Rosberg crash won’t affect contract talks – Wolff

32 comments on “Rosberg crash won’t affect contract talks – Wolff”

1. 

   Strontium (@strontium)
   5th July 2016, 0:16

   I’m completely shocked to hear that teams aren’t even allowed to warn drivers of a brake failure, even when it means retiring the car, and crashing out at high speed. How the FIA is trying to justify this is unknown.

   Also, Pirelli need to stop the pathetic tyre blowouts. It’s simply too far now, they’re in their 6th season making these tyres, there’s no reason for this to be happening. It’s the second time in under a year it’s ruined an almost guaranteed podium for Vettel.
   1. 

      beneboy (@beneboy)
      5th July 2016, 0:23

      Aren’t they allowed to tell them to retire, but not to take it easy ?
      The idea being that if it is a genuine safety issue then the team should retire the car, not just tell them to slow down enough to prevent a failure, yet still finish.
      1. 

         ColdFly F1 (@)
         5th July 2016, 5:27

         Not sure if we are hearing the whole story from Fernley.

         The radio ban rules define as the 1st permitted message:
         ‘1. Indication of a critical problem with the car‘

         Therefore, if Force India deemed it critical – i.e. brake failure (probably the most critical of all) – then they could have informed Perez.
         We don’t know what they asked FIA.
         But even then it is not an excuse: If they think it is critical then they should have informed Perez if it’s allowed or not. Better to have a penalty (and test the ban) than to have driver crashing without brakes.
         @strontium, @beneboy
         1. 

            hahostolze (@hahostolze)
            5th July 2016, 6:40

            Fully agree
         2. 

            ColdFly F1 (@)
            5th July 2016, 8:12

            sorry for the bold statement; I incorrectly closed the HTML code.
         3. 

            Luke
            5th July 2016, 12:43

            Wasn’t Lewis warned about his suspension from the engineer?
            1. 

               NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
               5th July 2016, 17:18

               Yes he was, even coached where to take it easy…
   2. 

      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      5th July 2016, 8:11

      Teams can tell drivers of brake failures, but only if they are also telling the driver to park or pit the car. They are not permitted to tell the driver to change settings or alter driving style to fix it.

      From what I can tell, if a problem doesn’t require an immediate pit stop or parking, the FIA does not see the problem as critical, merely severe, so item 1 is not applicable. Teams can also tell drivers to take it easy, but can’t specify *how* to take it easy – if the team thinks the message will be interpreted in a way that doesn’t protect the part (for example, taking it easy by going on the throttle later and changing cornering angle won’t necessarily help with a brake issue), then there’s no point issuing the instruction as the driver cannot be told what they need to protect (and therefore cannot know which method to “take it easy” they should use).

      If Force India thought the car could get to the end of the race without either a pit stop or parking the car (entirely plausible given how late into the race the brakes eventually failed), they couldn’t tell Sergio, and when the situation changed, it sounds like it was too late. One doesn’t test a ban if one doesn’t believe it will be necessary in order to get the optimum result from a situation. Had Force India known the situation was so serious, I’m sure Force India would have told Sergio to pit (to either fix the car or retire it) or “test the ban”, but they didn’t know the brakes were as critical as they were, and that proved their undoing.
   3. 

      trublu (@trublu)
      5th July 2016, 16:11

      @ strontium
      According to Toto, the drivers do have something on the steering wheel that let’s the know that brakes are not optimal.
2. 

   noety
   5th July 2016, 0:30

   formula e does seem a fan friendly experience
3. 

   Tristan
   5th July 2016, 0:34

   “We’ve got to look at the radio communication bit because we were not allowed to tell the drivers their brakes were critical,” Fernley told Autosport.

   Yet as part of the radio restriction regulations on what is allowed to be communicated
   -Indication of a critical problem with the car, e.g. a puncture warning or damage

   I’m not a fan of strawman arguments when anyone with half a brain (let alone a professional team racing in the top series in the world) can have a quick glance at the regulations and see what is allowed.
   1. 

      Tristan
      5th July 2016, 0:37

      Ah my bad, just noticed the bit about race control. But honestly, someone needs to challenge this and take it to a tribunal if the officials aren’t doing their job. It’s the only way.
      1. 

         W-K (@w-k)
         5th July 2016, 1:13

         We have recently, but I can’t remember who said it, but the penalty for disobeying these radio rules is the common 5 second one. A call to look after the brakes, and then finishind the race + 5 secs could be better that 17th., plus cost of damage.
         Also instructions on where to switch for correct PU mode when it could improve total race performance by 5 seconds might also be a better choice. i.e. 40 laps to go at 0.25sec/lap = 10 sec, a gain of 5 sec.
   2. 

