F1: Spa clash changed title battle, Prost says

Former Formula 1 world champion Alain Prost believes the crash between Mercedes teammates at the Belgian Grand Prix was a game-changer in shifting the title dynamics toward Lewis Hamilton.

With Mercedes chiefs reacting furiously after Hamilton and Nico Rosberg clashed at Spa-Francorchamps, Prost suspects that the political situation between the two drivers altered dramatically from that moment. Although Prost does not think that there is blatant favoritism within the team toward Hamilton, who has won the four races since Spa, he has no doubts the situation inside the team is very different now.

"At Mercedes the situation is managed quite well," said Prost, who is an ambassador for Renault. "I don't know what happened after Spa, but it looks a bit strange.

"I don't know if you can say there was a preference, but something has changed: the dynamic has changed."

He added: "It is inevitable in a long season like this that you always have different periods where you feel strong, or you feel weak. You always have something happen where you do not have everything in your hands. If you look at how was the situation before Spa, and after Spa, it was completely different.

"Things can still change; maybe not, but only one thing can make a difference especially with the last race of 50 points."

Prost believes that even if there is no deliberate change of policy toward Hamilton, if Rosberg feels it is the case then it could hurt his chances.

"You don't see it, you feel it, and you don't know if it is true," he said about being at the center of such a political situation. "But when you are inside the team, if it is true or not true, when you start to feel something you are lost."

Prost, who was involved in teammate title battles against Niki Lauda and Ayrton Senna, believes that such small matters can have big implications.

"Only a small detail can change things. I always say the people around you are very, very important," he said. "Obviously the media at the end matter, but they are not first.

"If you feel just a small thing inside the team, that you could have a preference or you could have something different, then you have destroyed yourself. You can do anything you want, but if it is in your head then it is very difficult to manage that."