Mercedes duo still 'free to race'posted in F115 | 05 | 2016

    MERCEDES HAS STATED it will not impose any limits on Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg racing each other, despite the debacle 30-seconds into the Spanish Grand Prix which resulted in both cars retiring after colliding with each other.

    Polesitter Hamilton — who had been overtaken by Rosberg at Turn 1 — got a run on his team-mate exiting Turn 3 as the German’s car lost power because he was in the wrong engine mode. But as Rosberg defended on the run to Turn 4, Hamilton was put on the grass and spun into his team-mate.

    The incident was the most damaging since the two had their major spat at the Belgian GP at Spa in 2014. Then team boss Toto Wolff maintained its 'free to race' policy: today the team reiterated it would, again, not impose restrictions on both its drivers following the Barcelona bust-up.

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    "We have moved on from Spa in 2014 and it was a completely different situation in the team back then," Wolff said. "By continuing with the approach of letting them race, it was clear that eventually this could happen.

    "And we will continue to let them race. Today was just a couple of unfortunate coincidences that ended up in us losing as a team."

    Having decided not to impose any form of internal punishment, Wolff believes the double retirement would be "lesson enough" for the drivers. Rosberg heads to Monaco for the next grand prix in a fortnight still leading nearest rival Hamilton by 43 points.

    "It's painful for them to see we have lost what could've been a great result," Wolff continued. "What I said to the two of them is that fundamentally they are sitting in the cars.

    "They are responsible for bringing those cars home and they failed to bring those cars home today. Full stop. And I don't want to go any further."

    But Wolff made it clear he felt Rosberg's incorrect engine setting further complicated the situation.

    "It explains why everything went so quickly because there was such a discrepancy in speed that they needed to make a decision in a split second and that ended up in Lewis hitting Nico," Wolff explained.

    "Nico closed up the inside with what looked to be a clean manoeuvre. Lewis chose to go that side and ended up on the grass and lost the car. That was it."

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    Jim McGill

     

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