      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      5th July 2016, 8:22

      “Critical” in the FIA’s eyes appears to mean “serious enough to merit a pit stop or retirement”. Consider that the restriction is there to prevent engineers from telling drivers how to configure their car once in the cockpit – if doing so for technical issues was allowed, everyone would be feigning relatively minor issues to get that exemption used.

      It looks like Force India asked about being allowed to send the necessary messages and was overruled. I wasn’t worried until I read about Rosberg not being allowed to know that he had a brake-by-wire failure during his race and the team wasn’t allowed to say anything. That’s a critical issue and needs to be informable – if only by the “your brakes are gone, park the car immediately” method that exception 2 could reasonably be interpreted as allowing. As it stands, Race Control is forcing people to stay out with cars that could reasonably be interpreted as dangerous – itself a breach of the regulations, and a serious safety issue.
4. 

   W-K (@w-k)
   5th July 2016, 0:56

   “Rosberg crash won’t affect contract talks – Wolff”.
   Is that comment, the correct one? Shouldn’t Toto be analysing that crash and the other two, Spa and Barcelona, and using the analysis results as part of the decisions to keep Rosberg or employ a replacement.
   My own thoughts on the three crashes are that they all followed a mistake by Nico and an immediate clumsy move to correct or cancel out the effects of the mistake. In other words he is not an instinctive driver or one who has excellent racecraft. Which are IMHO requirements for World Class Champion.
   No doubt Nico has many skills that make him a good F1 driver and these may in Toto’s opinion outweigh the my comments above. Nico after all is the one who leads a quet life and studious looks at all the data, including Lewis’s and uses that to improve his performance. Which is totally different from how Lewis prepares, if we are to believe what some think of his life style. But if Toto’s reactions and comments about these incidents which have resulted in a failure to get the best race results possible, usually a Mercedes one two. Then I don’t think they should.
   Also Toto needs to take into consideration what Lewis’s reaction might be. Is Lewis going to want to stay if he has a ‘partner’ that keeps making these clumsy moves. Next time it might be Lewis that comes of worse, maybe a lot worse.
   1. 

      Understeer (@abdelilah)
      5th July 2016, 1:13

      @w-k good point indeed, it seems that Mercedes want a german champ at any price and it does not matter if they close their eyes about his mistakes and mishaps, Monaco, Spa, Spain and so one, by the way Rosberg is as german as Hamilton is African but he keeps saying he is German, for this incident only I hope he does not get the crown this year.
      1. 

         W-K (@w-k)
         5th July 2016, 1:18

         Their junior driver https://www.racefans.net/pascal-wehrlein/ is German, or they could choose https://www.racefans.net/nico-hulkenberg/ if they want a more experienced German driver. Who as quite a few have said deserves a top car chance.
      2. 

         DaveF1 (@davef1)
         5th July 2016, 11:46

         @abdelilah

         by the way Rosberg is as german as Hamilton is African but he keeps saying he is German

         Rosberg probably keeps saying he’s German because he was born in Germany, has a German citizenship and is fluent in the language. So yeah, he’s certainly more German than Hamilton is African considering Hamilton’s father is of Caribbean heritage.
   2. 

      Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
      5th July 2016, 3:37

      I don’t think Hamilton is blameless in this most recent crash, nor the one at Spain.
      I just don’t see how this last crash couldn’t make Rosberg want to have a different contract, but I don’t think there is much he could really change. This is probably his last chance to get to be World Drivers’ Champion without having more than one serious competitor, and if he goes to another team he is going to have a worse situation there because then he would have two Mercedes drivers to compete with.
      1. 

         W-K (@w-k)
         5th July 2016, 4:14

         Well I don’t see how Hamilton can be anything else but blameless in this latest incident.
         Rosberg Brake issues 1 – He knew this, so why didn’t he brake earlier, if he had Hamilton would have been further ahead.
         Rosberg Brake issues 2 – With Brake issues and balance more towards the front he should have locked up if he braked from normal position. No evidence.
         Therefore how much of a brake issue did he have, probably this is either fiction or it wasn’t as bad as he made out.
         Rosberg late Steering – Why did he turn so late and so little, not the actions of anyone trying to avoid contact.
         Rosberg lack of racecraft – If he had any talent he would have at least tried for tyre to tyre contact.
         Rosberg – Driving along the white line – Again indication he fully intend that either there was further contact with which he could try to pass the blame or Hamilton would brake and would be further behind him.
         No, cannot agree with you at all, this incident was 100% the fault of Rosberg, as state by Martin Brundle only a couple of minutes after the incident. And there were no charges against Hamilton, he was only a witness.
   3. 

