Mercedes AMG Petronas
This was one extraordinary season. It was one with the greatest technical changes in a generation, as teams pulled off an astounding feat of engineering by having brand new cars ready in a short space of time. Gone were V8s, replaced by 1.6 litre V6 Power Units which increased fuel efficiency by 35% and yet enabled more spectacular on-track action. Great drivers and teams struggled; others rose to the challenge and achieved spectacular and unexpected results. But one team stood head and shoulders above the rest as Mercedes dominated, claiming 16 of the 19 races and 11 1-2 finishes. It featured an epic title scrap between childhood friends turned rivals, who were allowed to race by a team conscious that their dominance would receive negative coverage should they implement a driver hierarchy. The pendulum swung between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg across the course of the 2014 season before the Briton was able to clinch his second crown in Abu Dhabi. Here, F1Zone.net reflects on an all-time classic title battle.
Many expected Mercedes to hold an advantage heading into the campaign; the squad had targeted 2014 as their best chance and they duly delivered. Mercedes arrived at the first test at Jerez in late January with two large hospitality units and put Hamilton out on track as soon as action began at 9am. They meant business. The car ran without technical problems until Hamilton suffered a front wing failure late in the morning; speed marred by reliability issues – it was to be symptomatic of Mercedes’s season, particularly Hamilton’s.
Mercedes AMG Petronas
As the tests progressed it was clear that the Mercedes W05 Hybrid was quick and in Australia Rosberg romped to victory after Hamilton’s challenge was nullified by a split rubber tube, which left his car with just five cylinders.
Hamilton fought back. He was dominant in Malaysia and it was in Bahrain when the true speed of the car was demonstrated as the W05 dazzled under the Sakhir spotlights.
Hamilton claimed the lead from Rosberg into Turn 1 and the pair embarked on one of the most epic scraps in history. Several times Rosberg tried to pass his team-mate and the one time he did, Hamilton fought back on the exit of Turn 4. It was also the first sign of agitation, with a perturbed Rosberg shouting "warn him, that was not on", when Hamilton edged Rosberg out at Turn 1.
The diverging strategies played out across the final stint, with Hamilton on the slower Primes set to be hunted down by the Option-shod Rosberg. But a Safety Car aided Rosberg and upon the restart their frantic battle resumed and the W05’s superiority was shown as the pair steamed clear at upwards of two seconds per lap. Hamilton somehow held on for a famous win, as he did a few weeks later in Spain, but on the latter occasion he turned up his engine to hold off Rosberg. The latter was furious, but Hamilton then claimed Rosberg had used the same trick in Bahrain – though this was not revealed until after Monaco. From thereon, engine settings were taken out of the drivers hands.
Mercedes AMG Petronas
Indeed, by the time Formula 1 departed the glitzy streets of Monte Carlo, talk of engine settings were no longer prominent, as the pair had their first public fallout.
Rosberg had trumped Hamilton in the opening stages of Q3 and on his second run he made a mistake heading into Mirabeau Haute and shot down the escape road. The pursuing Hamilton had to back off due to yellow flags. Rosberg held pole position but his actions were immediately dragged into suspicion. Stewards investigated but deemed that it had been an honest mistake; many disagreed and felt (off-the-record) that Rosberg had been extremely canny but stopped short of calling him an outright cheat. The post-qualifying press conference was indicative of a souring relationship. An enthusiastic Rosberg bounced into the media centre chatting with colleagues; Hamilton trudged in, took a final swig from a plastic water bottle before forcefully slamming it into a nearby bin. The pair did not make eye contact in the press conference and Hamilton’s answers were succinct. Rosberg duly won the race; “We are not friends,” Hamilton told media in the press pen, “We are colleagues.”
