Exediron wrote:
mikeyg123 wrote:
Exediron wrote:
pokerman wrote:
Just a slight titbit, Hamilton didn't need Rosberg's car to breakdown to win the title in Abu Dhabi but Rosberg needed Hamilton's car to breakdown for him to win the title.
Only assuming that Rosberg would still have lost all the races after Malaysia like he actually did. If he had needed to win any of them, we don't know what would have happened.
Wrong season I think.
Ah, you're probably right. Lewis has won two titles in AD though, so it it is open to misinterpretation.
I think I understand what pokerman was saying, then: a Mercedes 1-2 in Hamilton's favor would still have given him the title, whereas a 1-2 in Rosberg's favor would not have. True enough, as far as it goes, and he never should have been within striking distance anyway without double points.
Arguably however, the Abu Dhabi effective retirement put the balance of unreliability towards Nico's side, with 3 no-fault DNFs to Hamilton's 2 (if you believe Mercedes that the issues in Canada were identical on both cars and Nico successfully drove his car to the end, it was within Hamilton's ability to do so as well). Nico had opportunities to do better in the season (winning Hungary, most prominently), but with the retirement at Abu Dhabi none of it would have mattered. He didn't throw away enough points to cancel out the 50-point automatic gain for Lewis (or at least 36, if you assume Hamilton was going to win anyway).
Hamilton has won only 1 title in AD? Therefore, I would assume Pokerman is referring to 2014. Hamilton could afford to finish 2nd behind Rosberg, so it was Rosberg who needed Hamilton’s car to fail, not vice versa. Without the double points, Hamilton would have needed only 6th.
From what I can remember of that race, Hamilton already had a decent lead over Rosberg on track, even before Rosberg’s car started to experience problems. Of course, we can never know for sure what would have happened without Rosberg’s ERS problem. But even if he had no such problem, Rosberg would have needed to somehow find a way past Hamilton on track (something Rosberg had been unable to do all season?) plus hope Hamilton DNF’d or finished 3rd or lower. Unlikely.
Again, my recollection is a little hazy, but I’m pretty sure Hamilton had other technical issues that year e.g fire in Hungary qual, brake problem in Germany qual etc. Hence, in terms of reliability, i would question your sentence that Rosberg's issue in AD put the balance of unreliability towards Rosberg. Perhaps we can say, it merely evened out the unreliability score?