Anderson: Drivers not to blame for Spa clash

It was always going to happen eventually. If anything, I am surprised that it took Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg until the 12th race of the 2014 Formula 1 season to clash on track.

When you have two drivers at the peak of their careers fighting tooth and nail for the world championship, it's very difficult to avoid the kind of incident we saw between the two Mercedes drivers at Les Combes on the second lap of the Belgian Grand Prix.

It's also inevitable that such a collision causes plenty of controversy and criticism, but had an identical incident happened on Sunday between, say, Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, it would have been accepted as simply close combat early in the race and just one of those things.

Looking back to the German GP shortly before the August break, I seem to remember that Hamilton damaged his front wing in trying to overtaking a rival. Was he doing that to be spiteful? Of course not.

But that is what Hamilton and the team implied Nico's intention was on Sunday.

Hamilton could have given a little more room, or Nico could have driven onto the run-off, but neither of these things happened. It's what we call close racing; it's just a fraction too close.

There has been a lot of talk about how to apportion blame to the drivers. But I don't blame them at all. What happened at Spa was a racing incident.

Would the collision have happened under Ross Brawn's rule? © LAT

But looking back at the season as a whole, I would unhesitatingly blame the Mercedes top brass for a complete failure of management.

How many times this year have we heard from various members of the consortium that makes up the Mercedes management that the drivers are free to race and that team orders will not be imposed? Well, what they ended up with at Spa is exactly what can happen as a result, so they have to live with it.

After all, it produced great racing, which is what we all love and want to see as much as possible. It went wrong at Spa, but that's an inevitable consequence of wheel-to-wheel combat.

Would it have been like this if Ross Brawn was still at the helm rather than having left the team at the end of last year? Definitely not.

The rules of engagement would have been firmly put in place before the season started, and they would have been enforced decisively.

If one or other of the drivers had stepped out of line, he would have sorted it with immediate effect, as we saw when Rosberg questioned the order to stay behind Hamilton in last year's Malaysian GP and was told by Brawn in no uncertain terms to hold position.

Enough will be said about Sunday's little episode at Les Combes. But what it does go to show is that it is a lot easier to throw away points than it is to score them.

As far as performance is concerned, Mercedes had some very impressive developments on its car at Spa. If you look at qualifying, Rosberg was on pole with a 2m05.591s, while Hamilton was second with a time three tenths slower.

Third-placed Vettel was miles off the Mercedes in Spa qualifying © LAT

Vettel was third on a 2m07.717s, which is 2.126s slower than Rosberg's pole time - a lifetime by F1 standards.

Red Bull ran with very low downforce, but Ferrari opted not to. It ran with a barn door of a rear wing and Fernando Alonso was fourth with a 2m07.786s, almost 2.2s shy of Rosberg.

It's often said that wet conditions are a great equaliser. Well, it was certainly wet on Saturday afternoon for qualifying, so what happened?

Some will say they made this mistake or that error, but the reality of it was that, as far as the drivers were concerned, Rosberg and Hamilton were in a league of their own. Without doubt, they had the best car and engine package, but they still had to deliver - and deliver they did.

There didn't seem to be any major changes to the competitive balance after the August break. Spa and Monza are what might be called 'standalone' circuits that require their own downforce levels. But in reality, the car performance is more or less the same as it was at the Hungaroring.

In the chasing pack, I have to say that I am very impressed with both Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas. Both of these guys are the stars of the season and they take no prisoners. They race hard and fair with anyone and it's great to see two genuinely nice guys doing what they love and excelling.

I am sure if you ask some of the hardened professionals like Alonso, he would say that racing with either of them is great fun because they know what they are doing and they race consistently. Remember that Alonso made some very positive comments about Ricciardo after their scrap in the German GP in July.

Bottas has had a superb season © XPB

Ricciardo is the man that is always there to pick up the pieces. He knows that, all things being equal, and if he does his job perfectly, the most he can achieve is to be on the third step of the podium. But if he does that and either or both of the Mercedes drivers trip up, he will be on the top step, which is exactly what he has done on no fewer than three occasions this year.

In his maiden season with Red Bull, the Australian has racked up three wins and three third places on what is becoming an increasingly impressive CV, despite the team having had a torrid time in 2014 by its lofty recent standards.

Bottas just keeps his head down and plugs away. He is a great little racer with superb car control, exhibited by a car that complements his driving style.

When I am out watching trackside, the Williams always seems to have a very positive front end. It's not as though the rear is not good, it's just that the front reacts very quickly and aggressively.

Usually, this would lead to a car being prone to oversteer and eating up its rear tyres, but that doesn't seem to be the case with Bottas and the Williams. This type of car characteristic clearly suits him down to a tee.

With seven races to go, culminating in the controversial double-points Abu Dhabi GP, there are now 200 points left up for grabs, with Rosberg having a 29-point lead over Hamilton.

Unfortunately, Rosberg's 220 point-haul has now ensured that the title hopes of Jean-Eric Vergne, Romain Grosjean, Daniil Kvyat, Jules Bianchi, Adrian Sutil, Marcus Ericsson, Pastor Maldonado, Esteban Gutierrez, Max Chilton and Kamui Kobayashi are all over for now.

Better luck next time!