Hamilton will hold Rosberg up “if he’s smart” – Horner

F1 Fanatic Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Christian Horner says the smart thing for Lewis Hamilton to do this weekend would be to hold Nico Rosberg up.

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Comment of the day

@Geemac shares some first-hand experience of Yas Marina:

As someone who has driven the track (in one of their F3000 cars) and stayed at the hotel the track was asked to pass under I can tell you that the track is dull (though the F3000 car wasn’t) and the hotel is god-awful.
@Geemac

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Heart Of The Sunrise, Nakavich, Beverly Sanford and Haziq Danish!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Ten years ago today McLaren confirmed Lewis Hamilton would make his grand prix debut with them as a rookie in 2007:

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

58 comments on “Hamilton will hold Rosberg up “if he’s smart” – Horner”

  1. As much as I hope for a huge race, with a twist, excitement (and the title to swing Lewis’ way)

    I just can’t help but think after all the build up it’s going to be business as usual. *sighs* am I right is saying this is a relatively power dominant track? I just can’t see the Bulls getting near enough to the mercs and making thinks difficult..

    1. Feeling the same here. I too want Lewis to win but even if he looses, I don’t want it to be decided half-way through the race, it would be cool if Rosberg was P3 being pressured by a Red Bull towards the end wit Lewis leading. Regardless if Nico manages to keep P3 by the end, it would be a proper tense finale.

    2. Yeah, it is the kind of track where we will be lucky if we get some tension in the first lap, maybe a SC but for the rest we will have to settle for some DRS dicing in the midfield @nemo87.

      Would be fun though, if a Red Bull can get ahead of the MErcs at the start, that will give the team some number crunching to do.

  2. It is truly a shame that we don’t have this epic championship being decided at a suitably epic venue. Season finale should be at a classic venue, which Yas Marina certainly is not.

    1. im sure $ plays a big part in Abu Dhabi hosting that last race. Oil money.

  3. Last race(Brazil) Rosberg had a big moment and almost spun out.
    He pulled the clutch in to keep the car from stalling, and let it go later which over revved the engine for a good full second.

    You heard it here first – this over revving will cause a mechanical failure for Nico.

    You can see and hear the onboard camera – massive over rev.

    1. eh? they’ve had rev limiters for decades and they typically don’t get anywhere near the electronically imposed limit.

  4. It’s funny… all the scenarios with Lewis holding Nico’s back and all. But what if Nico’s ahead? aha! you didn’t think of that, did you? I can see him leading the race from pole. He can do it.

    1. If I were Lewis, I would do the same & control the Race. I bet he had not thought of that, but he is getting plenty of Ideas now.

    2. I hope he does. It would be great for him to take the title with a win.

    3. I have the feeling that Rosberg will have mechanical issues, don’t know why.

      If that happens, I will buy a few lotteries, anyone interested in sharing?

    4. Agreed . Rosberg has outqualified Hamilton at Abu Dhabi every season they’ve been at Mercedes together so far so don’t see why he can’t stick it on pole and control things from the front. As for Red Bull, well they arnt the pacesetters anymore so Horner has to find some way of dropping their names in the championship showdown I guess. That said with these new regs in 2017 I hope they can challenge regularly for wins again . The thought of Danny Ric and Max going toe to toe with the mercs is mouthwatering.

    5. The real problem is the first pole for Verstappen ;)

  5. Everybody is at a buzz with this title decider. It’s interesting to note that most drivers choose to express an assertive message to Nico. Also it’s interesting that the Brits seem to be very engaged in ways to make the finale actually interesting, as comprehensively a 1-2 is not only dull but a done deal as well.

  6. Hey Eddie…

    Shut up.

  7. Most probably going to be a Mercedes 1 & 2, with Hamilton taking the win and Rosberg taking the championship.

  8. With little chance of winning the championship, Hamilton might just be better of driving away and leaving Rosberg behind (if he indeed can do that) in order to ride the unrealibility-made-me-lose-the-championship wave this winter. It certainly holds some thruth, and would protect his reputation.

