“I am well aware Lewis is going to bounce back when he has a clean weekend and it will be the usual tough battle against him”, the German said. Rosberg’s win increased his lead in the drivers championship to 43 points, ahead of Hamilton.
Advertisement
Rosberg said: “If you have a auto like this, you are really able to push to the limits”. Rosberg has also joined Schumacher, Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna as only the fourth driver to have won the opening four grands prix of a season.
Kimi Raikkonen finished third, 31.998 seconds behind race victor Nico Rosberg while teammate Sebastian Vettel’s race ended on lap one following an accident that was not his fault.
The two had traded barbs at the previous Chinese Grand Prix when the rear of the Ferrari at successive corners, the second impact shunting the four times world champion – who won his titles with Red Bull – into the wall.
At the Sochi circuit last weekend, Rosberg took pole position while Hamilton started from 10th place on the grid after another engine failure – caused by an overheating component in the car’s energy recovery system – curtailed his qualifying session early on Saturday.
“I can’t say l miss it fighting with Hamilton because it is awesome to win races and in the end it doesn’t matter how”, Rosberg was quoted as saying by Sky Sports on Sunday.
Wolff branded conspiracy theorists as “lunatics” and said that he could not take them seriously.
“He (Hamilton) hasn’t let us down, and we wouldn’t let him down. I think the response would be that you question what is going on in some people’s heads”.
Asked how the Mercedes crew felt about sabotage accusations, Wolff replied: “The reason why I’m being vocal about it is that I want to protect those guys because they’re being hit by comments that are just inexcusable and unfair – abusive without any reason”.
“The details were that the plane landed and within ninety seconds the box was in the auto and on the way to the track so I don’t want to know how he sorted that”.
Rosberg said: “For sure it is a lot of points but there is a long way to go”.
Advertisement
But when it was put to Rosberg that he had been gifted another straightforward victory, the German replied: “Winning F1 races is not like an open goal”.
