Mercedes pair 'pushing each other to new heights'

40

Toto Wolff says the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are "pushing each other to new heights" in this season's championship battle.

Rosberg produce an impressive display across the Singapore Grand Prix weekend to win his eighth race of the season and retake the championship lead from Hamilton, who finished third behind Daniel Ricciardo. With Rosberg leading the standings with six races remaining, Wolff believes the tight battle is causing his two driver to raise their game.

"We saw Formula One at its best in Singapore," Wolff said. "Just like in football, where you have good games and bad ones, this was a classic. I'm proud of the team for how we bounced back after last year and we take our hats off to Red Bull and Daniel (Ricciardo) too, as they made it a huge battle. This is how Formula One should be and, although it was extremely tense, I thoroughly enjoyed the race.

"Now we go to Malaysia, which is a big weekend for us. To win in what feels like our second home, in front of thousands of friends and partners from Petronas, would be very special. But, like Singapore, this was a race where we underperformed last year, so we will need to push hard to put that right.

"We can guarantee that the drivers will be doing just that. This year more than ever, we've seen that they are pushing each other to new heights. We're entering a gruelling phase of this record 21 race season, where the physical and mental challenge of a Championship reaches its absolute peak. We're in good shape - but we must remain on our toes to get the ball over the line."

And Rosberg himself described his Singapore weekend as "perfect", having taken pole position by over 0.6s before holding off Ricciardo in a thrilling finale.

"Singapore was a perfect weekend for me," Rosberg said. "I felt great in the car, had a fantastic qualifying, made a strong start and then came out on top after a really intense battle with Daniel at the end of the race, which made the win all the more fulfilling. The team did such an impressive job understanding what went wrong last year and turning it around. I'm massively proud of everyone for that."

F1i Classic: Sepang 2001 - Ferrari pulls off a masterstroke

F1i's Eric Silbermann asks what Nico Rosberg has to do to get the credit he deserves

From the cockpit: Felipe Nasr on lights and shadows in Singapore

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: Nicolas Carpentiers checks out the latest innovations seen in Singapore

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.