Hamilton "walked all over" me before 2016 - Rosberg
- Published on 10 Feb 2017 16:12
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- By: Fergal Walsh
2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg has revealed that his former Mercedes team-mate and fierce rival Lewis Hamilton "walked all over him" during the 2014 and 2015 seasons, maintaining the psychological upper hand until the German was finally able to topple the Brit in Abu Dhabi in November, claiming the title mere days before unexpectedly announcing his retirement.
Rosberg attributes his success partially to changing his mental approach to race weekends as well as Hamilton. At many 2016 races, he insisted to the media that he was taking it one race at a time, rather than thinking immediately of the title and allowing pressure to mount.
He told the British Daily Mail newspaper that their closeness had made the defeats even tougher to take. "The anger is bigger if that person you know so well does something that crosses the line," he admitted.
Throughout his long battle against Hamilton, Rosberg also had to deal with criticism regarding his ability to match and defeat him in a straight fight during races. Rosberg himself openly acknowledges Hamilton's supreme intelligence at the wheel.
"Lewis is very good at going to the edge without going outside the grey area, thanks to his skills in the car. He is smart, very, very smart. I found it harder to go wheel to wheel. For him, it comes naturally.
"For me it is more rational. I have to work at standing my ground. I got more aggressive because too often in the past he had walked all over me. I had to watch the videos and make improvements," he revealed.
Mason Hawker
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Replies (4)
Login to replymcbhargav
Posts: 1,332
Yet, luck had to step in to grant Rosberg a championship. Vettel/alonso for Merc in 2018, is what we need.
Close52
Posts: 9
What we need is a decent shake-up in the order!
Get at least one other team back into the fight for wins to get some excitement going.
Kevin
Posts: 5,294
Lewis walked over him in 2016 too. He just had much more bad luck than Nico had.
Wolfgang
Posts: 313
Kevin,
that´s rubbish. He´d been better through the year and that´s the end of the story.
Hamilton had been lucky the years before, remember singapore 14 and abu dhabi 14?
Plus Nico had more failures in total in those 4 years with Ham as teammate.
Hamilton wasn´t knowing what was going on after first corner in Australia in 2016. After that his mind was changed knowing that there is a different Nico than in the years before.
Starts and clever engine management played a big big role in 2016. Hamilton had these issues because he fucked up starts and qualifyings etc and therefore had to go out on "Hammertime" whereas Nico at the front was nursing his engines home.
And to be honest: Hamilton was 2016 very lucky: Once in Canada (remembering him pushing nico off the track after first corner btw) and in Monaco. These had been given wins, so if this didn´t happen Hamilton would´ve two wins less, means 1 less than Nico.
PLUS his move in Austria kicking deliberately Nicos front wing off and kicking Nico onto 4th place with this move. You surely won´t be that kind of silly to believe him saying afterwards "Nico was in my blind spot" that´s just a f**king lie and nothing else.
This is how Lewis helps himself when he finds himself in such situations.
All in all Nico had 2016 more points in total than lewis in his very good 2015 season, and don´t refer now to the 21 races in comparism to 2015´s 20. Just remember spain and think of how much races Nico raced in 2016, so it´s also 20. Lewis didn´t even think of Nico blocking that hard in Spain: This is again where he realised this year is going to be different and probably where he realised it´s not granted that he walks all over nico.
So Nico was just better in 2016 with better starts, better engine management etc. And don´t forget in that context that lewis took 3 (!!) PU´s in Belgium because of a stupid loop hole in the regs. Had he only gotten 1 engine (as it should´ve been) i´m sure he´d had at least one more blow up.
Go for instance in that context to the azerbaijan gp and watch for the shift lights in nicos and in lewis´ car.
AND don´t forget: Nico was punished for his move on verstappen in germany.. Something for what hamilton had never been punished in the last seasons although he´s doing deliberately all time the same..