Nico Rosberg Can't Come Close to Lewis Hamilton in 2015 Hungarian GP Qualifying
When the fixtures are released ahead of a new football season, it is common for managers to plot their route to success using the calendar alone.
In the privacy of their office—where the admission of weakness does not represent a lack of ambition but plain, old pragmatism—they survey the fixture list and identify matches they should win, games they should lose and the days when a goalless draw will suffice.
They pinpoint a sequence of matches where they can best exploit their assets and accept that there will be months when their players' confidence will be eroded and the manager's job, in this modern world of instant success, will inevitably come under threat.
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The hope is that they can somehow control the uncontrollable and produce a choreographed campaign that, after nine months of battle, ends with the club achieving its aim, whether that is avoiding relegation, securing promotion, finishing in the European places or winning the league.
Since Mercedes' rise to the summit of Formula One at the beginning of 2014, it is easy to imagine Nico Rosberg adopting a similar method in his attempts to beat his team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, to the world championship.
Generally regarded as unable to topple Hamilton in a straight fight over the course of a 19-race marathon, F1's resident brain-box would be well served by taking a selective approach to a season. This would see him picking out a number of races where he should aim for victory and some where a podium would be a satisfactory result in a plan to ultimately outscore the British driver.
Among the grands prix with a tick beside their name would be Spain, Monaco, Austria, Singapore and Brazil, where Rosberg has traditionally performed well and had the edge over his team-mate. The "Hamildromes" of Canada, Britain, the United States and Abu Dhabi would be venues where the German would be content to settle for second.
The one race Rosberg would draw a thick, dark line through, however, would be the Hungarian Grand Prix, an event Hamilton has made his own since his arrival in the sport in 2007.
In his eight previous visits to the Budapest circuit, the two-time world champion has four pole positions, four victories and a further podium finish, never finishing lower than fifth.
The Hungaroring has been the scene of some of the most satisfying wins of Hamilton's career. These include 2009, when he won in a McLaren MP4-24 that had failed to reach the podium in the previous nine races, and 2013, when he triumphed just 24 hours after telling BBC Sport's Andrew Benson how he needed "a miracle" to convert pole into victory.
Hamilton's affinity with the Hungaroring—in this sport of love triangles between man, machine and asphalt—is clear, with the Mercedes driver telling BBC Sport how the circuit is "almost like a big go-kart track, and I really do love driving it."
The Hungarian GP transports Hamilton, among the purest drivers on the grid, back to the simpler time of his karting days, when each corner would flow into the next, racing would arouse the senses and the act of racing was done, above all else, for the fun of it.
His reference to "the combination of corners," the undulations and the "old-school" nature of the Hungaroring in explaining to BBC Sport just why he is "starting to think it might be my favourite track" only highlighted that this is as much a playground as a stamping ground for Hamilton.
Indeed, he made work seem like play on Saturday by storming to his ninth pole of the year, putting himself in a perfect position to claim yet another victory in Hungary. Should he maintain his 100 per cent pole-to-win record, he will become the most successful driver in the race's history, an outstanding achievement at a grand prix marking its 30th anniversary in 2015.
Hamilton has been the benchmark performer throughout the weekend, topping the time sheets in each of the three practice sessions. Yet the sheer margin between the No. 44 car and Rosberg in qualifying, where the Mercedes drivers have been evenly matched in recent weeks, was alarming.
Per the official F1 website, Hamilton's pole time was 0.575 seconds quicker than the fastest lap set by Rosberg, who, per Autosport's Lawrence Barretto and Glenn Freeman, was left to bemoan how "all over the place" and "inconsistent" his session had been.
While Paddy Lowe, the Mercedes technical boss, told the same source how "a configuration error" by the team had hindered Rosberg's progress, he claimed "a couple of mistakes on Nico's final run meant that he lost a fair chunk of time," suggesting Mercedes were not willing to take full responsibility for the German's poor performance.
More astonishing than the gap between the Mercedes drivers, though, was Rosberg's reaction to the result, with the 30-year-old particularly fidgety and even shaking his head on one occasion, while keeping his answers short and not-so sweet in the post-qualifying FIA press conference.
But what did he expect?
Hamilton's intimate relationship with the Hungaroring meant Rosberg's chances of victory, despite his run of three wins in the last five races, were always going to be slim this weekend. Second place, in the grand scheme of things, is the best possible result on a track where he has never reached the podium.
Even if Hamilton extends his lead in the drivers' championship to 24 points on Sunday, the Battle of Hungary is one Rosberg can afford to lose as long as he remains in contention to win the war.
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