The 2016 Spanish Grand Prix simply could not have gotten off to a worse start for Mercedes, as both of their drivers were involved in a race-ending incident after only a couple of corners.
It was shocking to see Lewis Hamilton wipe out Nico Rosberg as they were both making their approach into T4 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. However once the dust settled, Mercedes decided that nobody was to blame for what happened.
Of course that’s not what it looked like initially. Opinions were split right down the middle over who was really responsible, and even though technically, Lewis was the one that hit Nico, it was the German driver who forced the reigning F1 champ off the track where he inevitably lost control of his car.
The complexity of what actually happened is explained perfectly in the second video below where Sky Sports F1’s Anthony Davidson reveals how Rosberg actually had his car in ‘Harvesting Mode’, to which the German reacts immediately by turning a switch and pressing a button on his steering wheel.
Apparently, when Rosberg was pressing his overtake button, Lewis was already coming up on the inside and the rest is history. Was Lewis too aggressive in trying to take advantage of his teammate being considerably slower on that section of the track? Certain people, such as Niki Lauda himself seem to think so. Others, however, are calling this Rosberg’s fault for not paying enough attention, while F1 officials are simply calling it a racing incident.
“I was aware of the situation, I saw Lewis coming closer so I went for the usual racing driver action of closing the door as early as I could,” said Rosberg. “I was making it clear I wasn’t leaving any space, so I was very surprised that he went for the gap anyway. The stewards decided it was a race incident, so we will accept that – we will leave it at that.”
Hamilton was a bit more courteous to his team and remorseful for technically being the one that initiated the contact between the two Mercedes cars.
“First of all, a huge apology to all of our team – when I stopped my heart just sank. To not deliver for them, it’s honestly…indescribable how gutted I was,” said the British driver. “I got a good start but he [Rosberg] slipstreamed me into Turn 1. Then through Turn 3 he had a de-rate – basically he made a mistake and started in the wrong engine setting. We only have one setting for maximum power and he wasn’t in it, which meant he was like 180 BHP down. I’m not getting into blame, just a huge apology to the team. I’ll do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Don’t have a good feeling this second, but we will recover.”
Who do you think deserves more of the blame; Rosberg for not being ready and making mid-corner adjustments to his car that clearly took some of his focus away from what was going on behind him, or Lewis for aggressively trying to speculate the space he must have thought he had to get by in that split second?