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      24th November 2016, 9:22

      He doesn’t need to say anything – his reputation is fine. He just needs to focus on this race and hope for some good luck.

      Put it this way, I’d say he has more chance at the moment of winning the 2016 Championship than he had of winning the 2008 Championship when he started the final lap in Brazil.

      1. A chance which only happened because of PU failures and bad luck for Massa.

        Undeserving I believe is the word used when you win the championship and weren’t the best driver that season?

        1. Massa failed to score in Silverstone and Monza, both races in the wet. Those points would have made him champion.
          So, in the end, Massa has only himself to blame.

          1. I still can’t believe Massa didn’t get a penalty for punting Hamilton into a spin in Japan.

          2. @x303 Massa did dcore at Monza, but your point stands. FM only gained 1 point over Hamilton, in a race where he started much higher, and had inferior cars in front of him.

        2. @david-a My bad about Monza. But yeah, had Massa scored more points in those races, Glock misfortune would have changed nothing.

  9. Personally I hope Rosberg sticks his car on pole and then drives away from the pack in the race.

    Then maybe people will stop with the “he doesn’t deserve the title” chat.

    It’s also his best approach for the weekend, too many times drivers “playing it safe” come undone.

    1. @dbradock That won’t stop even if he did that, The unreliability that Hamilton has had this season, most notably the 25 points lost in MAL will always be there. If that engine blow up hadn’t of happened then Hamilton would be going into this race 16 points ahead of ROS, so theoretically even if ROS did drive away from pole then he would still lose the championship by 9 points.

      At the end of the race, doesn’t matter the outcomes you will have one group of fans claiming one thing and another group of fans claiming another. Rosberg hasn’t had an engine failure while leading to “even things out”, others will argue that is racing, while others will argue ROS will be a reliability champion, people will say well if Hamilton had shown up in Singapore and people will counter with ROS performance in Monaco, Hamiltons start’s, Rosberg’s poor overtaking attempts, Rosberg’s luck, Hamilton bad luck with early qually…and so on…It won’t stop at the end of the race.

      1. so theoretically even if ROS did drive away from pole then he would still lose the championship by 9 points.

        well pratically this is not the case.
        HAM did received some points form RBR, ie Monaco

        1. You could say the same about the error Red Bull made in Brazil giving Rosberg 2nd place back.

      2. petebaldwin (@)
        24th November 2016, 11:30

        @woodyd91 – Hamilton wouldn’t necessarily be 16 points ahead though. Rosberg has driven cautiously because he is in a position where he can. If Hamilton had won in Malaysia, Rosberg would be doing the chasing and Hamilton would be the cautious one – I doubt Hamilton would have easily just won 3 in a row!

        1. Hamilton wouldn’t necessarily be 16 points ahead though

          The way he has driven this season its just as likely he would have lost more points the Hamilton than gained on him. Also he was genuinely off the pace in Mexico and Brazil. With the added pressure of knowing he couldn’t just settle for second he could have come away from those races with even worse results than he did.

          I don’t believe Rosberg has actually driven any slower in the last three qualy/races so the only way he has been more cautious is in wheel to wheel (Ric in USA, Max in Mexico/Brazil). I don’t see how being under pressure for results in those situations would help him at all given his previous form.

        2. @petebaldwin This is why i didn’t include any points Hamilton may have lost by the qually issues at start of season or the penalty in SPA, because you can’t actually put a figure on them as it’s all subjective, as is the case with if Hamilton had of won in MAL and ROS “being cautious” ever since. All we can do is put a figure on points that were lost. Plus the fact Hamilton overturned a 43 points deficit to 19 point lead to Rosberg in middle part of the season when there is no way ROS was driving cautiously. We will see this weekend if Rosberg performance has increased as it’s clear he wants to win the title by winning the race.

