With a spring in his step, Nico Rosberg insists the verbal taunts of his teammate Lewis Hamilton are bouncing right off him.<\/p>\n
Although he has lost a second consecutive drivers’ title to the Briton, German Rosberg is on a run of form at present that he hopes will carry into 2016.<\/p>\n
One theory is that Pirelli’s recent clampdown on tyre usage in formula one, or a technical tweak made by Mercedes in late September, has swung the pendulum in Rosberg’s favour.<\/p>\n
“The rules aren’t changing next year so that’s good for me,” Rosberg declared.<\/p>\n
But after losing to Rosberg in Brazil last Sunday, Hamilton insisted he actually “had the pace” to win the race.<\/p>\n
Rosberg disagrees: “He just completely exaggerated with his tyres.\u00a0 I was clearly faster in the race.\u00a0 With his wild driving behind me he overused the tyres so much that we both had to make three stops.<\/p>\n
“But I always had him under control.”<\/p>\n
He also thinks Hamilton’s constant verbal sniping in recent days and weeks is a sign that the triple world champion is ruffled.<\/p>\n
“He is having a certain difficulty with the fact that I have spoiled his world championship party a bit, which I think is why certain statements and arguments are coming from him in the heat of the moment,” Rosberg said in his latest column for Bild newspaper.<\/p>\n
But another theory is that Hamilton has simply gone off the boil, perhaps due to his excessive partying, and will return to full speed in time for 2016.<\/p>\n
“How much is this success (by Rosberg) worth when the world championship is decided already?” wondered Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport.<\/p>\n
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff agrees: “You could say that Lewis has won everything, he’s met his objectives and maybe the adrenaline is not as high as before.<\/p>\n
“But I’m sure neither of them know the exact reasons,” he added.<\/p>\n
Whichever of them has the upper hand next year, Ferrari’s Maurizio Arrivabene is hoping his red-clad drivers can also be well in the mix.<\/p>\n
“My honest expectation,” he is quoted as saying by Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, “is not just to be closer, but to be in front of them.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With a spring in his step, Nico Rosberg insists the verbal taunts of his teammate Lewis Hamilton are bouncing right off him. Although he has lost a second consecutive drivers’ title to the Briton, German Rosberg is on a run of form at present that he hopes will carry into 2016. One theory is that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[2059,5262,5340,154,5181,4,5359],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31597,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31596\/revisions\/31597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}