The feelings that I had in the battle and right after when I realised that I’ d passed him, I’ ve never had that in a racecar ever in my life,”
RA
RACE ANALYSIS Finals
CRITICAL CALL FOR ROSBERG
That gave Rosberg and his team a headache that they hadn’ t anticipated.
“ Each Ferrari caused us a release delay which is unfortunate,” said Lowe.“ But not too much damage, apart from with Max in his offset strategy in the way, that created a little bit of difficulty for Nico. Eventually we called him and said he couldn’ t wait any longer, we had to push for the overtake.”
Indeed, we heard Nico’ s engineer tell him that it was“ critical” that he pass Verstappen.
“ That was not a nice thing to hear,” Nico joked after the race.“ Really? Critical to pass Verstappen? Honesty, that was bad, that was really bad. That was a horrible feeling!”
Given Verstappen’ s reputation for making life difficult, and the fact that they’ d already had moments together on track in Montreal, Germany and Mexico, not to mention Max’ s bold outside pass in the wet in Brazil, Nico could be forgiven for being a bit wary.
But to his credit he got his head down and made a bold pass, and Max gave him just enough space.
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The feelings that I had in the battle and right after when I realised that I’ d passed him, I’ ve never had that in a racecar ever in my life,”
said Rosberg.“ And I don’ t want ever want to have them again I don’ t think...”
“ It was a great move,” said Lowe.“ Considering that Nico’ s main risk of the day was to have some sort of shunt that took him out. It was still brave, but well controlled, close racing. So a great overtake from Nico which was critical to his championship.
“ And respect to Max, he didn’ t do anything silly either that would have distorted the championship.”
So as of Lap 20 Rosberg was back in second place. He then put in a series of fastest laps, closing the gap to Hamilton down to 3s before Lewis pitted on Lap 28, with Nico coming in a lap later.
Then it became apparent that there was another potential spanner in the works as Vettel took over the lead and continued to stay out, in effect shortening his third and final stint – for which he had a set of supersofts safely stashed away.
It was clear that he would be the fastest guy on the track in that last stint, fast enough to be a threat to the Mercedes drivers. Indeed it was just a couple of laps after the stops that Hamilton was asked why he was so slow, and it was pointed out that he could be vulnerable to Vettel.
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3. Sebastian Vettel gave champion-to-be Rosberg a hard time late in the race. LAT Photographic
4. Rosberg’ s race also included needing to find a way past Verstappen. XPB Images
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