Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Rosberg reveals intense discussions after Chinese GP

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Nico Rosberg says there were “very intense” discussions at Mercedes following the Chinese Grand Prix after he vented his anger at Lewis Hamilton.

Having finished in second place, Rosberg accused his team-mate of deliberately holding him up and putting him at risk of being attacked by Sebastian Vettel. Inviting questions on Twitter after the race, Rosberg was received a response from a follower which read: “Do you think your pace was better than Lewis' in China? Why didn't you do anything about getting P1? You were only crying…”

In response, Rosberg explains his reasoning for staying behind Hamilton and reveals the atmosphere at Mercedes following the race.

“You said I was crying? I respect your opinion. I’ll keep it in mind and try to show respect when it is due,” Rosberg replied in a video blog. “Why didn’t l attack? I can understand why you are asking that because it’s maybe not so easy to understand from outside. The reason is, I did try to attack him during the first stint and it just didn’t work, all l did was destroy my tyres.

“So in the second stint there was no point doing that again because Vettel was right behind and it would have really risked my second place if l had tried that as l would have just ruined my tyres completely again and Vettel would have had a really good shot at overtaking me.”

“My only chance to win the race, or to fight Lewis or to try to overtake him, would have come at the end of the race and that’s what l was building up to. It was very intense after the race but we had a very good sit-down and a good discussion. There was a lot of constructive criticism and now for everyone it is a thing of the past. We move on to Bahrain.”

And Rosberg admits the best way to avoid a repeat situation in future is to start the race ahead of his team-mate.

“The worst part of the weekend was losing out to Lewis in qualifying, that compromised me the most. It’s all down to me to be five-hundredths quicker next time.”

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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.