Nico Rosberg expects a bit of table-banging to come from Lewis Hamilton
British driver Lewis Hamilton walking with his head down in the Mercedes garage. Netherlands September 2022
Nico Rosberg says Mercedes were right to leave Lewis Hamilton out on old medium tyres for the Safety Car restart at Zandvoort – their mistake was not doing the same with George Russell.
On a one-stop strategy to Max Verstappen’s two, Mercedes were making Red Bull sweat over their strategy as the W13 showed good pace at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Verstappen was given a reprieve when the Virtual Safety Car came out as Yuki Tsunoda retired his AlphaTauri at the side of the track, the Dutchman able to make a second pit-stop and stay ahead of the Mercedes team-mates.
That, though, was not the end of the story as Valtteri Bottas then retired, his car grinding to a halt on the pits straight which meant a full Safety Car. And that is when Mercedes found themselves between a rock and a hard place.
While Verstappen stopped for soft tyres, the Red Bull driver falling to third, neither Mercedes stopped only for Russell to then make the call for soft tyres.
He pitted, dropped behind Verstappen and opened the door for the championship leader to attack Hamilton at the restart.
He did just that, passing him into Turn 1 to take the lead and the race win. Russell also passed his team-mate with Hamilton soon falling to fourth.
The Briton was furious with the team, saying they had “f***king screwed” him with Rosberg giving some credence to that claim.
“They decided to take the risk with Lewis, left him out to have a chance of winning,” the former Mercedes driver told Sky Deutschland.
“If you do that with George, he definitely wouldn’t win. That’s clear because he falls behind Max.
“So if you’re going to take a risk for the win, you have to do it properly and also leave George out so he blocks Max and gives Lewis an even better chance of winning,
“That’s what went a little bit wrong from my point of view.”
Verstappen wasted no time getting past Hamilton at the restart ?#DutchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/d3muMaULsE
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 4, 2022
The German says he gets why Hamilton ranted at the team over the radio.
“First he gets overtaken and loses the win, then his team-mate flies by,” he said. “That’s not a good feeling, believe me! It’s really annoying.
“And for Lewis, one thing led to another. It was a really terrible experience for him. Of course you’re incredibly frustrated on the radio. That’s completely understandable.”
Rosberg reckons the seven-time former World Champion will be having a few words with Mercedes, maybe even with some Wolff-style table-banging.
“I guess he’ll get heated again behind closed doors. He’ll bang on the table a bit,” he added.
