Adam Cooper F1

Nico Rosberg is adamant the collision with Lewis Hamilton at Spa was a racing incident, and says that he didn’t believe he was taking any risks.

Speaking at exactly the same time that Hamilton told British journalists about the post-race Mercedes team meeting, Rosberg himself declined to elaborate on what had happened behind closed doors.

“We had a discussion, as is important after such circumstances, because obviously what happened cost the team a lot of points,” he said. “And that is the main focus and the biggest issue with such a happening as today. And so yes we have of course discussed. Unfortunately I don’t want to go into any details, that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”

Asked if it was an emotional meeting he added: “It’s important for us in the more difficult times to really discuss and reason, and I think as a team we’re always managing to do that, because we have a really strong leadership with Toto and Paddy foremost, and then with Niki who’s helping out. That is the big advantage that we have, this strong leadership.”

Regarding the collision, he said: “It was a racing incident, that’s the best way to describe that, and that is also the way that the stewards saw it.

“I was quicker at the time and there was an opportunity, and so I gave it a go around the outside, because the inside was blocked.

“I didn’t see any risk in overtaking or trying to overtake, and I tried. The opportunity was there, without DRS, because I was so much quicker, so I gave it a go. The inside was not possible, so IO tried round the outside. Should I have waited is very hypothetical, because who knows what happens afterwards? The opportunity was there, and for me it wasn’t a risky situation.”

Asked if he had a way of avoiding the collision he said: “There is always the way out of going off the track.”

On the podium Rosberg was booed by the crowd.

“In such an incident it’s natural for there to be varying opinions. That’s completely normal, I suppose, and I understand that the British people more often than not tend to be on the side of Lewis, and the Germans will be on my side more often than not, that’s the nature of the thing. To be honest I respect every opinion as long as it is made with proper preparation.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has moved to clarify Lewis Hamilton’s comments on what Nico Rosberg said in the team meeting after the Belgian GP.

Mercedes has not denied that Rosberg said that he could have avoided the collision, and was out to prove a point, but Wolff said that wasn’t the same as admitting to causing an accident.

“Nico felt he needed to hold his line,” he told PA Sport. “He needed to make a point, and for Lewis, it was clearly not him who needed to be aware of Nico. He didn’t give in. He thought it was for Lewis to leave him space, and that Lewis didn’t leave him space.

“So they agreed to disagree in a very heated discussion amongst ourselves, but it wasn’t deliberately crashing. That is nonsense. It was deliberately taking into account that if Lewis moves or would open then it could end up in a crash.

“It doesn’t change the scenario at all because the incident, as I see it, is not acceptable for us. What we saw there was that Nico was not prepared to take the exit, and that caused the collision. That is not something we want to happen.

“I thought with the two of them, with the way they have previously driven against one another, that it wouldn’t come to this point. But we are at that point and it needs to be managed going forward.”

Earlier, and before Hamilton’s revelations, Wolff had made it clear that Rosberg was in the doghouse.

“Racing accidents can happen, racing accidents between team-mates shouldn’t happen. Racing accidents between team-mates in lap number two of a 44-lap race with a dominant car should be a no-no-no.

“For us, we’ve lost a win – we’ve lost another win. We’ve lost a 1-2. We have a lot of controversy about the drivers, about the team, and we’re at the point we hoped we would never reach.

“I need to look from the team’s perspective right now. Nico is 29 points ahead but it’s one thing to look at the championship situation and say ‘What does that mean for Lewis?’ The other side is to look at how that incident interferes with the principle and the philosophy of management we’re trying to have in the company. And it has functioned until now.”

Wolff said it was too early to decide whether team orders could be implemented.

“We haven’t decided that yet. I think it would be wrong 45 minutes after the end of the race to say ‘this is what we’re going to do’. I’m extremely upset about what’s happened today – not about the fact that two cars have crashed into each other, I’m very upset because we’ve defined rules all together and we’ve broken those rules. And I feel let down. Whoever it would have been, Lewis or Nico, I feel let down and the team has been let down. This is why we real have to analyse properly how we can do it better.

“Obviously we have the tools to… interfere. But this is not the right way. We have to sit them down, and for them to be part of the discussion about how to avoid this happening again.”

Told that Hamilton didn’t expect Rosberg to be receive a strong sanction, he said: “Well if Lewis has said that it’s going to be a slap on the wrist, and that there’s going to be no consequence, then he’s not aware of what consequences we can implement.”

Kevin Magnussen has lost his sixth place in the Belgian GP after the stewards deemed that he had forced Fernando Alonso off the track.

Magnussen was caught up in a spectacular battle with Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button in the closing laps, which eventually finished with Vettel in fifth place ahead of Button and Alonso, the Spaniard having damaged his wing on the Red Bull at the start of the last lap.

However it was a Magnussen/Alonso incident that caught the eyes of the stewards, and he was given a 20s penalty, or the post race equivalent of a drive through, along with two points on his license.

The stewards said: “The driver of car number 20 was defending his position on the straight between turns 4 and 5, a significant portion of car 14 was alongside car 20. The driver of car 20 did nit leave enough space for car 14 and forced the car off the track.”

Prior to the verdict Magnussen said: “I tried to do it as well as I could within the rules. I did enjoy it and it was a big challenge because they all had fresher tyres than me, or at least quite a lot better pace than me, so it wasn’t easy.”

Meanwhle Alonso seemed unconcerned by the incident: “When you are fighting for lower positions, sixth, seventh or whatever. it’s a little bit less of an incident, we just try to have fun, safety as well. It was not a big deal. We’ll see what ther stewards decide.”

The amended results show Button in 6^th ahead of Alonso, Sergio Perez, Daniil Kvyat and Nico Hulkenberg.

