Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg has questioned the timing of the first safety car during Sunday’s Hungarian GP.
Rosberg was leading comfortably before Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson crashed on lap eight to deploy the safety car.
At the time that the safety was released, the leading four, Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso had already passed the pit-lane entrance and were not able to change tyres and ultimately meant that they lost track position as they came into the pits on their next lap.
After finishing fourth, Rosberg believes that the timing meant it ultimately cost him victory.
“It was wrong from the race officials because they sent it out at the wrong time because I got stuck behind it,” he said in a Mercedes video blog.
“Normally, you’re supposed to do this average speed slow lap but I got stuck behind it right away.
“And it was so slow that all those guys that managed to pit first, they got by me then. And that’s not supposed to be the case. So that was the main problem.”
It was not only bad safety car timings that have annoyed Rosberg however. Both he, team-mate Lewis and their Mercedes team have been making the headlines for strategy calls which were controversial.
Hamilton [who started from the pit-lane] was asked to let Rosberg past as he was on a different strategy but the Brit did not let his team-mate through, stating that he was not close enough to overtake him without losing time himself.
Hamilton ended the race one position ahead of Rosberg in third and was accused by some of blatantly ignoring team orders. Mercedes motorpsort chief, Toto Wolff, felt that Hamilton not letting Rosberg through cost him the win.
Admittedly, Rosberg said that when he had his chance to overtake Hamilton near the end, he did not get everything correct.
“The thing I’m most annoyed about is the last lap, though, because I had a little opportunity and was just so close but [I] didn’t manage to use it – there was just 30 centimetres missing or something,” he said.
“What he did was okay, the way he defended, because the guy on the inside, it’s his corner, so the guy on the outside needs to make it far enough in front that the other guy can’t push him out.
“I didn’t manage to do that, so that’s what annoys me most.”
