Conclusions from the 2014 Hungarian GP

Hamilton’s clear thinking damns Mercedes
"Imagine if we'd imposed team orders. What a terrible thing that would be for F1 and the Mercedes philosophy in motorsport." - Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical) Mercedes F1 Team, April 2014.

If only they had listened to themselves.

The best way of appreciating the woeful, staggering foolishness of Mercedes’ attempt, appropriately ham-fisted, to impose team orders on Lewis Hamilton midway through the Hungarian GP is to consider the repercussions if he had yielded to Nico Rosberg - and, as an inevitable consequence, lost further ground in the World Championship fight.

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Think of the accusations and the outrage, the conspiracies and the damage done to the Mercedes brand. Think of what would have been said of Rosberg and the credibility of his World Championship lead. Think of the nuclear fall-out. And think of how Hamilton might have responded and his likely irrevocable disenfranchisement from the team. Just think. Just do the one thing that Mercedes' piteall clearly weren't.

Ultimately, Hamilton’s intransigence did Mercedes – the group, the brand and the team - a priceless favour.

But the questions remain begging to be asked. Surely the Mercedes pitwall must have realised that with the soft tyres a second a lap faster than the mediums then, even if Rosberg had to make another stop, he was still in the same race as Hamilton. Surely they must have noticed that for Rosberg to gain track position Hamilton would have to slow down first. And surely they must have realised that, if Hamilton had slowed down and yielded, then not only was he liable to lose out against Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso but that he was certain to finish behind Rosberg too.

Just what were they thinking? Answer: They just weren't thinking at all.

And Merc missed a winning call
Hamilton has described himself as being “shocked” when the call came to yield to his solitary title rival. But what’s truly shocking is not merely the scale of Mercedes’ gross misjudgement but that only Hamilton - despite the damage done to his equilibrium by two technical malfunctions in a week and despite the distraction of being at the maelstrom of the year’s most helter-skelter race – seemed to be unique at Mercedes in fully grasping how the team's botched strategy would unfold. 

F1 Midweek Report

“If I'd have let him past, he would have had the opportunity to pull away and when he does pit, he's going to come back and overtake me, so I was very, very shocked that the team would ask me to do that, to be able to better his position,” Hamilton remarked sagely during the post-race press conference.

Credit for Hamilton for his clear-thinking in such trying circumstances. And yet, after further reflection, Hamilton might well ask why his own crew why, if they knew that Rosberg was behind him on the road and had to change tyres again, they didn’t call him in for an identical strategy to run to the end on the faster soft tyres and cover off the World Championship leader in the process. Had they done so then Hamilton would probably have won the race too. Look at how the numbers stack up: Rosberg crossed the line just six seconds behind Ricciardo having fallen over t