Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg face clear-the-air-talks with their Mercedes bosses during Formula One’s summer break after a team orders affair overshadowed a sensational Hungarian Grand Prix.
A heavy downpour over the Hungaroring 50 minutes before the start of the race resulted in crashes and safety cars during the first third. It led to a shake up of the field, with Daniel Ricciardo taking the win, and a previously forlorn Hamilton claiming another podium for the second successive Sunday from a seemingly hopeless position.
Starting from the pit lane after a fire during qualifying caused extensive damage to his Mercedes, and despite a spin on his opening lap that caused minor damage to his front wing, Hamilton claimed a brilliant third behind Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
The 29-year-old just held on to that position come the end of 70 pulsating laps as team-mate and title rival Rosberg finished hot on his heels, a result that saw the Briton move to within 11 points of the German in the overall classification with eight races remaining.
However, not for the first time this season, bad blood simmered post-race as on lap 51 Hamilton was ordered to let Rosberg by as the duo were on different strategies. At that stage they were running third and fourth, but Hamilton refused to yield, and come the chequered flag his decision appeared vindicated as to have done so could have resulted in him losing more points to Rosberg.
The suggestion, however, is in not doing so it cost Rosberg the win.
From an individual perspective, Hamilton is also going for the world title and with his team-mate as his only rival, he is hardly likely to hand him a position on a plate.
Hamilton said: "I was in the same race as him. Just because he had one more stop than me doesn’t mean I wasn’t in the same race as him. Naturally, if I’d have let him by he would have had the opportunity to pull away, and after his pit stop he would have come back and overtaken me.
“So I was very, very shocked the team would ask me to do that, to be able to better his position. To be honest he didn’t get close enough to overtake, but I was never going to lift off and lose ground to Fernando or Daniel to enable him to have a better race. So that was a bit strange.”
The calculation came from Paddy Lowe, executive technical director, with the directive passed on to Hamilton by his race engineer Pete Bonnington. Motorsport boss Toto Wolff has conceded he and Lowe will sit down with Hamilton and Rosberg to discuss the situation, and in all likelihood never issue such a command again to either man.
Wolff said: “We need to analyse how we ended up at that situation, and whether we need to discuss the racing between the two. It is getting intense and it is clear they are direct competitors for the world championship, so we need to sit down and discuss it.
“If Lewis had let Nico go, Nico could have won the race, but as a racer, a driver, I can understand why Lewis didn’t obey. I could have gone on the radio, or Paddy could (to insist a move was made), but we didn't.
“I don’t want to play the vicious general and demand they obey the rules. Maybe what we decided at the beginning of the year doesn’t function any more, and now we cannot ask either driver to give up positions or jeopardise their championship chances for the benefit of the team.”
Mercedes non-executive chairman and three-times champion Niki Lauda believes Hamilton was perfectly within his rights to have done what he did.
He said he understood why Lewis had asked why he should slow down in the middle of the circuit to let his team colleague by.
He said: “He is fighting for the championship, so from my point of view Lewis was right.”
From Rosberg's perspective, he appears intent on making his point clear when talks are held.
He said: “We have to discuss it internally. It would not make sense to speak about that now.”
