In many ways the pressure is off Nico Rosberg.
The destiny of the drivers’ championship is out of his hands. Even if he wins the five remaining races of the season, beginning with Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix where he starts on pole position, it still would not be enough to finish the year as No 1 if teammate Lewis Hamilton finishes second behind him on every occasion.
All Rosberg can do is worry about his form, try to improve on what has been an inconsistent year, and hope that some bad luck comes the way of Hamilton if he is to walk away from the season finale, the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 29, as champion.
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Hamilton has won eight times this season, to Rosberg’s three, and no driver has ever failed to finish top having triumphed that many times in a year. But while Rosberg’s title hopes may be slim, there are still important things for him to push for.
Firstly, second place in the championship is by no means a guarantee, given he is only 18 points clear of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, but finishing the year strongly could help build some momentum for 2016.
Hamilton won six of the last seven races in 2014 on his way to a world title. He carried that form into this year and has been more dominant over his teammate than 12 months earlier.
Triumphing today and picking up more victories in the remaining races would be a statement of intent for next year that he means business and intends to give Hamilton a harder time.
He certainly has made a good start to that with arguably his best display in qualifying since Spain in May, which was the scene of his first pole of the year.
He got his second in Japan two weeks ago, but that was in a truncated session which was shortened due to Daniil Kvyat’s Red Bull Racing car crashing, and Hamilton was convinced he had been on a lap that would have dislodged the German from top spot before the red flags halted proceedings.
But there were no excuses yesterday. Rosberg was quicker than Hamilton in final practice and then each session of qualifying, with his fastest lap of 1 min, 37.113 sec proving to be 0.320 secs faster than his teammate’s.
Rosberg tried to deflect attention from his victory aspirations by focusing on Mercedes’s chances of wrapping up the constructors’ championship today.
They only need to out-score Ferrari by three points to do that, and their chances look good with Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen down in fourth and fifth on the grid.
“The constructors’ championship is a really important target for us this weekend. It would be amazing to clinch it for a second time so early on in the season,” Rosberg said. “At the same time I’m out here to reduce the gap to Lewis in terms of points.”
Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz Jr will have to wait until this morning to find out if he is medically cleared to compete in the race after missing qualifying following a crash in practice.
The Spaniard crashed at Turn 13 and his Toro Rosso car was left wedged under the Tecpro barriers used by the venue following the sizeable impact.
He was taken to Sochi Hospital and was due to be kept in overnight as a precaution.
* With agency
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