After falling 19 points behind Hamilton heading into the summer break, Rosberg, who was celebrating his 200th grand prix start on Sunday, is now back in control of the title race.
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“If I would have also pitted I would have come out behind him because I was stuck in traffic on my in-lap, so we chose the best strategy to stay out and a big thanks to the team for that”.
But Hamilton started to gain pace near the end as the problem eased and he regained the podium by undercutting Raikkonen during the final pit stops.
Yet he said: “Statistics like that are not something that I focus on, it doesn’t have any importance to me. He whole vehicle was on the edge, it always is in Singapore so it is all the more satisfying to win a race like that”.
Hamilton, struggling with overheating brakes, had dropped to 13 seconds behind Rosberg and was coming under attack for third place by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. “Ricciardo was out of the blocks with incredible pace and it was really exciting at the end”. It was close. As soon as did a pit stop we thought Nico would come in.
Lewis Hamilton was then pushed to a three stop strategy, switching from soft tyres to softs, and eventually to super softs on lap 45.
“It’s been an awesome weekend”, said Rosberg, who became the first driver to win a Grand Prix here without having won a drivers’ title first. “This weekend has just been a tricky one for me, but I’m still glad I could get back up on the podium and get some points for the team”, Hamilton said.
An early safety auto period was called in Singapore following a crash for Nico Hulkenberg at the start, his Force India requiring removal by the marshals from the main straight. Sixth went to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, seventh to McLaren-Honda’s Fernando Alonso. The result was a 10-point swing in the championship standings in Rosberg’s favour, and the rejuvenated German heads into the last six races of the season with a two-point advantage and two more wins to his name than his Mercedes teammate.
Hamilton said he had never got on top of the vehicle all weekend.
Thus began Ricciardo’s cat and mouse pursuit of the Mercedes, at one time taking 3s a lap from the German.
“Spa wasn’t a real good opportunity for [Hamilton] because of the engine penalty, and here it just started on the wrong foot and he couldn’t recover”.
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Both Hamilton and race victor Nico Rosberg were warned by their engineers early in the grand prix that they had to manage brake problems, which ultimately compromised speed.
