Speaking to us on the BBC, he made a very clear point of saying that he is
going to go to Canada, be on pole, and win the race in the right way. He was
clearly insinuating he does not feel Nico won in such a manner in Monte
Carlo.
On the incident itself, I think it is feasible that it could have been done
deliberately. This kind of thing has happened before, as it did with Michael
Schumacher in Monaco in 2006. But I would like to believe in the sporting
good nature of the driver and say that it was not done on purpose. Nico has
no track record with anything like this, whereas Michael had form in this
area.
Irrespective of what anyone is saying, it was absolutely clear that qualifying
was going to be the decider for who had the chance to win the race, and that
was how it played out. Lewis showed his frustration over the strategy but
that is not surprising. You have got to get your elbows out.
This has fallen on deaf ears before, but I think we should have two pit boxes,
because otherwise it neutralises the inter-team battle as it benefits the
guy in front. If you want to see a true battle of man against man we should
get away from this single stop.
After qualifying Lewis said he was going to adopt the approach of his idol,
Ayrton Senna, in dealing with the competition. Senna was prepared to take
things to a new limit to achieve his goal. Some suggested this meant he
would drive Nico off the road at turn one, but what I took from it was that
Lewis is saying he will leave no stone unturned in his attempt to succeed.
For now, the relationship between the two is clearly very frosty. I had a few
occasions when I was team-mates with Mika Hakkinen at McLaren when he would
not talk to me. He felt that I was spoiling his party by winning a few
races.
In the end, however, your team-mate is not your buddy.
You can talk as much as you want about them growing up as friends, but you
have to outperform one man. No matter how long you have known them, you only
find out who they are and what they are really like when the light is
shining brightest.
After the race I saw some people suggesting that Lewis needs to take the
emotion out of the situation and to move on. I think we should be thankful
that we have a British driver who is not only extremely talented but
prepared to ride the rollercoaster of emotion and act like it’s the most
important thing in his life.
We see when Lewis is happy and we see when he is sad. He wears his heart on
his sleeve, and it is part of his make-up that he rides that rollercoaster.
Is that what makes him great? Or is it something that holds him back? You
can only judge at the end of someone’s career when we’ve seen everything
they have got to show.
In a very different way, there has also been a pattern emerging at Red Bull.
Sebastian Vettel has had four years of amazing success but he has just not
had a good run at all. His comments during the race – asking the team what
they could do, only to his answer his own question – seemed to me to be
aimed at Renault rather than the Red Bull guys.
But the situation is clearly much more fractious at Mercedes. For the public
it is a soap opera to enjoy. The battle looks as if it is going to
intensify.