SPIELBERG, Austria -- Lewis Hamilton hopes Mercedes will not feel the need to implement team orders following his last-lap collision with Nico Rosberg at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The team was set for a one-two victory until the second corner of the final lap when Hamilton found himself pushed wide as he tried to overtake Rosberg around the outside. As Hamilton turned in, Rosberg continued forward and the two made contact, resulting in Rosberg dropping to fourth around the remainder of the lap with a broken front wing.
After the race team boss Toto Wolff said team orders would now be considered ahead of the British Grand Prix to prevent a repeat, but Hamilton hopes it will not be necessary.
"I wouldn't say my heart sinks [when I hear they are talking about team orders], it takes a lot to get my heart to sink but I want to race," he said. "I grew up wanting to race, and to get to Formula One and race the best and be the best by out driving another individual.
"I think they showed a replay of maybe Michael [Schumacher] and Barrichello many years ago [2002 in Austria] and I was disappointed as a fan back then and we never want to see team orders like that ever happen.
"The great thing is that Toto and Niki [Lauda] have been great these past three years in allowing us to race and that's what racing is about, and it's not always going to be blue skies and perfect, but that's motor racing. Every engineer and mechanic has been through Formula Ford, Formula Renault and the different categories and seen the goods and the bads and they know that these things can happen.
"We're driving at 200+mph and you expect us to drive around and never, ever, ever have a problem? I doubt it. So I hope that it doesn't change and I hope that we can continue to race. That's just my honest opinion from my love of this sport."
Hamilton said he did not want to start attributing blame, but made clear that he felt he had left Rosberg enough space.
"I don't really know what to say about it, it's not something I go out to get involved in. I don't go out to get caught in a collision. Today as you could see I drove as wide as possible within the white lines, so I left a lot of space. Three cars could have come on the inside of me there so... For sure as a team boss and for the team, the team want to finish first and second and that's our goal, that's my goal and obviously I want to be at the front of that 1-2.
"But certain circumstances have led us to where we are today and we have a lot more races ahead and we're going to continue to race. I'm fighting for the world championship so we're going to keep fighting and hopefully through these experiences there will hopefully be no more or a lot less than what we've had so far this year. Hopefully they are just a blip in the midst and we'll continue racing forwards."