F1 fluffs paris tribute as rosberg dashes hamilton dream

F1 fluffs paris tribute as rosberg dashes hamilton dream


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With Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes already crowned champions, the Formula 1 season is in danger of fizzling out after Nico Rosberg rained on Hamilton's parade for a second successive race


and won an uninspiring Grand Prix in Brazil. Second to that, the main talking point about the sport has been a half-baked attempt to pay tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks.


Hamilton won his third world title at the US Grand Prix in October but his team mate Rosberg has been dominant since then, and won his second successive race on Sunday. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK


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Week delivered directly to your inbox. The German led from start to finish in a race that offered little in the way of drama. Hamilton finished where he started, in second, and was left


still hankering after the triumph at the home of his hero Ayrton Senna that he so craves. "Rosberg won the grand prix from pole position with a dominant performance that can only make


you wonder where he was all season when Lewis Hamilton, his team-mate, was romping away with the world championship," says Kevin Eason of The Times. "Rosberg brought the precision


and focus, while Hamilton chased the dream that still eludes him." Rosberg's recent dominance has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks. And Andrew Benson of the BBC


suggests it may be related to a change in the rules governing tyre pressures in August after some drivers experienced problems. Whatever, the reason, Rosberg held off Hamilton with relative


ease. "It was a result of numbing predictability in a sport lost in a digital world, in which the lack of empathy is never better demonstrated than by its rulers," adds Kevin


Eason of the Times. "The decision not to allow a minute's silence before the grand prix to focus on the Paris killings veered from crass insensitivity to farce." Instead, the


tribute was bolted onto a minute's silence already scheduled in aid of road safety. A placard hailing World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims took centre stage, while on the


left of the line-up four drivers, including the only Frenchman on the grid, Romain Grosjean, quietly held a tricolore. "A sport with a penchant for over-complication was at its


befuddling worst in Brazil," says Daniel Johnson of the Daily Telegraph. Earlier, during their parade, the drivers "gathered on the giant Mercedes truck...[and] wore black armbands


while a French flag was draped on one side of the bus", says Johnson, adding: "That was it." Explore More Nico Rosberg