No progress on new Mercedes deal - Rosberg

Nico Rosberg says there has not been any development regarding his contract situation at Mercedes, though the F1 points leader admits he is keen to extend his spell at a team he described “as legendary as Ferrari”.

Rosberg’s current deal reportedly expires at the end of the 2016 season but Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda told the German press a new deal was all but signed.

Speaking to reporters ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, the 31-year-old downplayed the report.

“Nothing has changed regarding my contract, it’s not something of urgency, as I’ve always said I want to stay here for many years to come because it’s great to be here and the team is also happy with me,” he said.

“Mercedes is as legendary as Ferrari and I feel very much at home in this racing family and that’s where I want to be for the foreseeable future.”

Rosberg enters round nine of this year’s championship on the back of a convincing win in Azerbaijan, a race that saw his team-mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton fall foul of the FIA’s tighter restrictions on radio communications as both Mercedes suffered engine settings issues.

“The goal of these rules is to make it more challenging for the teams and the drivers and you need to make sure as a team that the driver has all the options available to him out there, which is not easy to get 100 per cent perfect and that’s why we had the issues we had in Baku,” the curent championship leader added.

“But that was the goal of these rules and also the fans were complaining that we were just puppets on the track, just doing what the engineers were telling us, that was the complaint from the fans and that’s why they changed the rules and they are the way they are now.

“And they’re fine the way they are, it’s more challenging for us out there, we’re further away from perfection now, as we saw in Baku, so it’s OK.”

Rosberg eyes a third consecutive Austrian GP win this weekend, with the Mercedes man undeafeated since the Spielberg venue returned to the F1 calendar two years ago.

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