“It has been great to be able to come back with the struggle we had at the beginning of the year”.
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Asked about the significance of taking the lead, he added: “It’s not massive”.
“What you have to do with double yellow is significantly reduce your speed”, he said.
Sebastian Vettel backed world champion Lewis Hamilton’s opinion that Nico Rosberg should have been penalised for driving through yellow flags in qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
“I went 20km/h (12mph) slower into that corner, 20km/h is a different world in an F1 vehicle – you’re going proper slow”. I lifted off 30 metres before my braking point. Hamilton has labelled the incident a turning point in his season, but Rosberg does not believe that a single moment can be identified as a momentum shift.
Rosberg, who won the opening four races of the season, said: “I’ve always said I’m not counting points”.
“Next week there’ll be a go-karting race and there will be a double yellow flag somewhere because somebody went off, and the marshals probably go out and help him, and then the ways the kids think is “I don’t need to lift much because in Formula 1 is okay”, and that’s the pinnacle and that’s how we have to behave”.
“The start was pretty good, but going into turn one Lewis was on the inside and he broke really deep, so he did well on that, and then Daniel Ricciardo was on the outside so I got stuck between the two of them and that’s why I lost out and lost the win there really”, he said. “I just managed to get my head together, and get my s*** together and get on with it”.
Hamilton had encountered the same zone seconds earlier when Alonso’s auto was facing the wrong direction.
“I have less engines, my mechanics had been changed, and all these different things didn’t seem to be working”, Hamilton added.
“It’s important we try and go from strength to strength, and I need to make sure I stay on it”.
“It doesn’t mean I’m 25 points behind”. “Nico was doing the same speed at the apex as I was doing on the previous lap, so if there happened to be a auto that was slowing or a marshal on the track, it would have been pretty hard for him to slow down”.
Hamilton, the defending champion, is now six points clear of his Mercedes team-mate Rosberg after winning five of the last six grands prix.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff also fully expects the title race to go down to the wire this season.
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“We’ll see that swing through the season, and my feeling is that the championship will go to the end”.
