Nico Rosberg threw pole position away in the final turn of his qualifying lap according to Paddy Lowe. “We can see he [Rosberg] lost quite a lot of time in the final corner, because he was up until that point. He just sort of lost it at the last moment”.
The final qualifying session for Mercedes did not go according to plan. “We expected the circuit to be improving through the session, the natural thing with the water draining away, but actually Lewis got the pole with his first lap, which should have been a trial run, but it was a great lap.”
Paddy Lowe denied that the team failed to get the cars well positioned for their final run, which saw Rosberg resist his team mate at turn 7, just after Hamilton had gone purple on his final flying lap.
“You’ve got to be a bit more philosophical when you’ve come through a wet session,” Paddy commented.
When asked about the threat of Sebastian Vettel from the outside of the front row, he replied: “I think it’ll make for some excitement, how it’ll pan out I don’t know. Hopefully we will see some overtaking. Tomorrow is the competition.”
Vettel was in P2 last year when driving for Red Bull and when asked could he win the race, he replied, “I think yes, we can, but it depends on a lot of things that I cannot tell you now.
“As you saw today, there is rain in the air, if it comes at the right moment for you, it can be quite good but it can work against you too. Our race pace looks decent, but we have to be realistic.
“Mercedes has an advantage which hasn’t just disappeared. It is still there, so we have to look after ourselves, then we’ll see.”
Kimi was bitterly disappointed on missing out on Q3. Having shown Vettel the way for much of the weekend, the Finn would have been hoping to outqualify his new teammate.
Raikkonen was in a Sauber/Mercedes sandwich as the cars dashed out to beat the rain as Q2 began. He finished 11th, whilst Ericsson ahead of him and Hamilton both qualified.
Kimi appeared to make a late move of Ericsson approaching the final hairpin corner, diving off line only to have to slot in behind the Sauber as they entered the corner. It was here his time was lost.
But Raikkonen saw it differently. “Obviously we got it wrong and should have been out earlier; That is how it is.
“I’ve been pretty happy with the car, yesterday and this morning, and the laptime is thereabouts. I expected to be strong in qualifying, but this kind of thing is wasted.’
“It’s part of the game, but it’s disappointing. To be quite good speed-wise, then this happens.”
Though if the race remains dry, Raikkonen may be in the ideal position to get the hard tyres out of the way at the beginning.
This could see Kimi a counter strategy and make a late dash on a new set of the softer tyres towards the end of the race when the leaders should be running the harder compound.
Rosberg nearly cost the team pole position due to his shenanigans in Q3 – nothing being made of that in the mainstream media or the fact that he finds it impossible to adapt to changing conditions and has to ask the team how Lewis is driving the track. Utter t0sser – this just confirms it for me that Lewis has crushed him mentally – Nico knows Lewis is too strong for him.
Lewis had pole in his first run, Nico just screwed Lewis of a larger margin over Vettel. Read the subject of this article again. The question should be “Did Nico throw away pole because he realized he blocked Lewis?” Please note that Lewis shrugged the incident off in the press conference.
That’s probably a result of Hamilton’s activities with the media last year where I imagine Mercedes would have liked him to have kept things quieter and more intra-team rather than in public. I would have thought they would have made it abundantly clear they would like him to be more circumspect in interviews for this year. Had he not got pole I expect we might have seen a different side though.
I can’t imagine there’d be the Mercedes conspiracy theory you’re suggesting there either – if they had the time to suddenly decide Nico needed to throw away a lap to not beat Lewis, surely they could have got him on a delta that would have guaranteed second? That is unless you’re implying Nico made that decision on his own – something I’m fairly doubtful of based on his past…
Whether Lewis had pole or not is irrelevant – That pole lap was set when conditions were much worse than at the end of Q3. Vettel had a real chance of grabbing pole and probably should have given the improvement in track conditions. Luckily for Merc, Lewis delivered a huge lap, being 1.2 seconds quicker than Rosberg. If he hadn’t then Vettel would have pole. The lap Lewis was hindered on, meant that the best of his inters were used up and couldn’t improve on the next lap.
Lewis shrugged it off in the conference because he had pole in the end anyway and saw that the journo was trying to grab a headline through a reaction from him. It’s a disgrace that the journo’s also completely let Nico off the hook by not asking him what the hell he was thinking when he blocked Lewis. No stewards enquiry, no nothing – and Nico will continue with his games for as long as he keeps getting away with it in order to get under Lewis’ skin. Bad news for him, Lewis destroys him on track and Lewis knows he is finished mentally. This will only solidify Lewis’ belief of being the best out there.
Reminds me of last years Silverstone qualy, where Hamilton f’ed up the 1st sector and quickly let Rosberg past as to not ruin his lap aswell.
But in this case, Lewis didn’t block him by cruising on the racing line.
Thats what I said:
“quickly let Rosberg past as to not ruin his lap aswell”
Rosberg is must be getting desperate already.
I wonder how long it will take Merc to get fed up of Nico’s games
i’d give him the benefit of the doubt. after all, it was raining, so we don’t know if he even saw lewis.
