Hamilton podium sours Rosberg’s win
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS: Nico Rosberg was handed a muchneeded break in the Formula One title battle which he duly converted by winning Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, but victory could have tasted much sweeter for the German.
Rosberg went into the weekend knowing this was his race to lose. Mercedes teammate and title rival Lewis Hamilton was set to start at the back of the field after taking a planned series of engine-related grid penalties.
That gave Rosberg the perfect opportunity to reignite his title challenge after a run of lacklustre form and make major inroads into the Briton’s 19-point advantage in the standings.
Instead, he came away still trailing Hamilton by nine points after the reigning triple world champion took full advantage of collisions involving his rivals, race disruptions and some spectacular overtaking, to finish a shock third.
“I just saw at the end after the chequered flag I looked at the results and I knew Daniel was behind me and then I see Hamilton in third,” said Rosberg, who cruised to a comfortable win from pole-position in a chaotic race ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
“I was like ‘What, seriously?’ I don’t know what happened, I haven’t looked at the details, but for sure he must have done a great job.”
Rosberg, runner-up to Hamilton in 2014 and last year, opened the season with four wins in the first four races.
He led Hamilton by 43 points following May’s Spanish Grand Prix, but has steadily lost ground to his former childhood friend who blitzed to six wins from seven races leading up to the Belgian Grand Prix.
FERRARI DRIVERS SLAM VERSTAPPEN AGGRESSION SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS: A weekend that began at the top of the timesheets for Max Verstappen ended with the Dutchman out of the points and in a war of words with Ferrari rivals after a nightmare Belgian Grand Prix.
The 18-year-old began Sunday’s race alongside polesitter Nico Rosberg in the first front-row start of his fledgling career. But any hopes he had of converting his qualifying display into a strong showing in front of legions of his orange-clad supporters, in a race that is the closest he has to a home event, quickly vanished.
Verstappen was leapfrogged by Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel off the line but attempted to make the places up on a tight first corner only for the three cars to collide.
“I think it was a very bold move trying to recover those two places in one corner diving down the inside,” said German Vettel who was on the outside and collided with Raikkonen before the Finn and Verstappen’s Red Bull made contact. All three were forced to pit with damage to their cars, Raikkonen nearly losing a lap as mechanics rushed to extinguish flames emerging from beneath his Ferrari.
Raikkonen and Verstappen clashed twice more later in the race. “If I would not have braked we would have had a massive accident,” said Raikkonen. “I’m sure it will happen sooner or later if this doesn’t change.”