Championship lessons learnt in Barcelona

What. A. Race.

Formula One has been fortunate enough to have had four opening rounds of pretty decent racing, but the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix offered the perfect blend of wheel-to-wheel action, strategic variation, and championship-defining permutations to make it a modern-day classic.

Most critically it featured a new winner – the lifeblood of the sport – and at just 18 years old and in only his third year of racing any sort of single-seater car Max Verstappen’s first visit to the top step will prove to be a pivotal moment in the sport’s history.

We can put aside that big-picture thinking for a moment. We’ll surely have the better part of 20 years, if not more, to talk about Verstappen’s Formula One successes. The Spanish Grand Prix could prove pivotal in the (relatively) short-term prospect of the 2016 drivers championship.

It was easy to forget after a tense 66 laps that the grand prix was made a thriller by the elimination of both Mercedes cars mere seconds after the lights went out when Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided on the run down to turn four.

Rosberg, realising from the lead that his car was in the wrong power unit mode, was travelling as much as 17 kilometres per hour slower than his teammate out of the third turn. Hamilton pounced, choosing to make a move down the right-hand side, which would win him the inside line to turn four – but Rosberg claimed the space at the latest possible moment, closing the door just as Hamilton reached his car.

Feeling he had earnt the space and thus choosing not to back off, Hamilton put his car onto the grass, at which point he lost control of his W07, which spun into the sister Mercedes and eliminated both from the race.

It was a flashpoint similar to that at the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix, when the pair collided on the first lap after Rosberg rejected Hamilton’s attempt to close the door through the chicane.

Rosberg, halfway through Mercedes’s first championship year, had already grown tired of Hamilton’s bullish – though completely legal – racing style. His clumsy and belated response punctured Hamilton’s tyre and put him out of the race, pushing the team on the brink of civil war.

It’s fascinating to reflect on how far both Mercedes and Nico Rosberg have come since they first awkwardly grappled with the championship lead two years ago.

Then Mercedes wasted little time coming down hard on Rosberg. He was chastised publicly after the race by team leaders, a later press release reaffirmed this decision and added that he would be suitably punished, and he was mandated to release a written public apology to his team and teammate.

It was psychologically devastating for a driver in the heat of his first championship fight, and Rosberg wilted to concede all bar one of the seven races remaining that season and the subsequent year’s championship.

But that isn’t the same Rosberg we’re dealing with today.

This is a Nico Rosberg who has nothing to lose after being mercilessly beaten into submission last season and who conceded the title in Austin both by allowing Hamilton to push him wide at the first turn and by later making a crucial mistake in the final stint to gift his teammate the lead.

This is a Nico Rosberg who has developed an aggressive streak – a position defined by holding the lead at all costs by forcing the attacking driver to avoid contact.

This is a Nico Rosberg who is wielding his championship lead to neutralise Hamilton’s psychological advantage.

While it was a simple racing incident, those who suggest Rosberg earnt more blame neglect to give weight to the fact that only Hamilton could see the full extent of the risk of the move. Closing the door did exactly what Rosberg intended it to do – it put the responsibility on Hamilton to pull out.

“It was a clear, strong move to make sure he understood there was not going to be any space there,” said the German after the race. “I was very surprised he went for it anyway.

“I wasn’t surprised because I didn’t see him, I was surprised he still went for the inside gap.”

Certainly aggressive – but, inversely, imagine the response Rosberg would have earnt had he swerved back to the left to make way for his teammate.

This time last year my column noted that Rosberg’s timid response to coming second made him vulnerable to the type of on-track bullying to which Hamilton frequently subjected him.

At the time Niki Lauda sided with Hamilton: “All racing drivers are selfish, egotistical bastards. That’s the only way you can win,” he said.

But little more than 12 months later, change is in the air.

“Lewis was too aggressive to pass him, and why should Nico give him room?” the Austrian asked rhetorically. “He was in the lead; it was very simple for me. I blame him more than Nico.”

Is this the long-awaited dawn of a Nico Rosberg capable of taking the fight to Hamilton? With a healthy championship lead and 16 races to defend it, there’s no time like the present for him to find his inner bastard.

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