Mercedes announced in Budapest on Friday that Rosberg will be staying at the Brackley team until at least the end of 2018, meaning both their drivers’ contracts are now due to expire at the same time.
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Rosberg, who earlier this week signed a new two-year extension to his Mercedes deal, has never stepped foot on the podium in his 10 previous races here.
“I don’t know how much Nico was up, but I was four tenths [of a second] up”, he said.
“It’s good for stability in the team”.
Hamilton laid down an impressive marker to start Q3, nearly three tenths quicker than his team-mate with a weekend-leading 1:20.499.
Hamilton’s accident was the only high-profile incident of the session, run in hot conditions with track temperatures in the forties.
Meanwhile, world champion Hamilton called for the rules governing driving under yellow flags to be clarified after the events of qualifying.
Rosberg has won 19 races with the team since he joined in 2010. “We can be very happy with 4th after a very tricky qualifying.” . “So there’s no reason to have to change”.
It was an extremely fortunate decision for Red Bull Racing, which went from two potential did-not-qualify results to locking out the second row on the grid, but it didn’t change the almost inevitable front row.
“It was unfortunate with Fernando, but these things happen”, said Hamilton. Hamilton, who is only a point behind his teammate, finished the race 0.143 seconds behind Rosberg, making for Mercedes’ sixth front row dominance for the season.
Hamilton subsequently missed the majority of the 90-minute session as Rosberg soared to the top of the timesheets.
Though the damage appeared largely superficial, Mercedes confirmed that the auto would have to be stripped to rule out any further issues, ending Hamilton’s session. “I am not injured so I can get back on it”. Rosberg arrived at the scene later than Hamilton, by which time Alonso’s auto has moved, but the double-waved yellows were still present at the marshal post ahead of Turn 8 and Turn 9. The order was Nasr, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Kvyat, Perez, Hulkenberg, Alonso, Raikkonen, Rosberg, Hamilton. However, at the same time, I think the session went really well. Of course the supersoft is going to be very hard initially, that’s going to be interesting how that goes.
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Indeed, Rosberg’s closest challenge in practice came courtesy of Red Bull. Max Verstappen, the 18-year-old Dutchman, was just two thousandths of a second slower than Rosberg, while Daniel Ricciardo was third fastest.
