Hamilton warns Rosberg: Enjoy title, I’ll fight hard to take it back

Lewis Hamilton has told Nico Rosberg to enjoy winning the drivers' championship because he will come back hard in 2017.

The triple world champion was 33 points behind his Mercedes team-mate following Rosberg's win in the Japanese Grand Prix, leaving Rosberg to only need to finish second in the remaining four races - or even third in one - to win the title.

Hamilton duly put the pressure on with four victories to end the season but Rosberg was second to his team-mate in every race and secured his first drivers' championship in Abu Dhabi.

Having suffered reliability issues in two qualifying sessions early in the season before retiring from the lead in Malaysia, Hamilton says Rosberg did exactly what he needed to but warned the German he will hit back hard next season.

“The odds were stacked against us this year,” Hamilton said. “It was a long, long year, so to then end up in the end with the pace and the speed and the hard work that you put in, to not get the result that you want is definitely tough.

“But a big congratulations to Nico because he did everything he had to do. It’s not his fault he had pretty much perfect reliability, he did everything he could and was meant to do.

“I’m just grateful that I was able to compete towards those last four races and I’ll just say congratulations and tell him to enjoy it because I’m going to fight hard next year to take it back.”

Rosberg described Hamilton as "one of the best ever" drivers in F1 following his title triumph, saying beating the Briton made the success all the sweeter.

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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.