Last year, Rosberg won pole and the race in São Paulo but Hamilton will be encouraged that in the last six years the victor has come from second on the grid on four occasions; this was Mercedes’ 14th front row lock-out of the year. Two in a row now, with pole positions as well.
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It was Rosberg’s second straight Formula 1 win and his fifth victory of the season, but he kept things in perspective.
“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. “I feel at this stage of his career he is that good”. “I was able to control the race the whole time and won with a comfortable margin to Lewis in the end”.
“I am pleased with that”.
“If you have one guy p***d off every second race from finishing second you have to manage it”.
“If only you could see the air around us you could see the dirty air and I end up losing the downforce and damaging my tyres even more“. I am pushing now and I was pushing earlier in the season.
“I have been working hard”. Lewis had the upper hand for a lot of the season and I needed to try and turn it around.
“I had the pace, but you can’t overtake here”.
“I just killed my tyres”.
When it became apparent midway through the race that he was unable to challenge his team-mate on track for victory, Hamilton pleaded with his Mercedes team to put him on a different strategy to Rosberg, but the team were unwilling to drastically alter the pit-stop timings for their two cars. “And when you have the same strategy, it’s set from the beginning”. That’s why I said if there are any other strategies, let’s do – let’s take the risk.
“Nico’s been driving fantastically well – he did a fantastic job in qualifying, especially in the last few races”, he noted, “At the last race he drove fantastically well and, today, there were no mistakes, so he was good”. But nevertheless it was an intriguing one, as Rosberg and Hamilton played a game of cat and mouse, and Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari remained close enough to keep the pacesetters on their toes. “I was hoping maybe at the start we could do something, but it wasn’t possible. Right now Nico is better”.
“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”.
“It felt like a good race, but it wasn’t very exciting”. They were a bit quicker, but we were probably a bit closer than other years.
Kimi Raikkonen came home fourth in the second Ferrari ahead of Valtteri Bottas of Williams, Nico Hulkenberg of Force India, Danil Kvyat of Red Bull and local hero Felipe Massa in the second Williams. Williams has since served notice of an appeal.
Romain Grosjean was ninth ahead of Max Verstappen, who made a series of passes in the final stint after choosing to run the soft.
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It was a tougher day for his team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, who had a problem on the grid and had to start from the pitlane before retiring on the first lap.
