Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Rosberg expecting Mercedes to beat Ferrari

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Nico Rosberg says he is expecting Mercedes to have the fastest car again in the Chinese Grand Prix after being beaten in Malaysia.

Sebastian Vettel took a surprise victory for Ferrari in Sepang, beating Rosberg and team-mate Lewis Hamilton for pace as the four-time world champion could complete a two-stop strategy while the Mercedes’ stopped three times. While the defending champions said after the race that the result was good for the sport, Rosberg says he expects to hit back in China.

“I want to win, so of course having Sebastian win in Malaysia was not good,” Rosberg said. “I hope to beat him and Lewis here, and that’s it. I’m sure also here we will have a stronger car than in Malaysia. I’m expecting us to be the best again here.”

And Rosberg says Vettel’s victory has also caused Mercedes to push even harder to defend its position as the fastest team.

“It was a shock to us. A shock might be too harsh a word but close to that anyway because we didn’t expect it at all. We were very, very confident that we were the quickest, so it was very surprising and definitely a big wake-up call for us. You can really feel it in the team, it’s given us a fresh impulse which is also good for us because it will push us to higher things.”

Click here for Chris Medland's Chinese Grand Prix preview.

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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.