At that point it wasn’t raining that badly to impede his visibility.
Oh please, Nico knew quite well Lewis was behind him. The only car he came across at the start of the lap, was the Williams leaving the pits going into T1.
rosberg looked quite rattled in the press conference.
This will amuse a lot of people, including fat hippo – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-3015972/Nico-Rosberg-People-Twitter-saying-Nico-blocked-qualifying-true-Lewis-Hamilton-probably-ask-F1-rivals-Malaysian-GP-spat.html
The guy just can’t keep his mouth shut can he? After getting done over by Seb in the conference last race, he proceeds to try and embarrass Hamilton only to have it thrown back in his face again with the journos laughing at him. The guy’s a joke.
So he asked a smarta$$ question and he got upset with the answer be got?
That saying comes to mind…
“It’s better not say anything and let the world think you’re a fool, rather than opening your mouth and proving them wrong”…..
They should’ve asked him, how did he know Lewis was on a slow down lap when he came up on him and if so, why did he pass him? Why didn’t he just maintain a good distance between them?
“Prove them right”….
“… and remove any doubt.” is how the quote ends.
According to this, Hamilton denied being blocked, which is diplomatic of him:
http://m.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118269/hamilton-denies-rosberg-blocked-him
I remain a touch skeptical; had Rosberg gotten off the racing line, it doesn’t make sense to me that Hamilton would have abandoned his lap.
Of course he was blocked and Lewis knows it full well – why would any driver bail out of lap he’s going quicker on than anyone else with it also being his last shot to make sure he has pole unless everyone else had crossed the finishing line with no chance of them taking pole? It is clear as day to see that Lewis was pushing right up until he came onto Nico’s gearbox after the high speed corners. It was at this point he bailed out because his entry onto the next corner was compromised. Being quicker on the next lap was impossible and not Lewis’ intention as the tyres are only good for one optimum lap.
Despite what Lewis has said, it is quite clear that he’s happy to deny Rosberg was blocking him – in front of the media anyway – to deny Rosberg the satisfaction of seeing him aggrieved in any way. Rather ironically, in doing this, Lewis has got under Nico’s skin as is evident in the article I posted the link to.
Wow, maybe it’s time ROS stopped trying to be funny in pressers. I mean, he’s lost out now to Vettel and Hamilton. How ironic.
All it needs now is for Kimi to cut him down with a snappy one liner…
Says CURMUDGEON: “Lewis had pole in his first run, Nico just screwed Lewis of a larger margin over Vettel. Read the subject of this article again. The question should be “Did Nico throw away pole because he realized he blocked Lewis?” Please note that Lewis shrugged the incident off in the press conference.”
I wonder (this is certainly not curmudgeon specific, but he brought up points repeated elsewhere): is it difficult to understand that the primary objective of the initial lap in the wet is NOT to drive your fastest lap but to find the, augmented for a wet track, groove – and particularly where and when you must use the normal, dry groove; in retrospect, doesn’t it seem far-reaching to think Rosberg penalized himself for blocking Hamilton’s first attempt at a quick lap; is it a reach to think that if Rosberg did not purposely block Hamilton it is a condemnation of him as an F1 driver, as this means he had no clue as to what the proper in the wet was; watching Hamilton after Q3 and post-race in Australia, and then today, is it so difficult to discern that Hamilton has taken it upon himself to not get mired in attempting to interpret or analyze Rosberg’s actions, especially those that can be left open to interpretation?
On journalists… Why do journalists like Ted Kravitz – he’s certainly not the only one – continue to say Rosberg is more of a” thinking driver’ – “people call Nico ‘the engineer'” – and Hamilton is a “natural,” when anytime Hamilton is asked to break down a lap it is quite obvious that great thought, a tremendous amount of discipline and foreknowledge – “I have a notebook I use…” – go into his every on-track move?
It appears as though it is this line of thinking about Rosberg by Kravitz and other writers that allows them to blow off Rosberg blocking Hamilton on Lewis’ first Q3 fast lap, rather than ask Nico why he positioned himself where he did.
Here’s Lewis breaking down his lap with Brundle….
http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/9779201/lewis-at-the-skypad
So all the fun and games have started pretty early on this season – Who said this was gonna be a boring season?! Let the games begin.
I think nico is trying mind games on vettel too, eg in the press conference about being able to beat him off the line, trouble is I’d don’t think Nico is that good at them and is putting more pressure on himself.
I see Vettel putting a Schumi-on-Montoya-MAL-2002 move on Rosberg at the start, though it will be harder with them having changed pole side to the inside of Turn 1 since then.
He needs to stop with the mind games, as they are clearly not working on Lewis or Vettel for that matter. His question to Lewis was so transparent you could probably see Bernie pulling the strings trying to whip up a PR storm.
Anyway it’ll be frustrating if Nico continues like this all season as he’ll be handing the title to Lewis. I really hoped he’d have stepped up a gear this season.
ros is a little biatch. at least learn how to lie more simply by saying “oh, I didn’t see him in my mirrors” Jesus effing Christ what an ass this guy is