After his fifth consecutive pole position start in 2015, Nico Rosberg wins Formula 1’s Grande Premio Petrobras do Brasil.
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But Rosberg has turned only one of those pole positions into victory – at the last race in Mexico two weeks ago.
“It was an area I had to work on so I have been working on it through the season, but I don’t have a direct explanation of any precise thing that’s now different”. He wasn’t going to go past me.
Rossi’s last race of the season, with Roberto Merhi returning for the final round in Abu Dhabi.
“I had the pace and contrary to what Nico was saying, at one point I was all over him, but I just couldn’t get by”.
The race itself had little excitement as Rosberg and Hamilton spent the entire afternoon 1-2, remaining that way through three pits stops.
Hamilton had to be content with the fastest lap of the race. Sebastian Vettel finished 15 seconds in back of Hamilton in third.
Vettel’s teammate Kimi Raikkonen finished fourth with Valtteri Bottas rounding out the top five for Williams.
“We passed close to the podium, Jenson and me, and we said we will not be that close again this year, so we took a picture”, said Alonso. “It’s such a great circuit but it’s so hard to overtake…. Not very exciting, I didn’t have anyone to fight with, but a good race”.
Four-time champion Vettel agreed. Rosberg claimed the win at Interlagos after soaking up the pressure from Lewis Hamilton for most of the race.
“That’s my challenge. At Mercedes I have the best vehicle, the best team and I race against one of the best drivers”. He often compares his struggle to that of Brazilian great Ayrton Senna, who needed eight races to win his home race.
Drivers wore black armbands as a sign of mourning for those killed in deadly attacks in Paris.
Earlier a French flag with a black ribbon was pinned on to a truck for the pre-race drivers’ parade.
On another warm, dry day at Interlagos, with a track temperature of 47 degrees Celsius, and where a tactical race designed around tire strategy was in prospect, Rosberg was clearly baring his teeth.
“Do we want to create a precedent we have to solve the following year as we mediate between the drivers?”.
Through the second stints Hamilton was right on Rosberg’s tail, often running less than a second behind, but as is so often the case it wasn’t easy for him to run in his rival’s slipstream without damaging his tires.
Mercedes put the two on near identical three-stop strategies, with Rosberg pitting a lap earlier each time in accordance with Mercedes in-house policy that the leader always gets to gain any advantage from switching to fresh tyres first.
Hamilton, who believed he was faster on the track than Rosberg, but unable to pass, asked the team to give him a chance to change strategy and try to beat his teammate. But that was as close as Hamilton ever got.
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“I have the most poles of the year and I won the world championship, so there’s nothing really to read into this”, Hamilton said Saturday.
