Rosberg now just 10 points back on Hamilton after three wins in four
Wednesday 8 July 2015 11:41, UK
Nico Rosberg is aiming to make further inroads into Lewis Hamilton’s narrow title lead as aims to build on his recent winning momentum and triumph at his team-mate’s home British GP.
Having been more than a race win adrift of the sister Mercedes in the points standings at the end of the season’s opening four flyaway, Rosberg is now just 10 back – the equivalent of a fifth-place finish – after claiming a dominant third win in four races a fortnight ago in Austria.
Rosberg boasts a strong recent record at Silverstone having won the race two years ago, albeit a little fortuitously after both Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel dropped out of the lead, and then claimed a wet-weather pole last year and lead the race, before a gearbox failure ground his car to a halt.
And now having built up some strong momentum since claiming his first win of the year at Barcelona, Rosberg declared: “It’s important for me to keep closing the gap to him and I’m going to try and do it here.
“It’s a good period in the season for me now and I want to keep that going. He’s 10 points ahead and I need to keep digging away at that very quickly.
“Ten points is nothing, of course, if you look at the length of the season still, so the chances are really good.”
Rosberg’s turnaround in results relative to Hamilton since the start of the European season has been attributed to the newly-turned 30-year-old upping his own game. However, asked on Thursday what had changed since the season’s early rounds, Rosberg replied: “Unfortunately, nothing – it just the way sport is. Sport goes in waves and that’s the best explanation I have for it.”
Although the German, the winner of last year’s inaugural F1 pole trophy, has still outqualified Hamilton just once in 2015, his lights-to-flag victory in Austria after beating his polesitting team-mate to the first corner was hailed in many quarters as the best win of Rosberg’s career.
Two weeks on and he admits he took particular satisfaction from his race pace around the Red Bull Ring.
“It was a great weekend for me, especially because it was one of those which was not so difficult That was great to see, to just be quicker in the race all the way through.” Rosberg added.
"Especially it’s great because that is the area I needed to slightly work on after last year, that race craft, and I made a nice step there. That’s been important for me to see."
