In the first race back from the mid-season F1 break, Nico Rosberg won the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix, snapping a four-race skid that saw him relinquish the points lead to Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.
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“In general, I had everything under control because I just had an awesome vehicle out there, and Lewis wasn’t there to battle it out, which made it a less-difficult weekend”.
Because Hamilton was already certain to start the race from the back of the grid as a result of incurring grid penalties linked to too many engine part changes this season.
The German delivered what was expected of him in qualifying on Saturday, securing his third successive pole position ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and the Ferrari duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel.
After the restart, he fought past Alonso and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg to take the final place on the podium behind Rosberg and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
In addition to Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Gutierrez and Marcus Ericsson have also been handed grid penalties.
“We are all struggling to look after our tyres so it is not going to be a cool easy breezy day where I’m just picking them off one by one”.
Hamilton’s penalty hands the initiative firmly over to his Mercedes team-mate, and Rosberg, to his credit, made no mistake in qualifying.
Despite the need to make up ground at the start, Hamilton revealed he took a low-risk approach to an opening lap which witnessed a first-corner clash between the two Ferraris and Max Verstappen.
It meant that instead of significantly eating into Hamilton’s pre-race 19-point lead and potentially even overhauling it, Rosberg heads into this weekend’s race in Italy still trailing by nine points.
But it was the 31-year-old’s first since June’s European Grand Prix, reigniting his title challenge after a run of lacklustre races in which he steadily lost ground to Hamilton.
‘I have changed three engines so we are ahead of the others and that is great.
At that stage a win was on the cards, but Mercedes split strategies under the red-flag conditions and Hamilton was unable to catch Daniel Ricciardo for second place at the end.
“That I didn’t see”, said Rosberg. Michael Schumacher took a remarkable and controversial victory here in 1995 from 16th on the grid after a fierce battle with Damon Hill but had the advantage of mixed conditions, while the weather for the race is expected to be fine throughout.
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The Australian is third in the driver standings on 151 points, with Hamilton on 232 and Rosberg on 223.
