Conclusions from the 2014 British GP
Lewis Hamilton stays on the title tightrope, Williams re-enter the big time, while Alonso and Vettel mess up the message
Monday 7 July 2014 13:58, UK
Hamilton halts Rosberg’s charge
In the roll-call of Lewis Hamilton’s 27 victories, his win at Silverstone this year doesn’t rank particularly high in terms of skill and achievement. But few, if any, have been so important. Turning-points in this year’s title battle have been prematurely signposted before – most notably after qualifying in Monaco and this Saturday – but if Lewis does proceed to prevail in this year’s championship then this weekend’s comeback victory will surely be retrospectively reviewed as the pivotal point. What was at best set to be a damage limitation act turned out to be Lewis’ great escape – and an epic rescue act as he all-but level matters at the summit of the Drivers’ Championship.
Except, of course, that the race fell marginally short of epic status after Rosberg’s demise – luckless if overdue – denied the grand prix a bona fide fight for victory between the two Mercedes drivers. Would Lewis have won even if Nico’s gearbox hadn’t disintegrated? Hamilton trimmed the German’s lead from over five seconds to a smidgen over two in the period prior to Rosberg’s pit-stop when his car was running without blemish. Even at that stage, it was possible to glimpse the seemingly-impossible become possible after all.
And there’s the rub. Had Hamilton managed to usurp his team-mate, in identical non-malfunctioning machinery, after suffering such a hefty body-blow in qualifying and starting out five places further down the grid, it would surely have amounted to his greatest ever victory. That’s almost certainly what Hamilton had in mind when he claimed, somewhat implausibly, to have been “gutted” by Rosberg’s retirement. Hamilton believed he had the beating of Rosberg no matter what and that they were both let down by the failure on the German’s gearbox.
Hamilton doesn’t just want to beat Rosberg, he wants to be seen as superior. "I don’t want anything bad for my team-mate,” Lewis later commented. “I want him to be at his best and me to be at my best so we can really see the difference.” It’s not difficult to understand precisely what he meant by that remark. The thinker and the talent, the Mercedes drivers are a pair of opposites, the contrasts in their characters encapsulated by their approach to social media - Rosberg mostly muted while Hamilton prefers to provide a constant stream of commentary about both his private and public life.
The Englishman doesn’t just want to win, he wants to be loved and liked; Rosberg doesn’t care what people think, he just wants to win.
Had roles been reversed in qualifying, there is not the slightest chance that Rosberg would have abandoned his lap when his team-mate was boxed up behind him. Nevermind his failure to recognise and react to the changing conditions, Hamilton’s real error was to allow his team-mate a second opportunity to usurp him in the timesheets.
Race-day, fortunately for Hamilton, delivered its own second opportunity and a result which arguably mattered less for what it produced than it avoided. Defeat on home soil, and a defeat entirely of his own making following that bewildering qualifying error, had the potential of being a crushing bl
