“I think just as we didn’t expect the restart, he didn’t either, I think, because the restart was somehow pretty abrupt”.
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“It’s been an awesome weekend”, said Rosberg, as he celebrated victory in what was his 200th race.
“I’ve known Nico since 2013, and that is the best Nico Rosberg I have ever seen throughout a weekend since then”, said Wolff. We tried something at the end with the [three-stop] strategy and we got within half a second.
Ricciardo was still happy despite not quite being able to secure a first victory of the season.
“Last year we were absolutely nowhere here, we got destroyed by the Red Bulls and Ferraris, and we understood what we did wrong”. That’s what I came here to do and now I will celebrate after this.
“We have a good auto. His win was fully deserving”. The Dutchman began the race fourth, but made a poor start and was in eighth when an early safety auto was called for a big crash that ended Nico Hulkenburg’s race.
Hamilton fought back from 43 points behind earlier in the season to establish a 19-point lead – only for his Mercedes team-mate Rosberg to clinch his third straight win on Sunday to go eight points clear.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was fourth while teammate and last year’s victor Sebastian Vettel finished fifth after starting last on the grid, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen sixth.
Hamilton endured a scrappy race in which he flat-spotted a tyre and ran wide in the middle stages, gifting a place to Raikkonen and ultimately compromising his chances of matching it with Ricciardo at the end.
“Struggled with the balance, struggled getting on to the pace myself and then in the race struggled with the brakes, which meant I had to drive slow until they cooled down, which they never did until close to the end”, he said.
Hamilton briefly lost third place to the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, but a smart pit strategy earned an undercut for the driver and ensured he finished on the podium, but it was a frustrating race for the Briton.
Rosberg got away cleanly to lead from Ricciardo, with Hamilton in third and Raikkonen behind him after Verstappen suffered a woeful start to slip back to eighth from fourth on the grid.
“It’s a shame the cars are as heavy as they are because we can’t push, you can’t race very well when you’re behind people here”.
Following his second stop, Hamilton was told to move on to “Plan B”.
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Ricciardo had been gaining ground on Rosberg, with both on the hardest compound tire, with the gap down to three seconds with 15 laps left.
