BENNETT IS BACKING UP HIS OPTIONS
ROSBERG INSISTS GERMAN HAS FAILED TO COPE WITH THE PRESSURE OF A TITLE RACE
WAYNE BENNETT has left open his half-back options for Saturday’s first Test against New Zealand by including four possibilities in his 19-man squad.
Having revealed on Monday that St Helens’ Jonny Lomax is in line to play full-back in Hull, Bennett named George Williams, Sam Tomkins, Jake Connor and Richie Myler.
Lomax (left) – who has spent most of this season at stand-off with St Helens – said: “It’s nice Wayne has kept a bit of faith in me where I’ve played in the past for him.
“It’s been funny not knowing where I’d be playing and dropping in and out of stand-off and full-back at club level.
“Going between the positions gives an appreciation of the lads at half-back and full-back, to understand the lines they want you to run.” SEBASTIAN VETTEL has handed Lewis Hamilton the world championship, according to their old rival Nico Rosberg.
Mercedes driver Hamilton needs just five points from the Mexican Grand Prix on Sunday to retain his title and match Juan Manuel Fangio’s total of five wins.
Vettel won the season’s first two races to leave Ferrari dreaming of having their first champion since Kimi Raikkonen back in 2007.
Instead, the 33-yearold British driver has lived up to his reputation of ruthlessly exposing weaknesses shown by his rivals to leave Vettel trailing by 70 points with three races remaining.
Rosberg (top), who held off Mercedes team-mate Hamilton to become world champion in 2016 and retired a day later, is critical of how Vettel has handled the title race. He said: “It’s all about consistency and he’s done the opposite. He’s been all over the place really in the last few months – he and the team both together.
“It’s been so one-sided since the summer that it’s unbelievable. It was seemingly Vettel who was going to take the championship and it’s just gone completely in the other direction with total dominance since.
“And it’s just the result of mistakes, and you’re never going to beat Lewis like that, because Lewis doesn’t make mistakes.” Rosberg told Beyond The Grid podcast: “Vettel wants too much in the moment and doesn’t think about the long game.
“He’s also a little too self-confident and doesn’t accept it when someone else has done a better job.
“Sometimes you need to step back and say, ‘The other guy’s better at this moment but I’ll get him back down the road’. I’m sure he can do a lot better than he’s shown in the last couple of months, because he’s one of the best drivers in the world.”
Four-time world champ Vettel, 31, spun trying to overtake Daniel Ricciardo on the opening lap of the United States Grand Prix last weekend, a repeat of what he did trying to pass Max Verstappen in Japan two weeks earlier.
He also drove into Hamilton at Monza in Ferrari’s home GP, crashed out while leading in Germany, and drove into Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas at the start of the French Grand Prix.
Former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, now managing director of Formula One, said: “These incidents can no longer be seen as coincidence.
“Rather they would seem to indicate that Sebastian is a bit out of sorts at the moment.” TOTAL POINTS AFTER EACH RACE THIS SEASON