Nico Rosberg admits China outburst may have given Hamilton an edge

Nico Rosberg concedes that “maybe” he handed Lewis Hamilton a psychological edge with his comments at the end of the Chinese GP but insists he’d say the same things again.

Speaking immediately after finishing second behind his Mercedes team-mate last Sunday, Rosberg said that Hamilton had deliberately slowed to leave him vulnerable to the third-placed Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.

In response, Hamilton said he’d had to manage his tyres with team boss Toto Wolff confirming that the world champion had done nothing wrong, adding that the scenario had been discussed on the morning of the race.

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The feeling afterwards was that Rosberg – who appeared stung by Hamilton’s comment that “I had no real threat from Nico through the whole race” – had lost a second battle off the track, although the German suggested that the media’s response to the spat was overplayed.

“Maybe,” came the response when asked if his outburst had handed his team-mate a boost. “Because I’m standing here and I’m having to answer all these questions. But other than that, no, I would do it again. Because I felt the need to state the facts because there was the need to discuss things, definitely, after that race.

“Everybody saw that need, not only me. I wouldn’t do anything differently. And now for me, except for standing in this room at the moment and discussing it with you, it’s a long time since I last discussed it,” Rosberg added, with tongue in cheek.

“It’s a thing of the past. Moving on, we’re in Bahrain now here, just to attack in the race car again. That’s the best answer I can give anyway: on the race track.”

Rosberg said it would be “really difficult” if the same situation were to arise again. Mercedes’ advantage since the start of last season has been such that team orders haven’t been needed, although Wolff has said they’d impose them if they had to.

They have tried splitting the strategies of their drivers, although that was abandoned after last year’s Hungarian GP, in which Hamilton refused to let Rosberg past, even though the latter was running the softer tyre.

The emergence of Vettel and Ferrari has ratcheted up the competitive paranoia still further. "It’s not a thing that’s black or white, and that’s what makes all these scenarios difficult,” Rosberg said. "That’s why there’s always different opinions. Eventually, once the facts are analysed, there’ll still be different opinions and that’s it.”

Rosberg might have felt frustrated last weekend but he admitted that managing the desires of their drivers placed Mercedes in a very difficult situaution.

“It’s an agreement we have that when the team’s 1-2 is at risk from another team then some measures will be used to ensure that, and that might mean the disadvantage of one or the other driver,” he said.

“It becomes the team effort because we want to finish 1-2 and expect the most possible points. And so the more annoying a Ferrari like Sebastian becomes in China, the more likely then those measures will be used.

“Just like in China when Lewis was told to speed up.”

Rosberg missed out on pole position by just 0.04s in Shanghai but has started P1 at both the last two Bahrain Grands Prix.

He ultimately lost out to Hamilton after an aggressive, thrilling battle in last year’s race but wants to rectify that, starting with pole on Saturday.

“Do I think so? Yes. But I also thought that at the last two races, so it didn’t go that way,” Rosberg added.

“I’m here to try and make it happen of course. I just looked at the videos again because I need to improve when we’re in the battle. Last year, there were things I could have done better to win that race.”