Rosberg targeting race starts in bid to beat Hamilton

40

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg intends to get the better of his team mate Lewis Hamilton off the starting grid in future races, as the two continue to duel over the world championship title.

Hamilton struggled at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix but Rosberg wasn't able to capitalise by going around the outside line in turn 1. Instead, he was forced to take to the escape road which lost him multiple positions.

"Lewis had a disastrous start and I had a mediocre one as normal, but then what do I do? I’m on the outside and if I accept to just let him go through I know I’m stuck behind him for the race.

"I know it’s going to be risky going around the outside, because he knows how to make it difficult. In Barcelona it worked out really, really well [at turn 1] and I tried exactly that thing.

"It was in the back of my mind that he’s been having difficulties in starts and first corners lately and it’s not been his strength at the moment, so I said 'Give it a go, go for it and give it a shot', but it didn’t work out.

"Of course I can’t calculate that I’m going to drop all the way to ninth, I say ‘Okay, if it goes wrong I’ll lose one or maybe two positions’. But I didn’t figure I would lose all of those positions, because if I did I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t know that, gave it a go and it went wrong because of understeer."

"It was one learning experience for me in the battle with him and I just have to see how it goes and decide in the moment what approach to take.

"I can only go back to Barcelona where that move would have won me the race [if not for the collision between the pair at turn 4] and in Montreal it went the other way. It’s not clear cut and I just think it’s a fine line and you make the call in the moment."

"Of course in the next battle I need to make sure I’m on the inside [on pole] and then I’ll be in the stronger position."

Chris Medland’s 2016 Grand Prix of Europe preview

Technical analysis - Canada

Breakfast with ... David Hobbs

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.