Mark: "Ok Kimi next car behind you is Alonso, Alonso 5 seconds behind you. I will give you updated on the gap, I will give you updated on the pace." Kimi: "Just leave me alone I know what to do."
Mark: "Ok Kimi we need to keep working all four tyres please, keep working..(all four tyres)" Kimi: "Yes yes yes yes, I'm doing all the time you don't need to remind every ten seconds."
・OK Lewis. Gap to Nico one second. He’s on the [soft] tyre. He has one more stop, so don’t hold him up. (ルイス、ニコとのギャップは1秒だ。彼はソフトだ。もう一回ピットに入る。だから抑えるな) ・So there’s free track behind Nico. You don’t need to use the tyres up defending against Nico. (ニコの後ろは空いてる。ニコに対してディフェンスしてタイヤを使う必要はないよ) ・OK Lewis, if you let Nico past this lap, please. Let Nico past on the main start/finish straight. (ルイス、頼むからニコをこの周行かせてやってくれ。ニコをスタート/フィニッシュのメインストレートで行かせてあげてくれ) ・I’m not slowing down for Nico. If he can get close and overtake, then he can overtake. (僕はニコのためにスローダウンするつもりはないよ。もし彼が近づいてオーバーテイクできるんなら、そのときは彼はオーバーテイクできるよ) ・So stay in torque mode zero, Lewis. And if you can let Nico past into this braking area. (トルクモードゼロのままにするんだ、ルイス。それでもし可能なら、このブレーキングエリアでニコを行かせてあげてくれ。)
一方ニコはと言うと… ・Why is he not letting me through? lap51 (なぜ彼は僕を行かせてくれないの?) ・Why is he not letting me through? lap52 (なぜ彼は僕を行かせてくれないんだ?) ・He’s had the message, Nico. He’s had the message. (彼にメッセージは伝えてるよニコ。彼には伝えてるよ)
But at past the halfway point of the season, Rosberg is leading the championship on merit. Hamilton is not the first man to have had reliability issues. Many drivers with more titles than him have had horrible seasons of unreliability and that is just the way it goes.
From a dispassionate team and engineering point of view, the call made sense. Mercedes were trying to win the race and getting Rosberg past Hamilton as soon as he caught him in his penultimate stint would have given him the chance to then attack Alonso and Ricciardo in front of him and be as far forward in the closing stages after his final stop as possible. The idea was that it would give both Hamilton and Rosberg the best chance to win the race. But in the context of a title fight between two team-mates, in which Mercedes have said they will not interfere, the call is hard to understand.