Finishing second, Mercedes driver, Nico Rosberg, after the race, lashed out at his team mate for compromising his race. He felt that the race winner, Lewis Hamilton, was driving ‘slow’ deliberately, backing him into the chasing Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. Lewis Hamilton has rejected these claims from his team mate Nico Rosberg.

Nico Rosberg furious with ‘slow’ Lewis Hamilton

The rivalry between the two Mercedes drivers has always been a talking point. The fuel to the fire between them was when Rosberg reacted angrily towards his race engineer over the radio at the Qualifying session after losing out on the pole by 0.042 of a second. During the race as well Nico radioed into the camp demanding Hamilton to speed up.

“I was not controlling his race. I was controlling was own race”, said Hamilton after the race. A furious Rosberg shot back, “It is interesting to hear that from you Lewis that you were just thinking about yourself. Driving slower than that was really necessary at the beginning of the stints opened up the opportunity for Sebastian to try to jump on me. It compromised my race”.
Lewis said, “I was not trying to back him up into Sebastian because ultimately we do need a one-two that is a priority to the team. If he wanted to get close to overtake he could have done. I am not really quite are what his problem is”. Rosberg added, “What upsets me we went through exactly that before the race”. Rosberg insisted that Lewis had put him and the team under unnecessary pressure and that they would discuss it with the team.

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff claimed that the drivers had a good debrief and that there was no animosity. “There wasn’t any intention from Lewis to slow Nico down in order to make him finish thir or worse, 100%”, said Toto. He moreover explained, “He (Lewis) didn’t know the gaps behind Nico. What he knew was that he had to take that tyre longer than we had ever run it the whole weekend. That is why he decided to slow down in the way he did”.

Lewis and Nico have a bit of history between them. The two have been racing each other as teenagers where they developed their friendly-rivalry. However after reaching F1, cracks appeared in the Bahrain GP last year with Rosberg complaining about an overtaking manoeuvre, following Hamilton’s won. Again in the Monaco GP Rosberg secures pole and locks up his car preventing Lewis from a final run due to the yellow flags. In the Belgian GP, Hamilton was accused of deliberately colliding with Nico Rosberg. This is the latest in the series of spats between the two drivers from Mercedes.

Tags: Chinese Grand Prix, F1, Ferrari, Formula One, Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Motorsport, Motorsports, Nico Rosberg, Williams