Abu Dhabi will still be a 'difficult weekend,' says Nico Rosberg
Nico Rosberg insists that the Abu Dhabi GP will be a difficult weekend, despite having the luxury of only having to finish third to win the title, even if Lewis Hamilton wins.
Rosberg was asked if getting through a tricky race in Brazil – where something could easily have gone wrong for him – was the last major hurdle facing his title quest.
“Abu Dhabi is going to be a difficult race weekend like always,” he said. “It’s always a challenge to do a good job on a race weekend. Nothing in F1 is easy. I don’t see it like that.”
Rosberg also laughed off suggestions that his “one race at a time” approach won’t apply now that Abu Dhabi has been confirmed as a showdown for the title. He has said all year that he is approaching each weekend as an individual race to be won, and has insisted that the title was not on his mind.
“I don’t know how I shall approach my last race yet. I shall let you know on [the] Thursday, when I have a bit more time to think about it.”
Meanwhile, Rosberg admitted that he was surprised by Red Bull’s decision to pit Max Verstappen in the late stages of the Brazilian GP – a move that cost the Dutchman second place.
Verstappen was running ahead of Rosberg on extreme wets when he was called in for intermediate tires in an attempt to give him a potential advantage over leader Lewis Hamilton. However, a safety car period soon followed, and the team pitted him again to go back to extremes, leaving him to fight back to third from 14th. Rosberg acknowledged that his life was made easier when Verstappen pitted.
“I was out there to try and win the race. Especially in the first part of the race my mindset was what can I do to get back forwards again. But at the same time I was realistic about the fact that it was going to be very difficult to get back in front of him, because he was on the same pace to us.
“But I was actually happy when he boxed. I understood at the time that they were just taking a gamble for the race win, that’s what they were doing, but I thought that was not the right thing to do. I was surprised because at the same time just earlier they’d predicted more rain in the very near future. Even if it did work for a couple of laps, the prediction at the time was a bit more rain, and since I was on such a knife’s edge, just a little bit more rain would have put it over the edge. So at the time I was quite comfortable with it.
“I was sure that inters were the wrong thing, because if I’m really struggling with unpredictable aquaplaning on full wets, then inters are not the right way to go.”
Regarding his half-spin, he said: “Everything was under control! At no time did I expect to get such a big moment there, it just came completely unexpectedly, like it did for everyone else I suppose out there.”
He admitted that it was a challenge to stay in the road, even with the Pirelli extreme wets.
“It’s difficult because it’s completely unpredictable, when you go through a little bit more water you don’t know what’s going to happen. That makes it a little more challenging, but they know that, and they’ve been working on it at the moment, that’s why we’ve been doing wet tests, to see if they can make some progress for next year. It would be good for the racing also, because then you don’t need to red flag it, you can just let the race go on, I suppose.”
On his fight with Verstappen, he said: “It was exciting out there for sure. It was a good battle, and he did a very good job.”
