Hamilton: Rosberg admits he hit me deliberately
Lewis Hamilton says Nico Rosberg has admitted he hit him deliberately during the Belgian Grand Prix "to prove a point".
Rosberg clipped Hamilton's left rear wheel on the second lap of the race at Spa, causing a puncture which demoted Hamilton from the lead of the race to the back of the field. Having eventually retired while Rosberg finished second, Hamilton said Rosberg revealed in a meeting after the race that he had deliberately allowed the contact to happen.
"It looked quite clear to me but we just had a meeting about it and he basically said he did it on purpose," Hamilton said. "He said he did it on purpose, he said he could have avoided it. He said 'I did it to prove a point', he basically said 'I did it to prove a point'. And you don't have to just rely on me, go and ask Toto [Wolff], Paddy [Lowe] and all those guys who are not happy with him as well."
Following Rosberg's comments, Hamilton said he was "gobsmacked" at the way his team-mate had reacted.
"You know, and you can ask Fernando [Alonso] and you can ask all drivers, when a car is less than half a car length alongside you and you are on the inside, it's your racing line. It's not your job to go massively out of your way to leave extra, extra room. And it wasn't one of those corners where there's a wall there or anything, look at Sebastian [Vettel] on lap [one]. He was actually further up and he knew he wasn't going to go out the other side. He was sensible about it.
"I was gobsmacked when I was listening to the meeting. You need to ask him what point he was trying to make."
And Hamilton said Rosberg had even tried to blame him for the incident.
"He just came in there and said it was all my fault. Just came in there..."
With Wolff saying Mercedes will need to impose team orders from now on, Hamilton said he doesn't know how the team will be able to handle the situation.
"I can't imagine what the team would do now. We came in to this weekend and I came with a really positive mind thought. I really was excited ... we've got eight races and we're close - there's only 11 points in it - and I thought it was going to be good for all of us. Good racing, I thought this was going to be a track that was going to be exciting.
"It's interesting because we had that meeting on Thursday and Nico expressed how angry he was - I was thinking 'It's been three weeks and you've been lingering?!' He expressed how angry he was, he literally sat there and said how angry he was at Toto and Paddy. But I thought we should be good after that and then this result ... it's interesting."
