Tag: James Matthews

When Mercedes locked out the front row for the Malaysian Grand Prix with Lewis Hamilton on pole, it seemed all but certain that the team would end the race with another one-two finish and wrap up their third consecutive Constructors’ Championship.

But when the lights went out things rapidly went wrong for the Silver Arrows, as Nico Rosberg got caught up in an incident between Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen and ended up dropping to the very back of the field.

Fortunately the German’s car was undamaged and Rosberg set about carving his way through the the back of the field. Before long he had returned to the points and closing on the back of Kimi Räikkönen, with Mercedes now looking at a first and fourth with Hamilton leading by some twenty seconds from Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen.

But just as Mercedes seemed to be in the clear once more, tragedy struck the other Silver Arrow of Lewis Hamilton in the form of a violent engine failure, sending him spluttering onto the runoff at Turn 1 with flames rising from the exhaust.

For Mercedes, the anguish of recording their first mechanical DNF since Russia last year was clear – not only had the team been forced to delay celebrating its third World Constructors’ Championship and missed out once again on breaking McLaren’s 1988 record of eleven consecutive wins in a season, but it had done so with its lead car in flames in front of a de facto home crowd.

“It’s hard to know how to sum up a day like today,” Toto Wolff said after the race. “I just have no words for what happened to Lewis. We all feel his pain. This is a mechanical sport, with so much technology, but sometimes you just get blindsided by situations with no rational explanation.

“But we take a forensic approach to our work in how we build the engines and how we analyse failures. We have always done and we will do so again. Our guys will get to the bottom of what happened and learn from it.”

Paddy Lowe added “we’re all absolutely devastated for [Hamilton]. As a team we’ve worked incredibly hard to improve reliability over the past few years and have succeeded in doing so.

“Indeed, this was our first race failure of the year.”

Mercedes’ only consolation came when Rosberg made a bold move past Kimi Räikkönen through Turn 2 to get himself back into the podium positions, but even this was soured when the stewards deemed the move too aggressive and handed Rosberg a ten-second time penalty for making contact with the Ferrari.

Nevertheless, with some twenty laps to go to the finish Rosberg was easily able to open up the necessary gap to Räikkönen to keep his third place, thereby extending his lead at the top of the championship to 23 points over Hamilton.

James Matthews

Toto Wolff has said that Mercedes is on the brink of a “very special” weekend in Malaysia, as it stands ready to take a third consecutive World Constructors’ Championship in front of a home crowd for partner Petronas.

Mercedes currently stands 222 points clear of Red Bull with 258 remaining on the table, and can wrap up the title in Sepang with just a win and any other points finish. While it is still mathematically possible for Red Bull to push back Mercedes’ celebrations to the next round at Suzuka – a 1-2 or a win and third for the Austrian team would do it – their chances of delaying the inevitable hang on Mercedes either missing out on the win or not bringing both cars home in the points – something that has not happened since May’s Spanish Grand Prix.

But despite the odds being stacked vastly in its favour, Mercedes is still erring on the side of caution ahead of what is traditionally one of the most demanding and unpredictable races of the season.

“It’s a very challenging weekend,” said Paddy Lowe. “The heat and humidity make life tough for the drivers, team and cars alike, while the track action can often be affected by rain.”

Lowe also noted Mercedes’ “hugely disappointing” 2015 visit to Sepang – in which Sebastian Vettel beat both Silver Arrows to the win – as something that will likely be on Mercedes’ mind this weekend, with Toto Wolff adding that the team “will need to push hard” to avoid another such defeat.

However, the biggest threat to a third Mercedes crown this weekend could in fact come from the team itself, as the pitching title battle between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton enters its final, gruelling phase.

After Rosberg’s three wins on the go in Belgium, Italy and Singapore, many have begun to tip the German as the new championship favourite, and even Hamilton himself has admitted he has “no idea” if he’ll be able to reclaim the title momentum if Rosberg maintains his current run of form.

But with only eight points separating him from his teammate, the prospect of Hamilton conceding the championship with six rounds still to go is unthinkable. Neither he nor Rosberg will be prepared to yield so much as a single point at this late stage – all Mercedes asks is that the pair keep their battle clean until the Constructors’ Championship is safe.

James Matthews

Mercedes has taken its first double podium in Singapore with Nico Rosberg winning from pole and Lewis Hamilton holding onto third, despite questions over reliability and late pressure from Ferrari and Red Bull.

Rosberg and Hamilton were both warned about brake wear early in the race and given precautionary lift and coast orders to ensure they got both cars to the end, in what seemed to be further evidence that Mercedes has yet to master Singapore’s unique demands.

But even as the tone of the Mercedes pitwall grew ever more anxious, their instructions seemed for the most part to be more caution than cause for concern, as Rosberg continued to build on a three second gap over Daniel Ricciardo and Hamilton ran a steady third.

