The Rosberg Conspiracy

Nico Rosberg gets soundly beaten by Lewis Hamilton in Monza. What does this mean to me?

A lot.

Okay, so if you haven't already known, Nico Rosberg is leading the Formula 1 Championship this year by 22 points over his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Throughout the previous races, the two were battling. Hamilton getting beat up because of mechanical and technical glitches and Rosberg being the consistent one.

Monaco was a big turnaround for the battle between the two. It started a fight that wasn't just friendly, but was getting a little dirty.

I didn't know then and ignored numerous conspiracies regarding Nico Rosberg's error during qualifying in Monaco. Lewis Hamilton had all the momentum going into the race and was most certainly going to take pole at Monte Carlo. Well, until Nico had an error in St. Devote chicane. Post analysis say that he really had nothing to lose so they said that Nico pushed hard and that he knew that he only had two options. 1 is that he is going to improve his time or 2, he is going to crash and cause a yellow flag resulting to a compromised lap time for the other drivers including Lewis. I didn't watch replays of the incident but people said that he tried to reverse the car in the corner. Why the hell would you do that? I don't know if the claims are valid but if it were true, then it was a dirty trick that he did.

Rosberg eventually won Monaco and Lewis' momentum was gone out the drain. He continued having reliability issues in the next races to come.

Then bring on Hungary.

Rosberg started from pole and Lewis at the back of the pack due to qualifying issues. The race was incident packed, with rain and safety cars. Because of the mixed order and imo Rosberg's inability to do calculated overtakes, Lewis was running in front of Nico in the last third of the race. Both had different tyre strategies and an order to Lewis was given to let Rosberg through in the pit straight. Lewis did not follow the order and Nico complained to the radio why Lewis wasn't letting him through. Hamilton replied that Nico was too far off of him and that if he is near enough then he will let him through.

Rosberg never came close to Lewis and never really had the pace to go within DRS range. Because of this he had to pit early and challenged Lewis during the last few laps of the race where Lewis defended aggressively.

I think that Nico was pissed of the situation and uncharacteristically brought his frustration at the Spa weekend, which was a month between the last race.

Spa created the climax of what was building up to be an epic teammate rivalry in Formula One. Nico was on pole but had a terrible start and Lewis got the lead. Skip on to lap two and the two Mercedes cars touched leading to one punctured tyre and a broken front wing.

After the race, it was apparent that Nico was at fault with the collision. What surprised me was that he appeared really arrogant after the race. Nico finished second and Lewis had to retire. Nico was carrying a gait of arrogance without any sign of being sorry about compromising the whole team a quite certain 1-2 in Belgium. On the podium, he could have said he wasn't sure what really happened and is sorry for what happened. But he displayed arrogance. Fans weren't reluctant to show disgrace to him and booed him all the way. Which was really fine for me, because I was booing too, in front of my television.

He then apologized for causing contact a week after. But everything has changed. My opinion of him has changed.

Monza then proved that Nico was shaken. All weekend long he was two tenths slower than his teammate. He was just rewarded the lead because of a launch control glitch in Lewis' car. But Lewis stormed through to take first place from Nico.

Now, now, you would think that there is no conspiracy. But still, there is. People are saying that Rosberg deliberately missed the chicane to give Lewis the win. It was a quiet team order at that. Well, I believe that Nico was still playing his conservative but infamous approach to racing. It was a small cheat tactic, what he did. Instead of locking up his tyres, flat spotting them and compromising his race, he chose to avoid the tyre disadvantage. Other drivers would lock up brakes for missing the chicane because it was the right thing to do but he didn't. He is a wise driver, but a cheat imo.

In the end, if Nico wins the championships, it will be a very unpopular one. Not because he is a boring conservative and wise driver, but because of bad decisions he made that could have turned things around.

Well, as for now, bring on Singapore! Nico has previously been really good at this circuit but Lewis has won there too. Let's see what happens in two weeks time!

My Rosberg Thoughts After Spa

31 August

I’ve been holding my thoughts about the Nico Rosberg versus Lewis Hamilton saga for a week now but before the race weekend in Monza starts, here are my ideas. Also, I haven’t written an F1-related blog since like forever so, sorry for a splurge of thoughts right here.

To those of you who don't know, I am a Fernando Alonso fan, so that kind of makes me unbiased with regards to the two Mercedes drivers.

What I thought of Nico Rosberg before as Schumacher's teammate:

I thought that Nico was not really that good because even if MSC was old and kind of rusty, he still beat the younger Mercedes protege.

What I thought of Nico before the start of this 2014 season:

He's not just a son of a former champ but is quite quick as well. He was not far off of Lewis in terms of performance and I am little by little liking him as a driver.

What I thought of Nico before Spa:

A real challenge for Lewis and deserves the world title because of his consistency even if lady luck was always in his side of the garage. He's made less mistakes than Lewis.

What I want to speak of Rosberg now after Spa:

My immediate thoughts after the contact was that he was rude and very aggressive. He did not have the room to overtake and did it anyway and because of that, Lewis and the whole team was compromised.

After the race, and especially the podium interviews, my view of Nico Rosberg had a big turnaround. The very classy guy has become a very unsportsmanlike villain of F1.

First thing I thought was that he should have immediately apologized for causing a preventable collision during the post race interviews. And then after reading all the F1 sites, I also found out that in fact, Nico was still really angry about Lewis' actions during the Hungarian GP.

Remember that  during the race in Budapest, Lewis was given an order to let Rosberg through in the race. Hamilton ignored the order but said that if Nico were to get close enough, he will let him through. Fact is, Nico never really challenged for the position and Lewis slowing down for his teammate would have consequences on his own race programme.

So anyway, a week after all the denial to speak about the incident, Nico finally apologized in Facebook, twitter, et cetera. 

For me, it was a forced apology because I believe that he was shaken by the boos and all the negativity of F1 fans such as me showed towards him.

So anyway, I really did not like what he did. I mean, keeping shut and then apologizing a week after isn't really appealing. He should have said sorry or kept shut. He is trying to win back the F1 community by apologizing but really it doesn't change the fact that he previously lied to us fans.

I don't know what's gonna happen in Monza but I hope to see light whether Rosberg has been forgiven by fans already.