“I am so happy to win here in Spa at this legendary track”, said Rosberg.
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Hamilton started from the back of the field after he was served with a grid penalty following a number of engine changes here this weekend.
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 honestly didn’t know what was going to happen in the race”, said Hamilton, whose rise up the order was helped by the opening lap collisions and race disruptions. Hamilton was up to fifth by the time the race was suspended following Kevin Magnussen’s accident, but despite moving up to third past Nico Hulkenberg, the gaps to Ricciardo in second and Rosberg in first were too big to attack.
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.
While applauding Hamilton for “a great job to come all the way through”, Rosberg also expressed amazement at how far his teammate had progressed.
“But at the next race I’ve the same amount of engines, if not more than others now, and I can fight in the last eight races”. I just saw at the end. “I came here, [to the] Belgian GP, I wanted to win it”.
“I’m just very happy, a flawless weekend for me”.
“After the checkered flag, I looked at the results and I knew Daniel was behind me and then I see “HAM” in P3 and I was like ‘What?” Our race, the medium, was the right tire.
Rosberg, however, said he was not dismayed by his own fate and had not given deep consideration to the points position. I’m just focussing on my thing, and that’s it.
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“I’ve been racing a long long time and with these tyres, knowing how hard it is just to get past one auto, so I spent a bit of time behind Hulkenberg, I think, and then there was already such a decent cushion between myself and Daniel. I don’t think it will make a big difference after this”.
