Nico Rosberg admits he was surprised by how quick Ferrari was in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen both jumped Rosberg at the start of the race to lead the Mercedes, and duly pulled away at the front. Ferrari looked set for a one-two before Raikkonen hit reliability trouble, but even though the field was bunched up by a Safety Car period, Vettel went on to take victory.
Rosberg admits he was expecting to be able to shadow the leaders in the opening stint before trying to jump them in the pit stops, but was caught out by Ferrari’s pace.
“Pace-wise I was really surprised not to be able to follow the Ferraris,” Rosberg said. “They were just quick, so that was disappointing.
“Then the Safety Car just didn’t work out because it was such a late call. I was just in front of the pit entry when they called me in and they didn’t have time to get the soft tyres ready, so they fitted me the hard tyres and that was then not so good on the restart. It went badly against [Daniel] Ricciardo because he had the soft tyres on the restart and that’s why he could attack me.
“In the incident with him, from my point of view it was my corner because I got the corner properly and he completely overdid it. Nevertheless, on the exit of the corner his front wing was still right next to my rear tyre and punctured my tyre as a result. That was hugely disappointing. I mean, sport can be really tough sometimes because it was the opportunity to take some points from Lewis [Hamilton] - a lot of points - so that really, really sucks.”
Rosberg is now 21 points behind Hamilton after finishing eighth, two places behind his team-mate, while Vettel is also only 21 points further back.
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