Can Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg Both Stay at Mercedes in 2015?
Not since the days of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost has Formula One seen such a bitter rivalry between two team-mates.
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg started the year on good terms. Childhood friends and close neighbours in the principality of Monaco, they had already spent a year as team-mates without any significant issues.
Hamilton even revealed to Formula1.com earlier in the year that he'd been storing his safe in Rosberg's apartment for several months. Though they weren't the best of buddies—no two racing drivers in the same series could be—by F1 standards, they were friends.
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But once it became clear the title race was going to be a two-horse Mercedes canter, fears their relationship would not last the distance emerged.
Those fears were realised after only six races.
Small cracks had begun to show. Rosberg used a restricted engine mode to attempt to pass Hamilton in Bahrain, then Hamilton did the same to defend his lead in Spain.
But they were minor incidents, easily forgiven and forgotten, and nothing compared to what was coming next.
During qualifying for May's Monaco Grand Prix, Rosberg had provisional pole from Hamilton by just 0.059 seconds after their opening runs. Both went out for a second run towards the end of the session, Rosberg around 15 seconds up the road from Hamilton.
After a scruffy first sector the German was 0.124 seconds down on his best. Braking a touch later than on his previous lap, he locked up and went straight on down the escape road at Mirabeau.
He then reversed back towards the track.
Yellow flags—which may or may not have been prolonged due to Rosberg's reversing, rather than continuing up the road to park—came out to advise the other drivers of the hazard. They ruined several final qualifying laps, one of them Hamilton's.
Whether the German, knowing he was down on his best time, deliberately caused the yellows to ensure he retained pole, we may never know.
Motorsport magazine's Mark Hughes reports that almost every one of Rosberg's fellow drivers believes it was deliberate, and Hamilton made it clear in The Guardian that he was one of them, saying, “I wish you could have seen the data. I saw something late on last night and all I could do was smile.”
The only people whose opinion matters—the stewards—disagreed.
But whether deliberate or not, the incident (and perhaps, Rosberg's delighted celebration afterwards) infuriated Hamilton and drove a wedge between the two.
The "friendship" was over, and worse was yet to come.
At the Hungarian Grand Prix in July, Rosberg started on pole. Hamilton's car caught fire in qualifying before he'd set a lap, so he ended up starting from the pit lane.
Two safety cars and 31 laps later, the pair were separated by less than two seconds. Rosberg, stuck behind Jean-Eric Vergne, led Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton.
Rosberg pitted and went onto what would turn out to be the better strategy—two stops to the end. Hamilton quickly dispatched Vergne and, while Rosberg was battling through traffic, pulled out enough of a gap to emerge from his own single stop ahead of his team-mate.
On the quicker compound and not having to save the rubber, Rosberg quickly came up behind Hamilton. The team told the Brit to let Rosberg through; he said he would, but only if Rosberg got closer.
He couldn't, and the time lost behind Hamilton probably cost him the race win. He wasn't at all happy, and being edged off the track on the final lap by a defending Hamilton only served to further infuriate the German.
This anger may have affected Rosberg's judgement at the next race at Spa.
At the start of the second lap, going down the Kemmel Straight after Eau Rouge, Rosberg seemed much quicker in a straight line. He pulled out from behind Hamilton and tried to go around the outside into Les Combes.
Hamilton braked late and made the corner on his normal line. Rosberg, on the outside, could see the attempt had failed. He turned the wheel left to straighten the car, then swung right into Hamilton.
His front wing hit Hamilton's rear-left tyre and punctured it, while Rosberg's own front wing was damaged. Hamilton was out of contention entirely, but Rosberg finished second.
Like Monaco, intent is impossible to prove or disprove, but Hamilton thought it was deliberate.
He told a press briefing following a team meeting (h/t Sky Sports):
"We’ve just had a meeting and he basically said he did it on purpose. He said he did it on purpose. He said he could have avoided it. He said, ‘I did it to prove a point.’ He basically said ‘I did it to prove a point.' And you don’t have to just rely on me, go and ask Toto [Wolff] or Paddy [Lowe] or those guys, who are not happy with him as well.
"
Sources inside Mercedes told the Daily Mail his words were "broadly correct."
Rosberg, meanwhile, posted a YouTube video, disagreeing.
The Mercedes PR machine went into overdrive. Team boss Toto Wolff played down Hamilton's comments, and internal disciplinary action was taken against Rosberg.
The result was what the Daily Mail reported as a "six-figure fine." Rosberg admitted responsibility, and apologised to the team and Hamilton on Facebook.
But such gestures can't mask the fact the two drivers are now, in F1 terms, enemies. The warmth and friendship visible at the start of the season have gone, replaced by frosty body language that neither makes any effort to hide.
Even on the Italian Grand Prix podium, happiness was in short supply.
Team-mates at war can push a team forward, but they're far more likely to be a destabilising factor.
Many Mercedes employees, including the management, will favour one over the other. That's what people do, and working for an F1 team does not wipe out a person's humanity.
Providing the division between the two does not widen, such preferences won't make too much of a difference. But if open war breaks out, clear sides will be taken. Mercedes cannot afford that to happen—if it does, one will have to go.
Wolff admitted as much, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live before the race at Monza. He said:
"We have made it very clear this is an unacceptable scenario for us, for both of them. We don't want this to happen ever again.
The consequences are very easy. If we are not able to manage the two of them following the Mercedes-Benz racing spirit, then we need to admit that and take decisions and take consequences of having a different line-up probably.
"
On the evidence of the season so far, they'll never work closely together and will never trust each other again. Too much has happened and neither is likely to forgive or forget.
But the current relationship doesn't seem so bad that one would choose to leave, or that Mercedes would choose for them.
Whether or not it stays that way is in a small way down to the other teams.
The issues this season have come about in part because each has only had the other to deal with. All their energy and competitive effort has been focused on a single opponent.
If they remain the dominant team next season, and the title race is again between the two of them, that will continue—and they won't survive together. What has happened in 2014 will happen again.
One will decide to go, or Mercedes will force their hand.
But if there are some more boys in the playground in 2015, things should be different.
Throw in a couple more targets for them to focus on, and it would turn the very personal rivalry into a three-, four- or five-way battle. While they'd still view each other as the prime target, the intensity would—perhaps—be lessened.
But the primary factor is of course what happens on the track, and for now the ball is in Rosberg's court.
As David Coulthard put it in his BBC column, Rosberg is on a yellow card. He has been warned—if he takes Hamilton out again in a manner similar to Spa, Mercedes' management may well decide he has to go.
If they let him off with another wrist slap, it's entirely feasible that the emotionally driven Hamilton would walk out of his own volition. He already feels cheated, and would certainly have no lack of suitors.
Hamilton taking out Rosberg, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause as much trouble. The Brit doesn't yet have a warning hanging over his head, and it's difficult to picture Rosberg storming out after a single incident.
Should it happen more than once, that may change—though it's less likely the calmer Rosberg would walk, in part because he would have fewer alternative doors to choose from.
Mercedes will try to do what they can to keep a lid on this feud, but the reality is that for now at least the responsibility lies with the drivers.
Between them, or individually, they have to find a way to make things work.
But the next grand prix is the hot, sticky, near-two-hour long race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore.
Cool heads may well be in short supply.
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