Bottom line: Points mean prizes
Nico Rosberg celebrates taking the F1 world championship. second man in the championship, Didier Pironi, won two Grands Prix as did those drivers in third, fourth, fifth and sixth in the 1982 title race.
Rosberg senior still won the title, he had the most points.
No matter the continuous references from Lewis Hamilton of management interference and manipulation or his references to mechanical problems being the reason he did not gain the required points to win the title. Bottom line is, he did have enough pole positions ( 12 to Hamilton and four to Rosberg), more wins ( 10 to Hamilton and nine to Rosberg) and more podium finishes ( 17 to Hamilton and 16 to Rosberg). Logic says that Hamilton should have had those points but he didn’t.
Over their respective racing lives and in a straight “speed” fight, Hamilton has often proven to be the better man but as is so often said, Formula 1 is a team sport and the drivers are just at the top of the pyramid as far as the racing car is concerned.
They are driving a piece of technology with hundreds of thousands of parts, with tolerances taken to the edge, and sometimes just over that edge, all of those parts working to the absolute limit and all of which can, and often do, go wrong at the most inopportune moments.
It is history that the car of Hamilton has failed in one way or another more often than that of Rosberg, but who is to say that some of those failures were not caused by tiny differences in the way the driver chose to use them?
Who is to say that Hamilton was not the architect of his own demise on occasion by the way he drove while Rosberg, with a slightly more sedate pace, escaped similar failures and collected the points? Probably the Mercedes team engineers would could say it but are not about to do that now.
After the race in Abu Dhabi the paddock was abuzz with talk of “repercussions” for Hamilton with his deliberate and public contempt of team orders.
He has pushed his team managers close to the limits of their magnanimous patience over the past season and maybe, just maybe, they will think the team would be better off without him.
Yeah right.
Whether Mercedes likes it or not, Lewis Hamilton is the biggest asset to the race team — and probably the brand in general and far bigger than all the other “ambassadors” they have. The top management leaves itself open to accusations of “favouritism” by interfering in what was a simple tactical race for the title.
Rosberg did what he had to do to win the overall title and Hamilton was doing what he had to do in trying to put his team- mate in harm’s way, in the form of Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel in third position, by slowing and backing Rosberg up, hopefully into the clutches of the Ferrari driver.
The tactic didn’t work and Rosberg showed “tremendous character” in resisting any attack and maintaining his mental discipline and concentration. All fair, all good, no foul. Rosberg and Hamilton did excellent jobs of trying to achieve their respective goals.
Next year, with new fat tyres, new regulations, faster cars, more noise, new drivers maybe we will have a new World Champion?
I can’t wait.