However as the race went on this brake management phase started to hurt Hamilton, whose grip was already compromised running in the dirty air behind Ricciardo, and after changing to the slower, more durable soft tyre in his first pit stop the Briton fell back into the clutches of Kimi Räikkönen.

When the ultrasoft-shod Räikkönen swept past Hamilton on lap 33, Mercedes was forced to press Ferrari’s weakness on the pitwall: switching Hamilton to a three-stop strategy freed the Briton up to burn through as much of his second set of softs as he need to keep touch with Räikkönen, before bringing him in late on lap 46 to perform the undercut.

As Hamilton left the pits on scrubbed supersofts Ferrari urged Räikkönen to push ahead of his own stop a lap later, but despite the Finn’s best efforts he could not make up the necessary time and emerged from the pits in fourth and back behind Hamilton.

“A difficult day and a difficult weekend,” Hamilton reflected. “The brakes were near critical temperature for the most of the race, so I kept having to back off to cool them down. I then made a mistake and ran wide which let Kimi past.

“Fortunately, with the car a bit lighter I was able to bring the temperatures down, push a bit more on fresh tyres and get back past him. Pace and strategy weren’t the issue – it was all down to the brakes.”

But although Hamilton’s late stop was successful in restoring him to the podium, it almost ended up costing Rosberg the race win.

Reacting to Hamilton’s strategy, Red Bull pulled in Ricciardo on lap 48 to ensure the Australian had the tyre life to defend his second place, only to then target the lead as Ricciardo’s pace carried him away from one Mercedes and towards the other.

As Ricciardo slashed the gap to the front on his new supersofts, Rosberg was forced to sit tight and watch him come as there was not enough time for the German to pit without relinquishing track position. His lead, which had been over twenty seconds after Ricciardo’s stop, was dwindling at such a rate that Red Bull predicted their driver would catch the Mercedes with four laps to go.

But this ultimately proved too optimistic, and by a combination of keeping calm in front and getting the better hand when passing traffic, Rosberg managed to hold on by four tenths of a second to take his 22nd career victory and his first in Singapore.

“In the past the Singapore track has not treated me so well, so this win is a very special one,” said Rosberg. “The weekend started perfectly with a good qualifying session. Then, I had a good start and was able to keep the Red Bulls and Ferraris behind me.

“It was a bit tight at the end after Daniel did a clever pit stop timing wise. If I would have also pitted I would have come out behind him because I was stuck in traffic on my in-lap, so we chose the best strategy to stay out and a big thanks to the team for that.”

Rosberg’s victory – his eighth of the season – sees him retake the lead of the championship by eight points, and along with Hamilton’s third place moves Mercedes 222 points clear of Red Bull, meaning the Silver Arrows could mathematically clinch a third consecutive Constructors’ Championship at the next round in Malaysia.

James Matthews

Toto Wolff has said that Mercedes “must not make the mistake” of thinking themselves favourites for the win in Singapore, given their recent struggles around the Marina Bay circuit.

“No team has ever scored a 1-2 finish [in Singapore] – and with good reason,” Wolff said, referring to the reliability issues that forced both Rosberg and Hamilton respectively to retire from the 2014 and 2015 Singapore Grands Prix. “As we have seen before, it’s a race where a single problem can cascade into many more as the weekend progresses.”

Wolff also acknowledged a greater threat from Mercedes’ rivals this weekend, highlighting how the Marina Bay track “will suit the high-downforce philosophy followed by Red Bull” and also noting Ferrari’s “mighty” performance in last year’s race.

Nico Rosberg also said he regards Singapore as “a Red Bull track”, but added that his “faith…is as high as ever” in himself and the team delivering a strong result:

“I got my second ever podium [in Singapore] back in 2008 but haven’t been up there again since, so the target is to change that on Sunday. Of course, it won’t be easy [but] I approach every weekend aiming to win the race.

“I have faith in the team and my belief in myself is as high as ever.”

But on a weekend where the championship lead swings by just two points to his teammate, it would perhaps be prudent not to bet on Rosberg as the favourite Mercedes driver in Singapore.

Throughout 2016, Rosberg has struggled most in those races when his battle has not just been with Lewis Hamilton but with the other cars around him as well – take Monaco, Canada and Hockenheim, for example. If Red Bull and Ferrari manage to put up a fight this weekend, Rosberg may well find the increased pressure simply too much to control.

Add in to the mix that the Marina Bay Street Circuit is yet another in this latter half of the calendar that plays into Lewis Hamilton’s hands – delivering the Briton two wins in the past, to say the least – it would hardly be surprising to see Rosberg yield up the title ground he gained with his last two victories in Spa and Monza.

James Matthews