The 30-year-old Briton, who clinched his third championship at last month’s United States Grand Prix, moaned that Mercedes deprived Formula One fans of a real race at Interlagos by refusing to relent on their strict policy for matching race strategies.
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Two successive wins have revived Rosberg’s morale and a third would bring at least a few bragging rights, however temporary.
After his fifth consecutive pole position start in 2015, Nico Rosberg wins Formula 1’s Grande Premio Petrobras do Brasil. To go with that there has been an extra aggression and confidence about Rosberg in recent weeks.
“It was a great weekend for me here, but of course everything is relative because of what happened in Paris”, the German said. “It never stays the same and so now I’ve just managed to adapt much better to the situation”.
Rosberg added: “I had the pace advantage over Lewis”.
“I have been working hard”. But Hamilton countered: “I came here with the same fire and desire to win this race as I’ve had all year”.
While Hamilton appeared to be faster than the German at the halfway stage of the race, the British driver was unable to get close enough to pass Rosberg, and asked his team to consider changing their tactics to help the three-time world champion take the lead. I was behind Nico, attacking for a few time, but I killed my tyres.
“If you are the outside vehicle, you just need to give up, you see that in many races”.
“If there are any other strategies, let’s do it, let’s take a risk, let’s do whatever – and I am told to look after the tyres. I got a good balance with the vehicle”, Hamilton said.
“Nico though, has been driving fantastically well”. He did a fantastic job in qualifying, especially the last few races.
Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel took the final podium spot for Ferrari, 6.5s off Hamilton and 14.2s adrift of Rosberg. It’s certainly still frosty between him and Hamilton, I hope that the two retain this level of animosity next year. Overall we have to just admit that they were just that bit quicker. “Very very happy and it was a good challenge”.
“Our policy is to let our drivers race and also to allow them to explore viable alternative strategies, as we have shown in the past – but we don’t let them pursue a bad alternative strategy at any cost”, he said.
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Kimi Raikkonen came home fourth in the second Ferrari ahead of Valtteri Bottas of Williams, Nico Hulkenberg of Force India, Danil Kvyat of Red Bull and local hero Felipe Massa in the second Williams. Williams has since served notice of an appeal. Carlos Sainz Jr., who saw his younger Toro Rosso teammate Max Verstappen score points yet again in tenth, started the race with a problem and retired before the completion of the first lap.
