Negative Camber has up a succinct piece that gets to this conclusion: Nico Rosberg isn’t going anywhere next year, so if Lewis Hamilton really is going to jump to Mercedes, he’ll be doing it over the carcass of Michael Schumacher.
We’ll see.
There’s now a Q&A at the official Formula 1 site with Nico, where he repeats his commitment to the team in 2013 and also shows off how smart he is.
Because he doesn’t just say, “Yeah, we’ve got an upgrade to the exhaust.” The engineer in him tells us why it’s better:
Ah, here it gets interesting… (laughs) New exhausts, for example. That should help with more contact pressure and hence support the aero side. I tried it on Monday in the simulator and that was really kind of strange, because you do your simulator work and then you get told that your engineers will put the new exhausts on the ‘virtual’ car. They type some numbers into the computer and there you go – the new parts are on the car! And you really feel it – it is just like in reality how the car has changed. It is unbelievable what you can do these days. You can simulate more side wind, you can simulate tyre degradation – and you really do feel it.
That’s about the best detailed description of a simulator that I’ve seen. I also like his enthusiasm and, almost, shock at what the computer can do, too.
I also like Nico’s admission that, like us, he follows Silly Season. (Is it ever believable when they say they don’t?)
Of course I follow these rumours and believe me, I am pretty happy with my position driving a silver arrow and really hope to win more races in the future. To be honest, I have not heard that Schumacher/Hamilton story yet and in my view it would make no sense at all. As to whether Michael or Lewis will be my team mate in 2013, I have no more information than all the others in the paddock. What I can say is that it works very well with Michael and me – and I feel that we push the team in the right direction. So from my point of view it could go on this way.
Nico ends by saying a top five finish would be good this weekend. He also refuses to rule out the F1 title.
