Hamilton v Rosberg Austria crash - 'It makes me puke myself': Reaction, analysis, what happens next
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Updated 04/07/2016 at 09:46 GMT
Just three races after their Spanish Grand Prix collision, Mercedes Formula 1 team-mates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton came together again in Austria - this time on the final lap.
Austrian Grand Prix crash - Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg (Sky Sports F1 screen grab)
Image credit: Eurosport
First impressions were that Rosberg was to blame: speaking on Sky Sports F1 commentary, Martin Brundle said in the immediate aftermatch that he would "100% give that one to Rosberg".
The stewards agreed: Rosberg was blamed by the stewards for the incident, and was later slapped with a 10-second penalty.
That somewhat meaningless sanction will, for Rosberg, be irrelevant compared to the burning pain - and shame - of missing out on victory and ending up only fourth after what had been a superb drive.
But was Rosberg really to blame? And what will be the fall-out from yet another coming together between arguably F1's two biggest stars?
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Mercedes Formula One drivers Nico Rosberg of Germany and Lewis Hamilton of Britain during a news conference.
Image credit: Eurosport
ROSBERG'S VIEW: 'Hamilton had space... Him turning in just completely caught me by surprise'
Let's start off with a look at Rosberg's defence of his actions.
"I'm on the inside, I have the right to defend. I don't need to take the ideal line," he said after the race.
"I had Lewis on the outside and I wanted to keep him there, of course always leaving him track space.
It's a fact he had space. You can look at the onboard and all the other cameras.
"Of course, after the collision it may look like he did not, because I am airborne and I lose grip and it takes me further out of the track, and after that it may look like there was less space, but that's irrelevant because that's after a collision.
"I just want to repeat: at all times there was space prior to the collision.
"I'm just extremely frustrated because I felt I had the win in the bag, and even in the moment I was sure I was in a good position to defend and win it, just before the collision.
"The collision completely took me by surprise. I didn't expect Lewis to turn in.
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Austrian Grand Prix crash - Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg (Sky Sports F1 screen grab)
Image credit: Eurosport
"I can say I didn't drive into anybody because I had the car fully under control at all times, I didn't lock up any tyres or anything, completely under control. Him turning in just completely caught me by surprise.
"He apparently said in a TV interview I was in his blindspot, so maybe that is the reason why he turned in. That's a possible explanation.
"I would love to have won here, and to lose it in such a way on the last lap is unbelievably hard. I lost the race, he won it, and I'm the guy who suffered in the collision. I was unlucky, he was lucky."
Later, Rosberg fumed once more at what happened, posting a video on Youtube giving his point of view: "I got penalised by the stewards for the incident. I got 10 seconds, which doesn't change my result, but they give me the blame, which sucks," he said.
It's really hard to get over something like that because I had the win in the bag, I was convinced I'd win it," he said.
"Then to lose it like that on the last lap, especially in those circumstances, that's a pretty tough one."
HAMILTON'S VIEW: 'I drove as wide as possible... three cars could've came on the inside'
Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton saw it somewhat differently
"I would've loved to have gone to the inside but he covered the inside so I had to go to the outside, but even got past him - which was mega. It's very hard to do that here.
"If he had done [Turn 1] normally as he'd done the lap before I wouldn't have had the chance, but fortunately the opportunity came.
"I don't go out to get involved in a collision. Today as you saw I drove as wide as possible within the white lines so I left a larger space, three cars could've came on the inside there.
"Honestly I don't really want to get into any negatives. I just want to focus on the fact that I won today.
"You guys can see the move and take your own opinion from that. I have my own opinion but I'm going to keep that to myself and try to focus on that race.
"The team want to finish first and second. That's my goal and the team's goal and I want to be at the front of that, but certain circumstances have led us to where we are today."
TOTO WOLFF: 'Cars colliding seems a deja vu for us... it makes me puke myself'
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff was clearly furious with what had happened - as could be seen by his reaction, punching the air in fury as his drivers' petulance cost the team yet another 1-2 finish.
Later, however, he suggested that a technical problem was at least partly to blame.
