Nico Rosberg has described his Singapore Grand Prix weekend as “all downhill.” The German driver suffered a technical glitch before the start of Sunday’s race and ultimately retired.
Rosberg’s second retirement of the season has saw team-mate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton take the lead in the championship after winning in Singapore, after a late battle with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.
Pitting on lap 14, Rosberg called it a day after his new steering wheel which was fitted during the stop could not select a gear.
“It wasn’t so much a rollercoaster ride because it was all downhill for me,” he said.
“It was very frustrating to drive behind a Caterham and sit on a grid and watch everyone else leave. But that is the way it is.
“I was stuck with no power, only able to shift gear pedals.
“Nothing was working, every time I shifted a gear it shifted two.”
Rosberg stated that he knew even before the went to the grid that he was in for a tough evening; also knowing how severe his electrical problem was.
“When we changed the steering wheel and I had the same problem I knew it was serious.”
Speaking to the BBC’s 5 Live, Rosberg, who lost the lead in the DRIVERS’Championship to team-mate Lewis Hamilton, urged Mercedes to get to the bottom of their reliability issues.
“The steering wheel did not work and then the whole car wasn’t working. We need to find out what the problem was because again we have a reliability problem.
“We’ve had a few this year and that’s our weakness. We need to get to the bottom of it and make the car 100% reliable.
“It tough not even leaving the grid. I was hoping the team could fix it [after the race had started] because it was going on and off, sometimes working, sometimes not.
“There’s no point in shouting, it’s reliability issue, and it’s happened again.”