Hamilton broke the ice by Tweeting a picture of the pair unicycling while teenagers and pre-race in Canada put his arm around Rosberg during the drivers’ parade – albeit an action which made the latter appear uncomfortable. The race itself was a thriller, with the pair separated by just over a second as Hamilton attempted to break into the DRS range. Just as the gap tipped below a second, Rosberg erred and cut the chicane, in turn escaping DRS range. Hamilton dropped a second in the final sector but his times stabilised with Rosberg…until everyone realised that both cars were slowing. The W05s had suffered a permanent loss of MGU-K and with it the cars were severely crippled. Hamilton briefly took the lead but retired due to brake failure, but Rosberg pressed on and pulled off one of the drives of the season. Rosberg held a slender lead over Sergio Pérez, who was attempting an audacious tyre strategy, and every lap he nailed the first two sectors to ensure that he had an advantage down the two straights, where the MGU-K loss was prominently felt. Eventually Daniel Ricciardo passed Pérez and honed in on Rosberg to take the lead, but the German’s second place was an astonishing drive and his Austria victory – aided by Hamilton’s qualifying errors – enabled his title lead to stretch to 29 points.
Mercedes AMG Petronas
Hamilton needed to fight back but another qualifying error left him sixth on the grid for the British Grand Prix; Hamilton believed the final sector was too wet to improve, but Rosberg – and others – pressed on to discover that the track had dried sufficiently. At his home race, much of the national media tore into Hamilton as the ‘never give up’ driver gave up.
24 hours later and the situation was completely different. Hamilton surged to second and was closing in on Rosberg when the #6 suffered a gearbox failure. The points difference was slashed to four points and a victorious Hamilton hoisted the gold trophy aloft to the fans filling the pit straight on a hot and sunny afternoon at Silverstone. The momentum, which had been with Rosberg, was swinging towards Hamilton. And yet…
Both drivers had safe passage through to Q2 in Germany but on his first run in that session, Hamilton braked for Sachs-Kurve and the right left brake disc shattered, pitching Hamilton backwards into the barriers. It was a heavy hit and Mercedes had to start Hamilton from the back of the grid. Hamilton’s drive to third in the race was typically feisty, but another win for Rosberg opened up the gap once more, completing a successful couple of weeks for Rosberg in which he got married, extended his Mercedes contract and watched his beloved German football team win the World Cup.
Mercedes AMG Petronas
Hamilton fought back by topping all three practice sessions in Hungary, but once more misfortune struck. A fire at the start of Q1 eliminated him from proceedings and he dejectedly walked back to the pits to contemplate losing a bagful of points. Rosberg stormed to pole position while Hamilton would require a pit lane start after Mercedes had to take his car out of parc ferme. But the race was a different matter. Rosberg was caught out by the timing of a Safety Car and Hamilton got ahead as the strategies played out, the latter fortunate to escape unharmed after spinning and brushing the barrier on the opening lap.
Rosberg closed in on Hamilton and the Briton was requested to move aside, as Rosberg was at a different stage in his strategy and required a further stop. “If he gets close enough, he can overtake,” was the legitimate response considering what was at stake. Ultimately, Rosberg pitted for fresh Options and surged onto the back of Hamilton, narrowly running out of laps to make a move. Had Hamilton moved aside, Rosberg would likely have won the race.
Rosberg looked unimpressed by Hamilton’s actions after the race and when Formula 1 reconvened in Belgium after the summer break he was clearly still aggrieved by the incident.
It was on lap two at Spa-Francorchamps when ‘crisis point’ was reached. Hamilton led, but Rosberg challenged him on the run to Les Combes. Rosberg held the outside line and appeared to back off, but his front wing clipped Hamilton’s right rear tyre, causing a puncture and resulting in significant damage to the car. Hamilton retired, while Rosberg salvaged second after a front wing change. But there was no doubt who was at fault. The usually highly eloquent and diplomatic Mercedes boss Toto Wolff could barely form a coherent sentence during immediate post-race TV interviews.
“This is an absolutely unacceptable race for us,” he said, seething. “In lap two our drivers crashing into each other...unbelievable.”
Mercedes AMG Petronas
It was clear that a heated team meeting would be held, but it wasn’t until later in the day that the situation was exacerbated, as several journalists bolted back into the press room with a you-won’t-believe-what-he-just-said attitude.
Hamilton held his usual post-race media session and his tone was one of bemusement and bafflement, rather than coming out in an aggressive and forward tone, this writer having been privy to the audio.
“He basically said he did it on purpose,” Hamilton revealed. “He said he did it on purpose. He said he could have avoided it. He basically said ‘I did it to prove a point’,” before adding that he was “gobsmacked” by Rosberg’s revelation.
