It seems every time I predict a tense battle for the lead, one of the Mercedes cars suffers some sort of problem.
If Lewis Hamilton’s car isn’t on fire, Nico Rosberg is barrelling into him in a deeply uncharacteristic brain snap.
Singapore was no exception. A minute problem with a wiring loom led to a catastrophic failure of Rosberg’s electrics.
The race was Hamilton’s for the taking and the audience was robbed of the long-awaited race for the lead.
Rosberg’s misfortune is, at very least, a boon for these deprived viewers. The title standings have been reversed: Lewis Hamilton’s 22-point deficit has become a 3-point lead with five rounds remaining. You can stop licking your lips.
But the race to the flag in Abu Dhabi is missing a third element in this hitherto silver-coloured affair: the purple-overalled Daniel Ricciardo.
The Australian sits a so-so 60 points adrift of new leader Hamilton, perfectly poised to sneak home as per Kimi Räikkönen in 2007.
His first season with the (soon to be former) reigning World Champion has been an outstanding one, making himself the only driver who doesn’t have a contract with Stuttgart to win a race. Yet Ricciardo finds himself hamstrung by a subtle shift of attitude within his own team: Red Bull Racing’s sudden navel-gazing when it comes to team orders.
At the beginning of the Singapore Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel sat 132 points off Rosberg’s then-lead, 60 points behind his teammate. In the race’s closing stages Ricciardo managed to reel in Vettel, despite intermittent battery discharge issues, and attempted a pass for second place. It would have earned him three extra points to put towards his underdog’s chance at the title.
Despite this, Red Bull Racing chose not to call team orders and allowed Sebastian to take home those potentially critical points. After the race, team principal Christian Horner noted that both of his drivers “have a mathematical chance” at the title, and that “it would be wrong to interfere with that” – advice rather distinctly different to that doled out to Mark Webber during his time racing for the energy drink brand.
Perhaps the change of heart is precisely because of this; perhaps Christian Horner and Co. are so keen to avoid the toxic atmosphere brought about by their mishandling of their former driver pairing. Such conservatism today, however, may prove deeply counterproductive.
While Ricciardo’s shot at the Championship remains a long one, Red Bull nonetheless has one driver within striking distance of a title and another merely within mathematical contention. Ferrari, the great emotional beast that it is, felt no such sentimentality when it handed Fernando Alonso victory over Felipe Massa in Germany 2010, despite the former being almost 50 points off the title himself – and he almost won it by season’s end.
More importantly, however, Red Bull finds itself with a Mercedes opponent seemingly teetering on the edge of self-destruction – two drivers, perpetually poised to tear themselves apart, sat in cars predisposed to chewing themselves to pieces in new and unusual ways.
For Mercedes to walk away from this season with anything less than both titles, 2014 will only be considered a failure for Brackley. Even having one of its drivers displaced from second place will mean it failed to achieve its optimum.
If ever there was a time to apply pressure, it is now. Enforcing team orders at Red Bull may well force Mercedes to reconsider its own free-to-race ideology – and imagine the effect team order will have on Hamilton and Rosberg’s relationship.
That’s the what, but now consider the why. In a fateful parallel, the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix shed some light. At the height of McLaren and Mercedes’ bidding war over his services, Lewis Hamilton, starting from pole, failed to reach lap 23 after his gearbox failed. This third DNF in five races was enough for Lewis to consider his future elsewhere, and his 2013 deal with Brackley was confirmed that Friday.
Sebastian Vettel is one of a few world champions with a key to this year’s driver market, along with Alonso and Jenson Button, each currently holding the only viable seats to which drivers of their calibre would want to move. The question is who will blink first.
It’s no secret that Vettel has had a disappointing season. It’s equally obvious that Ferrari has been quietly courting the four-time champion for some time. You could hardly blame Red Bull Racing for wanting to remind Vettel where his true home is.
Michael Lamonato is on Twitter using the deeply uncreative handle @MichaelLamonato
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