      Joao (@johnmilk)
      5th July 2016, 13:39

      @w-k it won’t affect contract talks, because they had already decided not to renew his contract (you heard it here first)
   4. 

      Dom (@3dom)
      5th July 2016, 14:44

      @w-k at the end of the day Rosberg still has the best chance of anyone on the grid this year to be world champion. Do they really want to send the world champion elect packing? If it were going to affect him staying then they’d have to throw their backing behind Hamilton, and “engineer” a Hamilton world championship, not really the way that anyone would want the outcome to be decided.
   5. 

      drmouse (@drmouse)
      5th July 2016, 16:26

      “The contract is a long-term decision and it is not influenced by a race incident.” (My emphasis)

      I think he is playing it down, but of course a pattern of high profile incidents between their drivers will play into their decision making process. A single incident won’t but (whoever is at fault) several will.

      As things stand, AFAIK, Hamilton has a contract for next year (please correct me if I am wrong). If this is the case, and they are looking at a string of incidents (many of which have fault on both sides), they have few options.

      – They can try to get the pair to play nice, but this hasn’t worked so far.
      – They could go for team orders, but I doubt either driver would be very accommodating with that.
      – They can try to get out of their contract with HAM. This is likely to cost them, one way or another, quite a lot.
      – They can fail to renew ROS contract, or threaten to do so.

      Sorry to say, but the last option seems the least costly option to me.
      1. 

         Understeer (@abdelilah)
         5th July 2016, 22:27

         @drmouse Honestly what can Mercedes loose if they drop Rosberg ? Werhlein can do just fine for Mercedes and will cost far less money, in the other hand if they drop Hamilton they will lose a lot, but Toto is still stubborn about Rosberg.
5. 

   Nick (@nick101)
   5th July 2016, 3:15

   Rosberg out – Button in!

   There, problem solved!
6. 

   Miki
   5th July 2016, 5:20

   Im fan of Maurizio but he needs to be a leader of the team. If you made a mistake admit it. If you make blunders most of times you have to realize that and try to sort that out. for most of the season Ferrari is weaker than Mid field teams in terms of strategy. They lost loads of points and wins just through strategy. They can say in Hindsight its easy to be captain Obvious but when the entire people understand that you gave a win right away for 2 or 3 times and unable to capitalize on things offered you have to understand that and change it.
   2015 – Ferrari SF15T is not a match for Merc W06 in any way and yet they put them under pressure most of times and capitalized when things go wrong for them
   2016 – Ferrari SF16H is still not a match for Merc W07 but its closer than its predecessor to their rival and they are unable to capitalize on things on offered also worse is that Mercedes is also throwing the points this year whether due to Reliability or Rosberg
   1. 

      Ruben
      5th July 2016, 9:34

      Ferrari still have the second best car on the grid. So why haven’t they been able to win yet?

      I think the problem is that they are so focused on beating Mercedes they neglect some aspects in their strategy. Bit like Williams last year. Instead of covering those behind you, your looking at cars which are faster then you. Compromising the strategy and allowing Red Bull to catch up. Ferrari’s screw ups flatter Red Bull’s pace on some tracks. Track position is key at some tracks. They would have won in Spain no doubt if they didn’t mess up Qualifying.
      Ferrari still has better race pace then Red Bull but are constantly put on the back foot by focusing too much on the front instead of looking behind them.

      If they did cover the cars behind them they would be more ahead then just a mere 24 points ahead of Red Bull.
7. 

   BasCB (@bascb)
   5th July 2016, 10:30

   Finally McLaren are looking like having the season they sort of must have expected for the first year of their cooperation. I do hope the new engine brings them further into the mix, it’s a bit of a waste having Alonso and Button just skirting around qualifying and finishing in 8-14th.
8. 

   Craig Wilde (@wildfire15)
   5th July 2016, 16:19

   The crash may not effect the negotiations, but Wehrlein’s improving performances might.
9. 

   Mike Dee (@mike-dee)
   5th July 2016, 16:42

   Really quite amazing of Wehrlein to be able to reverse into his grid slot and still get a clean start. Is there an onboard anywhere? Would like to see him press many buttons very quickly.
10. 

    Still I Rise
    5th July 2016, 17:28

    Jock Clear needs to start getting people in chokeholds if possible. Send arrivabene to the sweetie shop during the race. Ferrari could actually be in the hunt if they didn’t keep messing up.
11. 

    MikeeCZ
    5th July 2016, 22:52

    10/10 for Perez’s quote, almost sad how funny it is

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