Bahrain was no ordinary race even though it lacked the fireworks of the 2014 race between Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. Having said that, there is a notion that Nico showed up in Bahrain to race and race he did.
Managing to fight off the full Ferrari attack for most of the race, Nico’s brakes failed on the penultimate lap and according to team boss Toto Wolff, that’s what cost him second place:
“Anyone who doubted Nico saw Nico at his best fighting hard, overtaking,” said Wolff. “He did everything right.
“Losing that position because of a brake failure is a pity.
“Without that, I think he was driving so well that he would have kept the Ferrari behind – but he had no weapons to defend.”
We’ve discussed this before and the only real option Nico has to get his championship bid back on track is to take the fight to Lewis Hamilton regardless of team strategy or split strategies. Nico has to come with all cylinders firing and I do believe he intended to do that in Bahrain.
Unfortunately for Nico, Hamilton’s cylinders are all firing too and it seems that Lewis is driving as well as he ever has which means that he’s keeping the German at bay. When Lewis is on, you’d better have more than just your “A” game and right now, he’s “ON”.
As we head to Spain, Nico will have to push hard. At the end of last year, Nico knew he had the measure of Hamilton on pole positions and simply said he needed to convert those to wins in 2015. Lewis had plans of his own, he needed to convert his race wins into pole positions as well and he’s doing just that. Lewis 1, Nico 0.
Can Nico mount an effective challenge to Lewis in 2015? Wolff says he can:
“It’s four races into the season, there’s another 15 left – which is quite a lot.
“So I have no doubt after his driving in Bahrain, which was exceptional, we’ll have a very strong Nico bouncing back next time.”
We’ll see.
Hat Tip: AUTOSPORT
If Mark wasnt able to participate why didnt Grace replace him? Why is she never on the race review podcasts?
The short answer is that I try to spread the load out for the folks. Grace has three in a row coming and I try not to lean on her too much. That would be rude of me. :)
I do miss her in the race reviews. If she can only be utilized in one of the two places thats what i’d rather.
She was buying a new hat for her cat.
Or what Todd said.
It was good to see some racing at the front, and to see Rosberg, Vettel and Raikonen all getting stuck in. Rosberg certainly took a big step forward this weekend, and i enjoyed seeing him behaving less cautiously.
Hopefully over the season they’ll be able to draw Hamilton into the scrap, that might slow his run to the championship down, a little.