          Just as you doubt Hamilton would have won 3 in a row easily, I personally think had Hamilton won in MAL the blow that would have handed ROS mentally to lose the championship lead again for a second time in a season despite his teammates issues. the championship itself would have been tied up before the last race with Hamilton claiming a 4th. But these are all opinions and can’t be put into real points figure.

  10. Paddy Lowe sent a tweet to Alex Thomson, the skipper in the solo round the world Vendee globe race. It’s quite fitting. Though his boat is called “Hugo boss”, it has a huge Mercedes logo at the front. There are two Mercedes adorned boats. Thomson’s who has a history of being quick but with God awful luck and is leading nearly since the beginning and seems to have a slight speed advantage and Vincent Riou, a respected crafty skipper who was long second, recently slipped back to forth, but had to abandon after hitting a floating object.

    Of course here we have to stop the comparisons, Riou is the only previous winner in this year’s very strong field.

    But if you think two hours of racing is indeed not enough, do look up the Vendee globe. Plus the top 7 boats have near to equal machinery this year as most are sister ships so it’s nearly a spec series.

  11. ROS has one foot on heaven… too bad the finale will be in that awful track…

  12. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    24th November 2016, 7:10

    I find Christian’s comments fascinating in the above two articles. He’s basically reacting to Wolff’s phone call and winding Toto up, he’s not mentioned his drivers winning the race or beating Lewis, just getting one over on Nico.

    1. @rdotquestionmark I think that’s more to do with the fact, nearly everybody in the paddock expects if all things are equal for Hamilton to be ahead of Rosberg. I Personally find Horner to be pretty unbearable each time he speaks but if he really wanted to wind Toto up then he would go much more subtle and blow air on flames that Toto is already trying to put out in regards to “a worthy champion”.

      At the end of the day though I don’t suspect his comments will make a blind bit of difference, I expect it to be a 1-2 for Merc, not the nail biting title decider we all want.

      1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
        24th November 2016, 10:45

        @woodyd91 I think a reliability issue for Nico is Lewis’ only realistic chance. The Merc’s will dominate at a track like Abu Dhabi.

  13. Great relaxed conversation between Max and Daniel here. They seem really down to earth as opposed to a certain Mercedes pairing. Hoping they can fight for the title next season.

    1. Would be very interesting to see how relaxed and down to earth they would be if they were dominating together and fighting for the WDC. Throw in a bit of wheel banging to spice things up.

      1. Good point! To be honest though, there’s already quite a bit of reputation at stake… and I don’t remember Nico and Lewis being like this in 2013.

        1. @john-h Different characters but there are plenty of videos of Hamilton and Rosberg in “happier times” but I agree with Robbie, the relationship between the 2 drivers now is all hugs and compliments, put them in a championship battle and that will change, I like both VES & Dani Ric but they have both shown that they can lose their cool even while battling others for a podium place, not to mention for the win and a championship.

          I would expect more fireworks between VES & RIC than we have been between HAM & ROS if they have of had the same seasons and let’s call them “incidents” as the Mercedes pair. Just by the nature of the characters.

        2. I don’t remember Nico and Lewis being like this in 2013

          That’s conformation bias for ya! Have a look through media from 2013. Even up to Bahrain 2014 their relationship wasn’t all that bad as teammates. It wasn’t until Monaco Qualy / Hungry / Spa 2014 that it seemed to really go off rails. It wouldn’t take much for things to go sour for Danny and Max. Im sure Vettel and Webber were alright together in 2009 :)

        3. It changed at Monaco 2014 @john-h, that’s the whole story of how the boyhood-friends-in-F1 fairytale went down the pan.

          I don’t see that ever happening between Ric and Max.

    2. Thanks, @john-h. Really enjoyed that one.

      VES to RIC: “you improved from like a 7 to be a 10.”

