When Lewis Hamilton passed championship leader Nico Rosberg to take the win at Monza on Sunday, not everyone was convinced.<\/p>\n
F1 legend Sir Jackie Stewart is one such conspiracy theorist.<\/p>\n
“I thought ‘Hello, what’s going on here?'” admitted the triple world champion, referring to the moment when Rosberg ran into the escape zone at the circuit’s first corner, letting Hamilton into a lead that would not be challenged.<\/p>\n
“He could have at least made an effort to get round the corner but he didn’t,” said Stewart.<\/p>\n
Those connecting even more dots linked the move with the Mercedes drivers’ shenanigans in Belgium two weeks ago, whereafter Rosberg was internally sanctioned by the German team.<\/p>\n
Was ‘accidentally-on-purpose’ gifting Hamilton the win part of Rosberg’s punishment, after the championship leader pulled out a further points lead on Hamilton in Belgium amid the highly controversial circumstances?<\/p>\n
“It’s not like we now start shuffling and things like that. There is no reason why I would do something like that on purpose,” the German driver insisted.<\/p>\n
Boss Toto Wolff slammed the conspiracy, including the claim that the Rosberg ‘mistake’ coincided with television images of him in the pits smiling wryly at the TV monitor.<\/p>\n
“Whoever picks that up and tries to interpret anything in such a picture must be out of his mind,” said the Austrian. “First of all, it’s not live. It wasn’t synchronised with the picture.”<\/p>\n
As for accusing Mercedes and Rosberg of orchestrating the ‘mistake’ to at least give Hamilton seven of the lost points back, Wolff insisted: “Only a paranoid mind could come up with such an idea.<\/p>\n
“I think there was lots of pressure on Nico because Lewis was so quick yesterday and you could see that today as well,” he added.<\/p>\n
More sober minds, however, noted that Rosberg made more than one run through the chicane run-off on Sunday, and Hamilton also locked his brakes at the same point late in the race.<\/p>\n
“They (the mistakes) might look a bit strange but I did it in practice (too),” said Rosberg.<\/p>\n
“What would be the reason for me to do something like that deliberately? The only thing in people’s minds could be Spa but Spa was a mistake which I’ve apologised for.”<\/p>\n
He said the reason he went through the run-off rather than lock up the brakes and try to make the corner is because “It would have caused a flat-spot”.<\/p>\n
And he also told Auto Motor und Sport: “I haven’t been 100 per cent with the brakes since the start of the season.<\/p>\n
“We wanted to solve the problem with new disc material, but after what happened with Lewis in Hockenheim that has been on hold,” said Rosberg.<\/p>\n
And the newspaper Bild quoted him as saying: “Lewis was getting bigger and bigger in the mirror, so I was braking later and later.<\/p>\n
“My first thought (at the moment of the mistake) was ‘Shit’.”<\/p>\n
Hamilton, meanwhile, took heart from the appearance of Rosberg having cracked under his application of pressure.<\/p>\n
“I (also) did it a couple of races ago and he doesn’t seem to like it,” said the Briton, “so I’ll try it a bit more.”<\/p>\n
Finally, Hamilton denied suggestions he once again ignored a team order, after his engineer on Sunday told him to maintain a gap behind Rosberg until later in the race.<\/p>\n
“They (engineers) want to win just as much as me so they’re just trying to guide me as to what they think,” said the 2008 world champion.<\/p>\n
“But at the end of the day, I was the one out there and I had to decide ‘Ok, I can back off and keep the tyres but it might be better the other way’.<\/p>\n
“I knew that if I applied the pressure, an opportunity would eventually come,” said Hamilton.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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