Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Rosberg quizzes Hamilton in Malaysia

Nico Rosberg took on the role of journalist as he asked Lewis Hamilton whether he felt he had been blocked during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Hamilton was improving on his previous lap in Q3 when he came up behind Rosberg exiting Turn 6. With Rosberg going slowly but not moving off the racing line, Hamilton had to pass his team-mate on the inside of Turn 7, which would have compromised his lap.

With Hamilton facing the press after qualifying, Rosberg intervened in the interview session to ask a question of his own.

Having identified himself as "Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG Petronas," Rosberg then asked: "There’s a lot of comments on Twitter saying Nico blocked you, is that true he blocked you on your second timed lap?"

Hamilton replied: "I think you should probably ask him. I think he’ll have a good opinion on that."

While the exchanged was intended as a light-hearted one, Hamilton had earlier said he didn't feel he was blocked by his team-mate.

"I did improve on my first sector, it was quickest, but then I just bailed out. I had traffic. I came up on quite a few cars ahead. The sector was looking quite good but the cars were going to get in the way so I decided to take a second lap."

Asked if he felt he was held up, Hamilton replied: "No ... I decided to take the second lap."

The incident turned out to be redundant, with Hamilton's first timed lap good enough for him to take pole position, while Rosberg qualified third behind Sebastian Vettel.

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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.