DESERT STORM
Mercedes duo go head-to head in the heat
LEWIS HAMILTON − forlorn, curt and quiet-voiced − had rarely looked more vulnerable than as he left the paddock to spend a night alone with his hopes and thoughts.
The world championship is still his to lose. He is 17 points ahead of his Mercedes colleague Nico Rosberg − who took pole at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. If he finishes where he starts − second − he will be enshrined in Formula One history as only the fourth Briton to win two titles after Graham Hill, Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart, who was last to accomplish the feat 43 years ago.
But to observe Hamilton here after Rosberg’s virtuoso lap was not to see a man happily embracing his destiny. Damon Hill, 1996 champion and son of Graham, summed it up perfectly: ‘Nico is doing everything − and I mean everything − to get the high ground over Lewis. Lewis looks sometimes as if Nico is getting to him. I am concerned about that for Lewis’s sake.’
Rosberg was 0.386sec faster in qualifying, giving him an 11th pole to his rival’s seven. Hamilton, a venerated one-lap specialist, must find that perturbing and inexplicable.
Both men made a few mistakes: Hamilton locked up and ran far on to the kerbs; Rosberg ran dramatically wide in the second session.
When he set the fastest lap, Rosberg’s wife Vivian and the Mercedes’ hierarchy celebrated. The man himself put up a thumb and thrust a forearm out as he returned to the pit lane. It was a gesture of intent.
This title fight is now going to be won as much in the six inches between the ears as the 5.58km of hot track. And Rosberg seems to be winning the psychological battle. ‘Pressure,’ said the German, ‘is one of the hopes that I have, a bit like today and in the last race in Brazil.
‘They are the kind of opportunities I am looking for. I am pushing to keep the [pressure] level extremely high. Lewis has everything to lose; I have everything to gain, so the pressure is on him.’
Hamilton has made a virtue of having no friends or family with him in the paddock here. There is just him and his Finnish trainer Ville Vihola. But is his singular approach really a help or did he miss the companionship of familiar faces when the going got tough under the night sky?
By contrast, Rosberg’s little throng of friends tucked into beer and pasta on a table outside the hospitality area. They clapped when their man came over with his plate of chicken.
Hamilton had to suffice with the brief company of rapper Pharrell Williams, their meeting making the driver late for his 7pm debrief. Rosberg walked briskly there, sipping a water bottle. The up-and-at-’im attitude was obvious as was Hamilton’s dejection. ‘I don’t know whether he puts on looking sad,’ said Hill. ‘His body language in the interview told me he could hardly bear to sit next to Nico.
‘It’s not dislike; it’s just very difficult emotionally to cope with this type of situation. It’s a total psychological game.’ But Hamilton remains favourite for the title. The maths favours him: if he finishes first or second there is nothing Rosberg can do about it, even with the absurdity of the points counting double.
And coming in the top two should be straightforward enough so quick
are their cars. Yet the Williamses of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa will start third and fourth and cannot be discounted.
If Hamilton should not get cleanly through the first corner in at least second place, he is liable to be caught in the scramble.
Hill knows the dangers of this better than most. For he admits he was ‘not on full attack’ when he led the standings going into his title decider in 1996 and was hit by Gerhard Berger’s Benetton.
Hamilton is supreme as an all-out attacker but that is not his task here. Asked how he would conduct the race, he offered a brief response: ‘Same as always.’
Later, when asked whether he would race for second, he said: ‘You are right it’s not my style. But we will decide tomorrow.’
Later still, he was a touch more relaxed. ‘I don’t really pay much attention to Nico,’ he said. ‘Of course Nico, for sure, is trying everything possible in his head to come up with some kind of way of dealing with things I guess.
‘I just keep things to myself and do my talking on the track.’
By late evening, the Red Bulls were under investigation after the front wings of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel’s cars were seen to be flexing illegally.
They were relegated down the grid, so Jenson Button of McLaren moved up to sixth and now could have a say among the fray in what may be his last ever F1 race.