It was the German driver’s third straight win of the season, which means he now leads the title race by 8 points over team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
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“Of course Daniel [Ricciardo] tried to pull one on me at the end but we managed to hold him off – I’m really, really happy”.
“I couldn’t come in because I had traffic, I was very slow on the lap and he would have beaten me”.
Ricciardo set the fastest second and third sector times of the whole race on his out-lap, which would have eliminated his deficit of just over 2.5 seconds to Rosberg had the Mercedes driver stopped – with the Australian’s pace continuing to surprise in the first part of the final stint.
I lost so much time and it was very frustrating, because there was little I could do but focus on finishing the race.
Rosberg’s tally in the 2016 Drivers’ Championship now extends to 273 points. Rosberg has won the three races since and led virtually every lap.
Nico Rosberg is in the ascendency in the Formula 1 drivers’ championship after overcoming technical issues to claim victory at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Indeed Ricciardo came out from his final pit-stop approximately half a minute behind Rosberg with just 16 laps yet but he quickly ate into the lead, knocking three seconds off a lap for a period.
Formula One – F1 – Singapore Grand Prix – Marina Bay, Singapore – 18/9/16.
The reigning world champion suffered from high brake temperatures throughout the race, which required managing, and on lap 33 made a mistake that saw Ferrari’s [NYSE:RACE] Kimi Räikkönen pass him, though some brilliant driving soon saw the Briton back in third place.
“He started off on the wrong foot and couldn’t recover, and in Singapore if you are lacking laps in free practice and you are lacking direction where to take the set-up, it is a vicious circle”.
Teammate Sebastian Vettel finished fifth in an impressive performance after starting at the back of the grid due to an anti-roll bar failure in qualifying.
“I guess the thing that pops to mind is how much worse it’s going to be next year when we’ve got a heavier vehicle”, he said.
“This weekend has been a tricky one for me”.
Rosberg held on in a tense last lap though, to take the chequered flag 0.4 seconds ahead of Ricciardo.
Hamilton send huge congratulations to Rosberg, and also confessed that this is really a tough weekend for himself.
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“We need to start coming out with some plan because this is all the pace I’ve got with the brakes”, demanded the championship leader on the radio.
