For Mercedes, it was another case of throwing away a one-two finish which
should have been won without breaking a sweat. Considering their awesome
machine is the fastest on the grid by miles, they have an astonishingly poor
record when it comes to making it to the finish. A frustrated but phlegmatic
Rosberg echoed such a view.
“We’ve had a few this year and that’s our weakness,” he said, while
watching Hamilton continue serenely on his way. “We need to get to the
bottom of it and make the car 100 per cent reliable.
“It tough not even leaving the grid. I was hoping the team could fix it
[after the race had started] because it was going on and off, sometimes
working, sometimes not. There’s no point in shouting, it’s reliability
issue, and it’s happened again. It’s very, very tough. Also the way in which
it happened, not even leaving the grid and everything. It was not good.”
His wife Vivian, whom he married in July, put an arm round him while team boss
Toto Wolff offered an apology, but the ground lost in the championship will
make this a hard one to get over. What this race highlighted more than
anything else is how desperate these two long-time rivals will be for their
cars not to pack in during the final race in Abu Dhabi, when double points
are on offer.
Rosberg’s race was doomed from the start. On the grid, the team changed his
steering wheel twice to try and fix the electrical systems, but he never got
away. Starting from the pit-lane, he even struggled to overtake Marussia’s
Max Chilton.
By the time of his first stop on lap 13, it was over. He crawled towards his
mark, spent a minute or so mashing some of the buttons before the team
called it a day.
At the front, the race was unfolding in processional fashion. Hamilton led
from the start, while Vettel got the jump on team-mate Daniel Ricciardo,
with Alonso third.
They stayed that way for much of the race until the predictable safety car
emerged on lap 31, after Adrian Sutil and Sergio Perez tangled. The Red
Bulls then tried to go to the end on the harder tyre, while Alonso
pitted. Hamilton did not, causing him all sorts of bother at the end.
With each passing lap, he sounded more and more alarmed over the radio. “You
should have brought me in a lap earlier,” he moaned. “My rear
tyres are going to explode.”
He was not the only one getting hot and bothered. Young guns Kevin Magnussen
and Daniil Kvyat were suffering in the heat with only a warm drinks bottle
for refuge. “I’m dying here,” the latter complained. Formula
One has been trying to make its stars more gladiatorial by reducing
radio traffic, but this showed the answer: make the cars more punishing to
drive.
At the front, Hamilton pitted, only to come out behind Vettel and have his
worst fears realised. In the end, however, it took barely a lap to dispatch
the four-time champion and reclaim the lead.
Vettel then had to defend vigorously from his team-mate – the only other
challenger this season apart from the two Mercedes – with the clock counting
down towards the two hour mark. Alonso, in fourth, was waiting to pick up
the pieces.
But the German, beaten so often by his younger sparring partner this year,
would not be denied, coming home second behind Hamilton, visibly elated.
What was all the stress for?