Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Rosberg 'no real threat' - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton says Nico Rosberg offered "no real threat" after being criticised by his team-mate following the Chinese Grand Prix.

Rosberg was unhappy with Hamilton's pace during the middle stint of the race, venting his anger at the Briton for "unnecessarily" forcing him back in to the clutches of Sebastian Vettel and hampering his race. Following the outburst, Hamilton spoke about how the race went from his point of view and he says he never felt Rosberg was able to beat him.

"My goal was kind of to look after my car," Hamilton said. "I had no real threat from Nico through the whole race so I just managed it and I got to real enjoy it to be honest. A few real good fun laps were the laps before pitstop which I really enjoyed. Ultimately, it was a much smoother weekend than we had at the last race."

And Hamilton also says the lack of a sustained challenge from Ferrari was a surprise for him too.

"I wasn't controlling [Rosberg's] race. I was controlling my own race. Great race, I’m really happy here. I think definitely going into the race, we thought it’d be a lot closer. We knew that the Ferraris were really good with their long-run pace and also looking after their tyres. Today the real goal was to manage the tyres."

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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.