London - The fallout from the latest chapter in the fight between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg could well spill over to the British Grand Prix this weekend, given that Mercedes has decided against imposing team orders on its drivers despite last weekend's collision that cost the team a one-two finish.
In the four days since Rosberg almost ran his team-mate off the track on the final lap of the Austrian Grand Prix, Mercedes has been forced to decide how to control the two championship rivals as well as play down claims made by the team’s own non-executive chairman, Niki Lauda, that Hamilton trashed his room in Baku in anger and lied about his relationship with Rosberg.
If anyone thought that the start to the season had been an unpredictable one, then they better hold on tight for the second half of the season.
Rosberg was deemed to be at fault for the crash - at least by the race stewards who sanctioned him with a 10-second time penalty after the race. Rosberg vehemently denied causing the accident, but it must be questioned whether deep down, after seeing the same replays that have been broadcast hundreds of times since the collision, he believes his own story.
Something that may also be lurking beneath his confident exterior is the possibility that Hamilton, a threetime champion, is a little bit better than him. Legendary Formula 1 commentator Murray Walker has watched the rivalry unfold over the past two-and-a-half seasons, and he believes that there may be the slightest bit of self-doubt within the German.
When push comes to shove
Murray Walker “I don't know, but I would be surprised if Rosberg wasn't thinking all the time not of Ferrari and Red Bull and Force India and Williams and all the rest, but of his teammate because he knows that Lewis Hamilton is the only person on that grid who has a car that is as good as his,” Channel 4 pundit Walker says.
“I suspect that deep down in his heart he may realise that Hamilton is actually a bit better than he is, in my opinion. There's very little in it, very little, but when push comes to shove, put Hamilton in the same car as Rosberg and I think he will win.”
Last Sunday's accident, which resulted in Rosberg losing the lead of the race, a certain top-two finish and most crucially 13 points to Hamilton in the drivers' championship, was the third time in five races that the pair have collided. In Spain, their first lap accident took both out of the race and was deemed a racing incident, while the opening corner in Canada resulted in Hamilton drifting into Rosberg and forcing him across the grass to plummet down the field.
Walker isn't as quick to blame Rosberg though as the stewards were for the Red Bull Ring fiasco, and insists it's much easier to make a decision when not faced with the raw emotions and conflicts experienced behind the wheel that both will have experienced during that final lap.
Desperate to win?
“Well it's so easy to pontificate about who is right and who's wrong when you're sitting watching a television set and you're not in the cockpit and it's not your decision,” adds the 92-year-old, who also reveals that he still enjoys every single race weekend.
“It's my personal opinion that Rosberg was desperately - and I mean the word desperately - trying to win the race in the very last stages, he knew he was in danger of being passed by Hamilton and he was determined to stop him, and he stopped him in the way he did by running wide, and it's easy to say he shouldn't have done that. If the red mist is in front of you and the victory is at hand, you're going to do what it takes.”
Hamilton was booed throughout the podium ceremony due to a mixture of a partisan Austrian-German crowd and a miscommunication on the circuit tannoy that the Briton was to blame. Who looked slightly uncomfortable with the reaction from the fans, though that will be vastly different if he repeats his feat from last year and steps out onto the top step at Silvestone on Sunday afternoon.
He may draw a mixed reception among the wider community, but British motorsport fans have developed a warm affection for Hamilton over the nine years since his first F1 outing at the Northamptonshire track.
Yet Walker still believes that the 31-year-old is yet to achieve the same relationship with the Silverstone faithful that his good friend Nigel Mansell achieved in the late 80s and early 90s.
Hamilton can match Mansell's four British Grand Prix victories with success on Sunday, with only Jim Clarke ahead in terms of home victors with his tally of five. Walker though believes Hamilton's bond with the fans is yet to reach the heights of Mansell's Silverstone love affair, though he does admit that the reigning world champion isn't far off.