Hamilton, running fourth, came in for ultrasoft tires with 15 laps left, forcing Ferrari to hastily bring in third-placed Raikkonen the next lap, but they could not get the Finn back out quickly enough, and the move ultimately handed third to Hamilton.
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Clearly following Tag Heuer’s mantra of not cracking under pressure, Nico Rosberg took victory at Singapore yesterday, under intense pressure from Daniel Ricciardo, to re-take the lead in the championship fight.
On the opening lap, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg got off to a good start from P8, but crashed out before turn one when he was tagged by Carlos Sainz’s Torro Rosso.
Yet Rosberg, despite turning in one of the most crushing displays of his recent rivalry with Hamilton, was quick to downplay his chances of securing a maiden championship.
“Once I did my second or third stop, all of a sudden my brakes were under control but of course, towards the end I still got a bit of heat in them”.
“Our statistical tool told us we had seven seconds and within two or three laps he was going two or three seconds faster and then suddenly the algorithm said no gap anymore”.
A late push saw the Red Bull F1 driver come close to catching Rosberg, who suffered braking issues during the entire race.
The early stages of the race were dominated by the need to manage the brakes on the Mercedes, with the pit wall telling Rosberg the situation was “serious”. “So for sure I had to be on it in that last stint and get everything right and nail all those laps”.
“It’s been an awesome weekend”, said Rosberg, as he celebrated victory in what was his 200th race.
Ricciardo pitted again on lap 33 of the 61 with the hope it seemed of taking soft tyres to the end of the race.
The German added: “It really shows that we not only have the best vehicle, but also we have the most competent group of engineers to extract the potential from the best auto from every weekend”. The Australian started drastically cutting away at Rosberg’s lead, which had been around 25 seconds, eventually crossing the line 0.4s behind the Mercedes.
“Lewis is always going to be very hard to beat, and very fast”. “I think just as we didn’t expect the restart, he didn’t either, I think, because the restart was somehow pretty abrupt”. Daniel tried to pull one on me with the pit stop at the end and I know it was going to be tight but I am really, really happy.
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Nico Rosberg won the 2016 Singapore GP, finally retaking the lead in the drivers’ championship race.
