17/05/2016
NEWS STORY
As one would expect, opinion on who was to blame for Sunday's fourth corner incident that saw both Mercedes eliminated and thereby handed the race to its rivals, has been divided.
The stewards saw it as a racing incident, Mercedes posting the official decision in a series of tweets yesterday which gave War and Peace a run for its money.
Fans of both drivers understandably saw their man as the victim and his teammate as the dangerous aggressor, whilst former drivers, including Mercedes non-executive chairman, and three-time world champion, Niki Lauda, appeared to see Hamilton as the culprit.
Another three-time champion, Jackie Stewart laid the blame firmly at Hamilton's door.
"It was all emotion," said the Scot, according to the Guardian. "First lap, desperation. That's not the way to win, not consistently. Hamilton is to blame. Rosberg was allowed to protect himself. You don't go for it on the first lap.
"Two cars from the same team can't possibly have an accident on the first lap," he continued. "One of the major assets for all of the great drivers has been mind management. Don't get wound up and excited. I think Lewis could have won this race but it didn't have to be on the first lap. The accident was almost ready to take place."
Other than the actual crash, Stewart was incensed by Hamilton's behaviour in the immediate aftermath of the crash.
"It was a tremendous faux pas for Mercedes to take both cars out," he said. "They are so much better than any other team. It's just completely wrong. And then for Hamilton to throw the steering wheel out of the car. Probably $40,000-$50,000 of steering wheel. Emotion is a very dangerous thing.
"It's unacceptable," he insisted. "Lots of people make mistakes. What you've got to do is come out of the mistake but you've got to admit it and think about why would you have done such a thing on the first lap, when you're so much quicker than everyone else. I don't think Lewis understood that. I don't think that Rosberg did anything wrong.
"I think there's a need for discipline, maybe financial. I would certainly have penalised the driver who made that mistake on the first lap. It would have to be financial. At the moment Lewis is making such a lot of money that it might not be a big penalty."