"At the end of the second-last lap Nico's brake-by-wire failed, that means the electronic braking, which obviously reduces the performance in braking, so that was the technical problem," he said.
"Lewis caught up, and with the collision, it always takes two to tango.
"But it starts somewhere, and it started with the braking into Turn 2 where one hard manoeuvre triggered the next hard manoeuvre, and it could have ended up in a double collision, which obviously is the worst nightmare for us. I don't think it's that black and white [as a deliberate collision].
"Nico was with a car that was handicapped, trying to brake later, and not on the line that was probably the normal line, and Lewis came from the outside, and this is where the first contact was made.
"I don't want to attribute any blame because every time you watch the video and you look at onboards there is new information.
"You can't clearly say who is more to blame than the other. I have a personal opinion, and I'm not going to express it here. As a matter of fact that needs to be avoided.
When pressed by Sky Sports analyst - and former F1 driver - Johnny Herbert about Rosberg's failure to turn the wheel in time, Wolff simply said. "Ya. It's racing.... but car's colliding seems a deja vu for us, and I'm ending up talking with you guys about colliding team-mates which is absolutely not what we want."
TEAM ORDERS IN THE OFFING?
Wolff then went on to add that he might have to bite the bullet and bring in team orders - much as he doesn't want to.
"In Barcelona I was much easier with it because we had 29 races without any collision. It was clear it was eventually going to happen, it wiped out both cars.
"From my naive thinking I said to myself 'OK, that's it, they've learned their lesson, they've seen the consequences and it's not going to happen any more'. But here we go, it happens again.
"So the only consequence is to look at all the options available on the table, and one option is to freeze the order of a certain stage in the race. It's unpopular, it makes me puke myself because I like to see them race, but if the racing is not possible without contact, then that's the consequence.
"We'll have to cool down a little bit and in the next couple of days figure it out.
"There's the heat of the moment - it's either the first lap or the last lap - and you know what? I am fed up with trying to analyse it. I just don't want any contact anymore.
"The fact is, if they race in the way we saw in Bahrain [2014] - that's the best example - we love it.
"A collision of team-mates is a no-go for every team and needs to be avoided."
OUR VIEW: Why Mercedes will continue with the best-worst pairing in F1
If maximising points in the constructors' championship really mattered, then Mercedes would be all over this with team orders.
But their margin over the field is so enormous right now that they can get away with it, knowing that both drivers' and constructors' championship titles are both in the bag come what may.
And with that being the case, they can probably sit back and enjoy the fact that their feuding drivers has given them absolutely unrivalled exposure.
They shouldn't, and won't, underestimate the power of that as Formula 1 is, ultimately, built on sponsorship rather than results - the sponsorship generally follows the results, but the cooler, sexier and more exciting the racing, the more the teams can reap the rewards.
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Nico Rosberg in Austria
Image credit: AFP
So nothing will change at Mercedes. If it were going to it would have already, as there have been serious issues between these two drivers stretching back over two years.
The infamous 2014 Belgian Grand Prix - in which Hamilton accused Rosberg of deliberately crashing into him - wasn't the first incident, but it was perhaps the worst and might have been a warning shot that got the pair to cool down.
Instead, it appears only to have stoked the fires, with repeated incidents since then. It makes F1 fascinating, thrilling and just dangerous enough, introducing drama, suspense and intrigue where we might otherwise have the excruciatingly dull dominance witnessed in the best years of Ferrari or Red Bull.
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Nico Rosberg crashes in Austria
Image credit: Imago
Funnily enough it was Red Bull's Christian Horner who hit the nail on the head with his analysis. He started off by questioning the long-term stability of keeping the pair as team-mates, but then suggested that Mercedes must be loving every second of it.
"While they are in the situation that they are in, with the competitiveness they have, they are obviously going to have... .these issues are not going to be isolated to this race," he said.
"When you do have a dominant car, it's great to have the guys going head to head... It's enormously difficult, because no matter how much those guys say they are team players, they are contractors and they are racing for themselves.
"I'm sure it won't be the only one during the rest of the year... It actually creates interest in Formula 1, it's good for Formula 1 to have two team-mates that may not be the best of mates."
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