Wolff: Singapore showed 'the best Rosberg I’ve seen'

Toto Wolff says Nico Rosberg's dominant display at the Singapore Grand Prix was the best he has seen from him since the Mercedes motorsport boss joined the team in 2013.

The German re-claimed the title lead from team-mate Lewis Hamilton after comprehensively outperforming the triple world champion at Marina Bay Circuit.

Having qualified seven tenths faster than his archrival in third, Rosberg went on to collect his 22nd career victory in strong fashion, though he had to fend off a late charge from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

“I’ve known him since 2013 and that is the best Nico Rosberg I have seen at any weekend since then,” Wolff said. “We have the tendency to say Lewis has awesome pace and this is what we have seen with Nico this weekend – he was just blindingly fast.

“He was 0.6s quicker than P2 in qualifying in Singapore, which is not something we are used to seeing at all here. He drove the race in the same way, he had a great start, controlled the pace and on the contrary Lewis didn’t have a good weekend – he was lacking laps to find out about the right setup, so he couldn’t really choose the direction and that caused him to go backwards from then on.”

Wolff has repeatedly said he is expecting the momentum to swing from one Mercedes driver to the other until the final race of the season. With Rosberg responding to Hamilton’s four July wins with three successes on the trot since the end of the summer break, the theory is more valid than ever.

“We have the tendency of talking one up and the other one down, and we have had that for three years since the two of them have been fighting for the championship.

“We have seen those waves and I remember talking about Lewis’ momentum a few weeks ago and then suddenly we had this mega Nico weekend and in two weeks we are going to see if that changes or stays the same in Malaysia.”

REPORT: Rosberg takes title lead after Singapore thriller 

Breakfast with ... Bernd Maylander