Hamilton: F1 title comeback ‘not as tough as you think’

Once racing got back underway, Nico Rosberg hung on for the narrowest Formula One victory for six years, celebrating his 200th career start in flawless style as he reclaimed the championship lead from his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo closely followed Rosberg, ranking the second and Championship leader Lewis Hamilton finally anchored the third place.

Nico Rosberg reclaimed the lead in the battle for the world championship in Singapore after securing his eighth win of the season and third in as many races.

Initially the team planned to respond to the Red Bull move, but they ended up thwarted and missing the opportunity. The two-hour race started on the 5.065-kilometer Marina Bay street circuit, which has 23 corners spread over.

“Throughout the race I wasn’t really thinking about what happens when I catch him, I was just focusing on trying to catch him and put some pressure on”.

Rosberg had to been due to pit himself but Wolff says a late call was made to keep the German driver on track after seeing Ricciardo’s blistering first lap on the super-soft tyres.

“I’m not going to stand here disappointed”.

“The whole vehicle was on the edge, it always is here in Singapore, so it’s very satisfying to finish like that”, Rosberg told reporters.

After watching his 19-point lead evaporate over the last three races – all won by Rosberg – since the summer break, Hamilton insists he is not too concerned.

Early on in the stint Ricciardo had been taking over 3.5 seconds a lap of Rosberg’s lead, which had been around 25 seconds when he pitted.

“We have a good auto”.

Speaking after the race, Ricciardo admitted a slight tinge of disappointment not to win, but said he had a good race and wouldn’t leave with any regrets. I knew his engineer had been on his radio saying: “Ricciardo is catching you two seconds a lap”.

“We’ve come from 43 points down, so theoretically eight points isn’t anywhere near as steep as that, but still Nico’s been performing fantastically well”, added Hamilton. “That was the moment to decide if we wanted to push now or wait until the end and conserve the tyres, conserve the brakes and fight for it, and this is what we decided”.

A disappointed Hamilton said: “A really tough weekend for me but huge congratulations to Nico”.

Sebastian Vettel starts 22nd on the grid but slalomed his way through to finish fifth, with Max Versteppen, Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez, Daniil Kvyat and Kevin Magnussen completing the top 10.