Monthly Archives: November 2014

The spectre of double points has been hanging over the Hamilton/Rosberg battle all season, and after Brazil it is clear that the unpopular new rule could yet make the difference in the German’s favour.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff insisted at Interlagos that whatever happens the rules have been the same for everyone, but made it clear that he wants to see a change for next year. He’s more concerned that a technical issue for Lewis could be the deciding factor.

“You could say that the rules are the rules, and we know what the rules are,” said Wolff. “If you lose because you haven’t got enough points it goes into the history books that you either won it or lost it. And that’s a matter of fact. Then if you imagine a scenario that the championship is being turned by a DNF for example, a technical issue, that would obviously put a big shadow over the championship.

“I would very much hope for a straight fight between the two of them at the last race, and they will give it all, and hopefully the double points will not make a difference.”

Asked if Rosberg would be a worthy champion even if it does turn on double points he said: “Whoever has most points at the end of the season is the World Champion. You have to be as pragmatic, even though some of us, if it really comes down to that situation, might have a different feeling about it, it’s what it is, and as I said before, whoever wins the championship is going to have his name in the record books. And that’s it.”

Wolff keen to see the double points rule abandoned for 2015.

“Nobody likes the double points. We are going to discuss that next time around. I don’t think Bernie likes it. So it’s probably something that we should be getting rid of for next season.”

Meanwhile RBR boss Christian Horner was non-committal on the subject: “I think you’ve got to wait until after the next race. I think it’s great that the championship is going down to the wire. It becomes an element of luck involved in what the outcome is at that last race. Difficult to think that Lewis has won 10 races to Nico’s five, and it’s all so tight.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner had made his anger clear after talks over an engine unfreeze for 2015 collapsed in Brazil. Mercedes has again declined to agree to a deal after compromise solution was discussed by the main players.

While all the manufacturers can make substantial changes over the winter, their power units have to be homologated by the end of February. RBR, Renault and Ferrari, supported by McLaren and Honda, are pushing to open a second window of development later in the season – for the simple reason that they cannot complete the upgrades they want to make in the time available. All parties have to agree to a rule change for next year.

“It’s all rather frustrating,” said Horner. “You sit down and talk about things and you leave the room thinking you’ve agreed something, and then it all changes. I think you probably need to ask Mercedes their reasoning behind it. It’s a ridiculous situation that we can’t find a solution to, so I really have no idea what the outcome will be.

“You can sit in a meeting and agree things with people that then change their minds five minutes after they’ve left room. It’s a very frustrating situation. We spent a long time talking about, and we’ve agreed a position twice now, and it changes and it constantly changes. I think there’s an awful lot of frustration now between the teams.”

The alternative path for the teams that want changes is that they vote for development to be opened up beyond 2015. The regulations can be done my majority vote prior to June 30 next year.

“I think that’s the only option, because with a majority vote ’16, ’17, ’18 can be opened. So we’ll have to face the pain in ’15 in order to open it up in ’16, 17, which is ridiculous since we’ll all end up spending a lot more money over a longer period of time, whereas what should happen is a window should be opened to allow Renault, Ferrari, Honda to try and close that gap.

“There’s no guarantees that we can close that gap significantly to Mercedes. But not having the opportunity to do so, that’s the thing that seems pretty unpalatable, especially on engine technology that is immature.”

Asked by this writer about the specific issue of Red Bull Technology’s new engine group coming together so late he said: “It’s timing for everyone. To introduce a brand new engine for February is impossible.”