  14. Am I the only one, who thinks, that this is a really cheap shot from Horner?
    For me, it sounds like, he suggest it, because he thinks that’s the only way, they could be close to the Mercedes pair in the weekend.
    Really cheap shot Christian…
    Don’t try to oversmart the guys, with this attitude, you could ask for them to handle your team the win…

    1. Agree,
      why not just build a a faster car instead wishing bad/fishy things to others. Toto should call Horner’s father and ask him to teach some manners.

    2. No, it’s not a cheap shot. He is saying things to put ideas in the Mercedes drivers heads because if they slip up, his cars are the most likely to benefit.

  15. Based upon this year’s current results, Rosberg has been on the podium 15 times this year, so has a 75% chance of being on the podium again, which would be sufficient to become World Driver’s Champion.

    1. It’s not that simple.

      After Malaysia both Mercedes drivers were worrying about getting their remaining engines to the end of the season. The rain in Brazil helped, and rain is threatening for Sunday, but in a dry race there is still a good chance of either/both Mercedes engine failing to finish.

      1. @ians using the same statistics sample as @drycrust the chances of one of the Mercs having a race ending engine failure is 2.5%. There’s a chance it will happen but I think it’s a stretch to call it a good chance.

        1. The point is that up to now the engines have been operating well within their design life. Now their life is almost exhausted, and will be if the drivers push them too much or use the ‘top’ engine modes for too long. They can not do that in the wet, but with a dry qualifying and race they will be operating the engines beyond what they have done so far this season. The team will compensate with a conservative choice of lubricants etc, to remove the embarrassment of the title being decided by a failure, but I still think the chance of failure is higher than it was on newer engines (when the only failure was caused by an aggressive choice of lubricant).

        2. @jerseyf1 And I guess using those same stats, if one of the Mercs did have a race ending engine failure, it would have to be Hamiltons?!?!

  16. Well, blocking tactics seems bit rerto in DRS era to mee, expecially in this kind od track, where you’ve got two straights with overtaking possibilities. That’s not Suzuka 97 kind of Villeneuve tactic era any more.

  17. I hope Adrian Sutil doesn’t follow the F1 Fanatic twitter, because he would probably have an aneurysm if he saw his number on a W05…

  18. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    24th November 2016, 9:08

    It’s a real shame Jenson isn’t getting a proper send off, a little reminiscent of Rubens’ final race. Judging by his quip in the GQ magazine article I think he knows he isn’t coming back and Mclaren are in a period of transition and must move forward. I’m gutted about the news about Ron but might we actually see a Mclaren with some colour next season? I’d love a predatory grey and orange combination, a little like the Orange Arrows.

    1. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
      24th November 2016, 9:53

      @rdotquestionmark agree with you about Ron’s corporate image… I mean, teams can be “playful” and successful at the same time, I remember the many times RB has shown a light side (Star Wars pitcrew, making Ric and Max do funny things in less than 2 seconds) and Lotus was famous for their Twitter… So far the only light side I have seen at McLaren is Tooned, but they can play more with the colors next year, now that grey and dark Ron is out.

      1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
        24th November 2016, 10:48

        @omarr-pepper Yes I agree, massive respect for Ron but I think Zak’s main aim at first will be Mclaren’s image in order to secure a title sponsor. Try and make them a little less sterile possibly.

  19. I suppose it’s pretty ironic; everybody hated the ‘Abu-Double’ double points bonanza. But if we had that in place this year, Hamilton could win the championship by winning this race even if Rosberb came second. With double point, Rosberg would need to win this race to be champion, realistically. We’d have a straight, winner-takes-all fight to the finish.

    1. Yeah true, but I don’t think that erases the hate for the concept. It would still come down to ‘he only won because…’ It is still a gadget no matter the scenario.

    2. That’s not ironic it’s just a statement of fact. And just as many people would hate Abu-Double this year as in 2014, myself included.

Comments are closed.