, Nico did this against the rules and you blame Lewis. If your not 12, then you have problems my friend. Anyway, im outta here. Pointless arguing with an idiot, all they do is drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

Nico clearly let Hamilton know that he was closing the gap, but yet Hamilton went for is wich is logical.

Both were too agressive, how about other races where Hamilton left no space for Rosberg.
He got away with with a couple of them because there was a run off in most cases.

[NathanOlder]

Nico was entitled to close the gap, but he can only close the door completely if Lewis didnt get a wing inside Nico's wheel. Lewis got there first so Nico is at fault.

[FrukostScones]

OMG

[dans79]

Nico was entitled to close the gap, but he can only close the door completely if Lewis didnt get a wing inside Nico's wheel. Lewis got there first so Nico is at fault.

Agreed!

[dans79]

Partly, you can blame their history. Hamilton has operated with 'elbows out' since this partnership began. Rosberg 's stance has probably toughened, and Hamilton may have assumed Rosberg would be historically compliant.

It's been that way since before the partnership. aka Bahrain 2012.

[hollus]

In case anyone is still missing details of what happened after the start:

I actually don't want to put the blame on one or the other, an extremely aggressive and risky attack met and extremely aggressive and risky defense. What I am surprised abut is that it took this long for the two of them to take each other out in such a spectacular way. Isn't this the first time they both are eliminated from the race for good? And how many times did they touch in the first corners, only for one car to survive unharmed and mostly for the other one to still limp home with a good haul of points?
I actually blame the team. They are free to race each other... up to curve 3, give or take, and then only on strategy... which the leading car chooses. When you force equal settings, no risky attacks, no strategy variations... this is the only logical consequence.

[ChrisM40]

Rosbergs jink left was at almost the exact same time as lewis' move left (rewatching it now), so in that respect it was a racing incident. The problem for Rosberg is that Lewis is SO much faster than within a fraction of a second Lewis is partly alongside, so Nico, knowing he was down on power (which he had to have known), shouldnt really have continued a move that would only ever result in contact, or pushing Lewis off.

The mitigation though is that the entire sequence of events took about 1 second, leaving no time to think about your options. Nico did technically break the rule about space, but giving him a penalty would have been somewhat unfair.

[Edax]

So for it to not to be Lewis fault, he has to stay on the track and let Nico drive in to him. Instead Lewis jumps of the track as Nico gave him no where to go, Nico did this against the rules and you blame Lewis. If your not 12, then you have problems my friend. Anyway, im outta here. Pointless arguing with an idiot, all they do is drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

Nico clearly let Hamilton know that he was closing the gap, but yet Hamilton went for is wich is logical.

Both were too agressive, how about other races where Hamilton left no space for Rosberg.
He got away with with a couple of them because there was a run off in most cases.

Hamilton had enough speed to pass him on either side before the braking zone in 5. Nico only started to move when Hamilton committed to the inside and could not cross back to the other side without hitting him. Perhaps Hamilton should have let off the throttle then, but to be honest I don't find this a fair way of defending.

We always complain about not enough overtakes in F1 but with this kind of defending there would be no overtakes at all. Perhaps a no blocking rule like in champcar would be useful.

Anyway great result for RB and Verstappen. He showed that he belongs in this seat.

I can think of no period in which F1 was blessed with so much racing talent on the grid. If only the cars were a bit more evenly matched we could have an almighty scrap.

[jknights]

Well who ever is right or wrong matters little as the stewards have the final say!

What I will say that by this incident the race was made infinitely more interesting for all non-Mercedes supporters or for F1 fans in general.

Well done to Max Vestappen on his first win.

[turbof1]

I removed 3-4 pages of dodgy posts about the Hamilton/Rosberg accident. I hope I will not have to do so again.

Given the wide extent of the bickering, accusations, emotional response and outright idiocity of some replies, I can't really hand out warnings. Too many people involved ultimately and it would not be entirely fair to punish one above the other.

However, if someone gets caught bickering again, trolling or otherwise being a shining example of an idiot, there will be a 2 day ban for him or her.

I took a neutral stance regarding the accident when removing posts. So there's no bias involved.

Off you go. Keep it friendly, gents and ladies!

[turbof1]

Here is a nice overview of the standpoints from Rosberg, Hamilton and Wolff:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... edes-clash

They basically look to be on the same line: a racing accident. Nobody -Not Hamilton, not Rosberg and not Wolff- put blame at someone else. I feel it's unfortunate: yes there is the rule of a car width, and Hamilton might have gone for a too narrow gap. But ultimately: they each made a decision within the timespan of a few tenths. It was too late when it became clear that their individual made decisions would lead to collision.

That's racing guys.

[WaikeCU]

Rosberg did exactly the same thing back in 2012 Bahrain... twice.

[The_table]

To me it looked like they moved over at the same time and Lewis was just driving into a disappearing wedge, he moved over VERY VERY fast and by the time he realized he messed up it was to late and he simply drove of the track.

After watching the slowdown i can see that Lewis's wing was just to the side of Rosberg's rear tire, at the point where Rosberg was already moving over and Lewis's tyre was just on the white line.

I'm pretty sure Rosberg just did not expect Lewis to be that close at that time.
The avoiding move Lewis made (driving on the grass) could have gone well but unfortunately it did not.

I do think the "rule" of having the front wing and the rear wheel side by side giving you the right to more space is a bit much, there are so many occasions where drivers could leave their wing in the gap but don't because they know it will go wrong.

Incredibly cool driving from Max, he did an amazing job under a pretty crazy amount of pressure.

Does anyone know why Kvyat did quite bad, was it the holding back at the end of the race?