There are a couple of obvious points that may have been at the root of his annoyance – the way Hamilton had banged wheels with him at turn one seconds after the start, a more extreme version of what he’d done to him at Suzuka. Or maybe it was irritation at himself for having thrown the race away in the late stages when the various safety cars had played to his favour to put him ahead of Hamilton with just nine laps to go; a little too hard, too early on the power and there he was sliding offline, onto the runoff – and there went Lewis, a silver flash to his right, a third world title his. It’s got to be hard to take when the guy keeps doing this to you. But that’s Lewis Hamilton the unstoppable force.
Niki Lauda knows exactly where Rosberg was coming from. “There was the first corner and I understand why Nico is upset about that. But then he had everything back under control and was going to win the race, then he made the mistake. That’s really why he is annoyed, I think. Because he had it in his hands even after what happened at the first corner and then he screwed it up. He was only going to delay Lewis’ championship by winning here, but this would have been important to him. I delayed Prost’s championship at Zandvoort many years ago, so I know what it means to have lost anyway but to want to give a final message of ‘take that, guy’ and Nico today missed his chance of doing that.”
Rosberg wasn’t the only one thinking ‘if only’. Sebastian Vettel might have won this race from 14th on the grid but a possibility that was created by one safety car was denied by another. Had the race stayed wet – it began with the field on inters – then Daniil Kvyat is convinced he could have won it, for the Red Bulls were actually much quicker than the Mercs in these conditions and the young Russian did actually briefly take the lead from Hamilton. Daniel Ricciardo in the sister car eventually thrust his way to the front, but even before he was assaulted by Nico Hülkenberg he’d lost out to the Mercs’ much superior pace once the track had quickly dried.