Rosberg did not deliberately crash into Hamilton in Belgium – to ruin his rival’s race and not compromise his own would have been an extremely difficult feat - but his move was clumsy and haphazard as he failed to prove that he could race with the best. That he took 18 points, and Hamilton none fuelled the fire, triggered conspiracy theories and caused uncomfortable questions for Mercedes’ inexperienced management, especially with Ricciardo a lurking threat in the title race.
A contrite Rosberg issued a video apology and on Friday after Belgium the pair were called to a meeting at the team’s Brackley base. Discussions were held and Mercedes issued a press release stating that Rosberg had accept fault, apologised and had been internally disciplined. That Mercedes went undefeated for the remainder of the season was a testament to the management’s reaction to the incident.
Mercedes AMG Petronas
From thereon it was Hamilton who snatched the advantage. The Brit won in Italy, aided by two errors from Rosberg, and had a largely untroubled run to the top step of the podium in Singapore after the German’s mechanical woes. Hamilton’s victory at Marina Bay elevated him to the lead of the championship. He would not relinquish it.
The following event in Japan was overshadowed by Jules Bianchi’s horrific accident, but the battle between Rosberg and Hamilton was one of the finest of the campaign – and proved to be another turning point. Hamilton was clearly more at ease with the oversteering nature of the car in wet conditions and his move on Rosberg around the outside of Turn 1 was breath-taking. He subsequently pulled away at a pace which Rosberg could not match.
Rosberg cracked in Russia at Turn 2 when he was legitimately in the lead – and was fortunate that the durability of tyres meant second place as a given - and in the United States he was caught out when he asked for a delayed ERS boost rather than an instant one. It was another example which dispelled the lazy stereotype of Rosberg as the intelligent driver and Hamilton as the balls-to-the-wall racer. Both drivers are highly intelligent and their different characteristics pay dividends at certain moment – Hamilton’s greater comfort with shifting brake bias rearwards contributing to him not using quite so much fuel, for example.
Rosberg held the advantage across the entire Brazilian Grand Prix weekend, yet but for a spin after Mercedes delayed his second stop – ironically because his initial in-lap pace was so strong – Hamilton could have won that race as well.
Mercedes AMG Petronas
The final round of the year was set to be a showdown at sundown. Both drivers were relaxed on Thursday and Hamilton set the pace in practice. Rosberg’s pole position gave him the advantage and Hamilton appeared downbeat initially, but cut a more relaxed and open figure during his usual media briefing.
Hamilton romped clear at the start and the gap to Rosberg remained at 2.5 seconds until the latter’s car was struck by an ERS failure, effectively ending the title fight. Hamilton’s eventual double-points assisted advantage of 67 over Rosberg was not indicative of the competitive nature of their title fight. Nonetheless, his 11 wins to Rosberg’s five, more rounded performances in race-trim, more technical issues at crucial times (particularly leaving him playing catch-up in the championship) and the outcome of Spa all led the majority in the paddock to conclude that the right man won the championship. But while Hamilton was a worthy champion, Rosberg was an equally worthy opponent whose qualifying performances exceeded expectations.
Some of Rosberg’s churlish comments and psychological mind games in the second half of the season were unbefitting of him and painted the 29-year-old as the villain, aided by the clash in Spa and the perception of him growing up with a silver spoon in his mouth, as a contrast to Hamilton; confidence can often be mistaken for arrogance and at times Rosberg was guilty of presenting himself badly. Yet his reaction to losing the championship in painfully slow-motion fashion – knowing that every lap which passed was another nail in the coffin – was admirable. In accepting defeat with grace and humility he proved that he was a fair sportsman and it revealed his true personality, rather than the character which was often seen in 2014.
But it was Hamilton who lapped up the adulations and was crowned world champion for a second time. As he sat in the post-race press conference he struggled to take in what he had achieved as he looked around the room in disbelief, occasionally breaking out into a knowing smile.
Hamilton adores Maya Angelou's 'Still I Rise' poem and he has those three words not only printed on the rear of his helmet but also tattooed across his back. It was perhaps fitting that whatever he faced in 2014, still he rose to join the elusive club of multiple world champions. The question now is how much further he can rise.
Mercedes AMG Petronas
