Nico Rosberg dismissed claims from Lewis Hamilton that he had been the faster Mercedes-GP driver in on Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix and said he fully deserved to win the race.
The German claimed his fifth win of the season as he drove a composed race from the front, the only laps he did not lead coming in the pit stops, to finish ahead of Hamilton.
It was the 30-year-old German’s second successive win, which comes with Hamilton having already wrapped up his third drivers’ title last month in the United States.
But he took umbrage with Hamilton saying, both on the pit radio during the race and then during his podium interview post-race, that he had been quicker and had been denied the chance to challenge for victory by Mercedes’ refusal to allow him to alter his strategy.
“I had the pace advantage over Lewis, so he wasn’t going to come past me,” Rosberg said.
“I was six seconds in front at the end. He’s not going to pass me with that pace.”
An unimpressed Hamilton retorted: “Contrary to what Nico was saying, at one point I was all over him, but I just couldn’t get by. I had the pace today.”
Hamilton had felt hamstrung by the Mercedes approach to strategy in races.
The car with track advantage always gets the first chance to pit and have the optimal strategy.
With cars all starting on heavy fuel the only variable is tyres, and racing on new, fresher and gripper rubber, is an advantage. So pitting first should nearly always guarantee that they maintain track position on the driver behind them.
That was the case yesterday as Rosberg pitted first on all three occasions in Sao Paulo, and each time Hamilton stopped a lap later and came out still in second.
The Briton, who has won 10 races in 2015, said he should have been allowed to try something different in his attempts to get ahead of his teammate, with overtaking so difficult.
“I am here to race and when you have the same strategy it’s set from the beginning, so let’s take a risk,” he said.
“I had the pace but you can’t overtake here. I was behind Nico attacking for some time but I killed my tyres.
“It’s such a great track, but you can’t get close enough unless you have a huge advantage on the guy in front.
“It will be great to sometimes be able to do something different rather ‘You’re in on Lap 15 and you’re in on Lap 16’. Have some options and see how it plays out.”
Unsurprisingly, Rosberg did not agree with Hamilton.
“It wouldn’t be fair for the guy running second to go for another strategy and for it to turn out it was massively the better strategy, and you won the race just because of luck and the other strategy being so much quicker,” he said.
“That’s the big problem with it. That’s why it doesn’t make sense.
“It should be me against Lewis, that’s it and no luck, rather than one strategy being a bit better than the other.”
The result secured second place in the drivers’ standings for Rosberg behind Hamilton as he now leads Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by 31 points with only the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 29 left of the season.
Vettel, who was best of the rest in third yesterday, said: “I was hoping at the start we could do something but it was not possible.
“Overall we have to just admit that they were that bit quicker.”
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