Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo played the role of spoilsport, taking the title at the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix, as Mercedes AMG Petronas and Nico Rosberg had to settle for a second-place finish despite taking the pole position in qualifying. Even worse, contact between the two Mercedes cars early in the race resulted in a puncture in Lewis Hamilton’s ride, and the Brit eventually had to retire in lap 38.
According to the commentators covering the race, Mercedes is pretty much pinning the blame for the incident on Rosberg, and most probably justifiably so. Still, it is a fairly common racing accident and there seemed to be nothing malicious about it. Regardless, this retirement deals a big blow to Hamilton’s title bid as Rosberg manages to stretch his lead to 29 points over his teammate. Still, there are a few more races to go, and remember–the last race of the season means double points.
“First of all what I hear is that that Toto Wolff said it was unavoidable which doesn’t put the blame on me,” said Rosberg, who received a chorus of boos at the podium. “And the fans that were booing me were the British fans.”
Valtteri Bottas of Williams-Mercedes took the third spot on the podium. The rest of the top 10, in order:
4) Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari
5) Sebastian Vettel – Red Bull
6) Kevin Magnussen – McLaren-Mercedes
7) Jenson Button – McLaren-Mercedes
8) Fernando Alonso – Ferrari
9) Sergio Perez – Force India-Mercedes
10)Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso
Well, it looks like there’s no escaping more drama brewing in the Rosberg-Hamilton rivalry that’s been going on for some time now, and Hamilton did have some choice words in his interviews. Lets see how this develops and hope that in the next race, the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team can pull its stuff together to get the finish it the team is capable of achieving.
