Not really bashing Rosberg, just stating that he looks way out of his depth already. Rolled over for Lewis and Seb, next will almost certainly be Kimi. Like I said before, Hulkenberg in a Mercedes would be epic. His defending capabilities would be more useful trying to retain a WCC rather than milling around in 12th. Maybe his time has already passed and his move to Le Mans is a sign of his imminent departure from F1. That would be sad. But Nico has shown nothing of value on track relating to his pre-season training and in-season trash talk.
It is a gross injustice, IMO, that Hulk has not had the opportunity to demonstrate the extent of his talent. My avatar is a photo of him twiddling his thumbs because it sums up his career so far for me.
Rosberg is slowly becoming the new Mark Webber, he has his days but most of the time he is left with his pants down. Soon fans will attack Mercedes and Rosberg demanding Mercedes to stick in a 'better' driver to give Lewis an actual challenge. In comes Bottas.
What did Rosberg even do wrong today? He was faster than Hamilton all day, and it's just because it was wet yesterday why he lost to him. After the first round of post safety car (where he lost 2 positions..) he was closing in to 20 seconds behind Hamilton. He then went consistently quicker than him only losing by what? 3 seconds? I don't think today was a bad day, same with Australia, but he just misses that extra second or two that he needs over a race distance.
But this is part of his problem; another would be that he struggles to pass drivers in inferior machinery. It was obvious today but this wasn't an isolated incident. A real racer would not stumble in these areas, he'd rise to them and excel.
Hamilton was on hard tyres at the end too which meant he couldn't capitalise on Sebs hard tyres and did well to contain Nico on softs.
I'm assuming people are referring to the fact it took him longer to work the trafic compared to Lewis, but Lewis was always couple of cars up the road after the pits anyway. I reiterate that Lewis (IMO) is a better driver and better overtaker, but when I was watching the footage it seemed that drivers are intimidated by Lewis more so than Rosberg, potentially making the overtakes simplistic and less time consuming. Either way, thats the significance difference between them today, thereafter the pace was very similar and they were only separated by a few seconds at the chequered. I also noted that Merc were very quick to make sure Nico pitted out of the way being on different strategies - a far cry from Hungry - not that I think he would have troubled him too much. The in laws watched today, and are not big F1 fans. They couldnt believe how pro Lewis the coverage was!
Putting it into context in Mercedes earlier years (midfield team), he had the same performance then. Played it safe, didn't pull off any amazing and daring moves (not that I can remember), Michael did and because of his age at times he cocked it up. Thus Nico looked better. Along comes Lewis, in races makes these moves and makes them stick, now Nico is playing second fiddle. Not WDC material.
Sorry if this has been mentioned . Rosberg actually said that the engineers have all their numbers etc , and that he had nothing . He would like something to give him that bit of inspiration ! Sorry Nico , get in , drive the wheels off the thing , and listen to the team / talk to the team when it suits either party . If you need inspiration , you and your fans are in for a long long season .....................
I take your point , but I disagree about Webber . It's been a while since I have seen a team so biased towards one driver than RBR were to Vettel . Webber did a brilliant job imho .
Whilst Rosberg came out further down, it took him an awfully long while to clear them. Several times he'd have a look only to back out, and only really made progress when others tripped over themselves. He wasn't making full use of the machinery available to him. Hamilton didn't scythe through the whole pack in a lap, but steadily made places at every decent opportunity. If drivers fear him more it's because he's earnt that reputation, and when he makes a move it's generally incisive.
Yep. There was one move he made today that was so stealthy, it almost didn't look like an overtake. I wish I could remember who it was on, it was just after the re-start; Coulthard exclaimed "Brilliant!". I'll have to watch back to find out. Anyway, amid all this, maximum credit to Vettel too for igniting the season.
Fully agree! So biased from Sky! A race and a weekend to forget for Nico Rosberg. Other than his bizarre intervention in Hamilton's post-qualifying press conference, when he asked his rival whether he had held him up in Q3 and received short shrift in response, the German was a peripheral figure from start to subdued finish in Sepang. Should Mercedes be worried yet? This year’s Rosberg is a pale imitation of the spiky, no-holds-barred figure who caused Hamilton so much inconvenience and aggravation in 2015, a regression summed up by his ‘open door defence’ against Vettel on lap 22 and subsequent perplexing struggle to understand his race engineer’s warning that he would lose the race if his Ferrari rival passed him. This is motor racing, not rocket science. Come back Nico 2014, all is forgiven. Rating out of ten: 5
I'm fairly sure Rosberg made an overtake on Grosjean around the outside of T10. It may have been newer tyres but you don't see that move, if he can't overtake, he would have crashed it there.
I wonder how Nando is feeling after today? Sebastian Vettel targets the world championship after shock win Hamilton says he welcomes the challenge; Vettel just three points behind in drivers' standings; Wolff hails rival's display
I used to think of Rosberg as "tier 1.5" type driver. On par with my opinion of the likes of Raikkonen, Button and Hulkenberg. Recently i'm thinking that was a little too generous as he just seems incapable of doing anything to stop Lewis beating him every weekend. He's a fast, sensible driver, but nothing more than that. As others have said he lacks the killer instinct and struggles under pressure. On a ranking now id but him somewhere in the 8-12 range.