Mercedes and Brembo have announced the results of an investigation into the brake disc failure that afflicted Lewis Hamilton in qualifying at the German GP.

They concluded that the disc was not at fault, and instead changes have been made to the car itself.

In a joint statement the two parties said: “First of all, both parties can now confirm that the quality of the disc material was not a contributory factor. Instead, extensive analysis and experimentation has demonstrated that the specific interaction between the structure of the brake material in question and the brake mounting on the F1 W05 Hybrid was at the root of the failure.

“Countermeasures have already been applied to both the disc geometry and the mounting to ensure there can be no repeat of the failure. These developments allow the team to once again run Brembo brake disc material, should it choose to do so, in race conditions.”

Toto Wolff admits that Mercedes made mistakes in the team orders controversy in Hungary, and says that Nico Rosberg should not have been told that Lewis Hamilton was going to let him past.

Wolff says that the team will take extra care to be fair to both drivers in the future in similar situations after events were talked through by the drivers, Wolff and Paddy Lowe on Thursday.

“We spent a lot of time actually analysing what happened, what went wrong, and what was right,” said Wolff today. “Because everything is multiplied within the media and from the fans of each other’s camps you need to be aware that every word you say is being scrutinised and analysed. I think what happened was a pretty normal situation among team mates, that one is on a certain strategy, the other is on another strategy. Nico was running two places in front of Lewis when he got the call for changing the tyres, he came out behind Lewis, and now the tricky bit starts.

“In any other team similar to ours you would make the driver in front aware that the guy behind him has another stop to do what then would happen is you just I think go in whatever way. But because the battle is so intense and it’s two number one drivers and not one it’s clear that you cannot expect the front guy to lift the throttle, brake, lose a couple of hundred metres, and probably jeopardise his own race massively.

“We still believe the principle is right of making the guy aware that the other guy has one more stop to go, and this is why you should let him go. What was being told to Nico was that lewis is going to let him by, which is probably just not the right wording. Whether it was driven by instinct, or intellect, or following the procedures, I don’t know. But whatever Lewis said was right in my opinion. He said he can overtake me. He wouldn’t have made his life difficult – it’s probably the only thing you can expect from the guy in front. So we need to choose our words carefully, that’s what we must be aware of in the heat of the battle.”

Wolff says it’s inevitable that there will be more issues: “I think it wasn’t the last time we encountered some controversy between the two, and probably it wasn’t the last time we will have to learn, and learn on the job. So it stays exciting for us.”

When asked about how the Thursday meeting had progressed Rosberg declined to comment, while Hamilton said it had been positive. Inevitably the speculation is that the Briton was happier with how things turned out, and Wolff admitted that a psychological battle is going on.

“This is not only a race on the track, this is a race off the track as well. Part of the race is positioning yourself and trying to make sure that you are in the best possible position within the relationships with the team and with everybody in order to get the best out of the team for yourself.

“I think it is completely normal for the race drivers, like any other individual, to have ups and downs. Sometimes you’re happier, next time you’re less happy. For us we have to make sure we extract the maximum from both of them. This is why we want to give them the environment and the support that they need to perform at their best.

“But we are also not in the let’s make everybody happy business. You need to take decisions, and if you take decisions sometimes it swings to one side, sometimes it swings to the other side. What we need to be is always fair, transparent and straightforward. This is the only way we can cope with the situation of having two number one drivers, the only way of managing it.”

A smiling Hamilton noted that the Thursday meeting had been “funny” but refused to elaborate, while Wolff was equally cagey when asked what Lewis had meant.

“I cannot really tell you more, because this is very, very internal between the drivers and us, and it would be unfair really to make fun of it. We are in good spirits…”

Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying performance in Belgium was compromised by a brake issue that cost him valuable time and left him unable to challenge Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton suffered with glazing of the left front brake disc (supplied by Carbone Industrie rather than Brembo), a result of it running too cold.

“They could see it on the data, and they didn’t understand initially,” said Hamilton. “They thought that perhaps it was a sensor failure, but when I informed them that the car was pulling to the right they knew it was real. They don’t understand, but it was taking serious dips in temperature.

“When you go out from the pitlane there is something on the car that helps you warm the brakes up, so you put that on when you go out, you do everything you do normally, which I did. I go into Turn One, and the car started pulling to the right. So then they told me the temperature on that brake is really low, so I had to move the brake balance as far forward as possible, so I tried to clear it and clear it, and then try again, and it was still there. I could never seem to get rid of it. I don’t really know where it came from.”

Asked how much time he lost he said: “I’ve been quick all weekend. It doesn’t really make any difference how fast I would have been. Definitely a good pace. It just turns out that second place is not such a bad place to start here, so I see the positives.”

Spanish Renault 3.5 stars Carlos Sainz Jr and Roberto Merhi are both in the frame to make their F1 debuts with Caterham before the end of the season.

It’s believed that they are both likely to be given an opportunity to drive the car occupied by Andre Lotterer this weekend.

As noted here some time ago Sainz came into the frame around the time of the British GP when Red Bull discussed putting him in the Caterham for the rest of the season. Caterham uses a Red Bull gearbox, while team advisor Colin Kolles did a similar deal to put Daniel Ricciardo in an HRT in 2011. However it was decided to allow him to concentrate on Renault 3.5.

Merhi, who won the 2011 Euro F3 title before spending two years in the DTM with Mercedes, has been in the Caterham motorhome at Spa this weekend.

Sainz and Merhi currently lie first and second in the Renault 3.5 series. The championship has three more weekends to run, none of which clash with Grands Prix.

The team could face a problem however as the rules specify that only four drivers can be used per season, and it has already used three. The likelihood is that the FIA will only be flexible in the case of genuine force majeure.