The 2016 Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix saw a scintillating end to the race when Lewis Hamilton crashed into his teammate Nico Rosberg at turn 2 on the last lap of the race. However, both drivers finished the race in 1st and 4th position, respectively.
Rosberg, who started 9th, picked through the field early on to be ahead of his teammate when the safety car came out after Vettel’s tyre exploded. The two Mercedes drivers from the start seemed to have been on different strategies. Rosberg with a two stop as he didn’t have track position in 9th place and Hamilton on a 1 stop as they wanted to counter the threat of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. But all this changed when Vettel’s right rear supersofts exploded bringing out the safety car. Now, Rosberg had the lead albeit with older tires than Lewis and had an outside chance to win the race if he could make the tyres last. But the team decided to box both drivers for safety reasons after what happened to the Ferrari No.5. Rosberg went onto the supersofts while Hamilton went on the softs.
On the penultimate lap, Rosberg overheated his brakes with the low operating temperature range of his red walled supersofts. This allowed Lewis to close the gap to the race leader. Coming out of turn 1 on the last lap, Lewis had a better drive out of the corner and was right by his team mate but on the outside line. Rosberg’s brakes went into passive mode and hence couldn’t turn into the corner but it looked like he was trying to run Lewis out of the track. Lewis then turned into Nice causing his front wing to get caught under the front left wheel causing him to reduce his pace greatly. Hamilton then took the lead and soon the 18 year old Max and Ferrari’s Kimi overtook Rosberg as he finished 4th.
But who was really to blame here? Rosberg knew he had a brake issue but still braked as late as he normally would and hence overshot the corner. He had the inside line and the corner was his to take. But I don’t feel Hamilton is free of any fault. Yes Nico was running wide but Hamilton could’ve avoided the collision as there was enough run off. Nico made a mistake but he was never in a position where he could avoid running into his teammate. Hamilton had that option. So whose fault was it? We’ll let you decide.
