Ron and Sir Frank, from my experience driving for both of them, are no
pussycats, but they came up against two immovable objects who were prepared
to do anything to win, including taking out their own team-mate. Why should
Wolff and Lauda have any answers those two greats of the sport could not
come up with?
This is all the more true when both drivers have taken the gloves off in
private and in public. Hamilton is the same aged 29 as he was nine: he
cannot lie, and that is why he was so candid about their meeting on Sunday
night. Neither is even pretending the friendship from their childhood is
still alive and well.
As far as the incident goes, I still have to believe – despite the boos of the
crowd in Spa – in the sporting integrity of Nico. You cannot premeditate
giving someone a puncture. In my career I probably lost my wing like that 10
times, because you literally cannot see the front of the car.
The stewards seemed to make the right call, but there should be another avenue
or punishment open to them. This is not a normal racing incident.
Through no fault of Lewis’s, he has been dumped out of a race and lost a whole
bunch of points in the championship. There must be a way of recognising this
is an extraordinary incident with consequences far greater than a bump lower
down the field.
Even if the contact was clumsy more than anything else, there was an element
of stubbornness to what Nico did. He had been slapped in the face by Lewis
in Bahrain, he had been slapped in the face in Hungary, and he perhaps felt
the need to show he would not be easily pushed around.
Of course, this collision will make some review what happened in Monaco
qualifying, but for now I do not think Nico showed any malice in what he did.
If it happens a third time? We may begin to consider him a driver in the mould
of his former team-mate Michael Schumacher, who went to astonishing lengths
to win.
But it should not be for us, or for the team, to stop the drivers expressing
themselves as they do best on track.
I was in situations where I got caught behind the PR veil that teams try to
bring down over these situations. After some tough moments with Mika
Hakkinen at McLaren, we both stood in front of the cameras and said
everything was fine, while behind the scenes it was a very different story.
We either accept the situation as we have it, with all the problems it throws
up for Mercedes, or we go back to No 1 and No 2 drivers in the best car; a
rerun of Schumacher’s most dominant years at Ferrari. If Mercedes had
adopted that approach, the championship would effectively be over. And if
they lose it to a late-charging Daniel Riccardo? As unlikely as it seems, so
be it. It would be for the good of the sport.
Lewis and Nico could well collide again, with huge ramifications for the
championship. Given the entertainment it is giving us, it seems churlish to
criticise the people who made such a situation possible.