Once racing got back underway, Nico Rosberg hung on for the narrowest Formula One victory for six years, celebrating his 200th career start in ideal style as he reclaimed the championship lead from his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.
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But the dominant manner in which he won yesterday’s race, holding off the charging Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo, shows that after 200 grands prix he has the ability, the experience and the determination to win his first world crown this season.
Given that, a third place finish and an eight-point championship deficit to Rosberg represented an acceptable level of damage limitation.
This time past year, Hamilton came to Singapore as a dead cert for the world championship, …
“But we finished one and three, and I think the result justifies the strategy that was taken in terms of putting the auto together”. The last 3 laps saw a strong comeback from the Red Bull driver as he closed the gap to a mere 0.4s in the final lap. “The flawless race”, said Ricciardo after he fitted fresh supersoft tyres with 16 laps remaining and chased down Rosberg’s Mercedes but was unable to pass on the final lap.
“With 10 or 15 laps to go, just after the pitstop, the team said he would be with me at the end of the race”, said Rosberg.
But has he got the maturity to take it all the way without being dazzled in the full glare of the spotlight with Hamilton breathing down his neck?
Hamilton complained the problem of overheating brakes, also suffered by Rosberg, was hampering drivers – and it would get worse with heavier cars to be introduced next year. I was looking at different ways to get them back under control.
And Wolff, who joined the Brackley team three years ago, said: “I’ve known Nico since 2013 and that is the best Nico Rosberg I have ever seen throughout the weekend since then”.
“Daniel tried to pull one up on me with the pitstop at the end, we knew it was going to be tight but we got there so I’m very happy”, Rosberg said. The three-time world champion was told he had been moved onto “Plan B” and to push hard, catching Raikkonen quickly, before diving in to the pits with 16 laps to go for a set of super-soft tires.
“It’s fair to say that we drove an aggressive race today!” said team boss Maurizio Arrivabene afterwards.
“Nico did an exceptional job this weekend and we didn’t”. While Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who stood out during Friday’s first practice session, ranked the fourth place.
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He intoned: “It really shows that not only do we have the best vehicle but also, we have a competent group of engineers to extract the potential from the best auto”.
