Nico Rosberg was left frustrated with his race start which saw him lose places on the opening lap of the Belgian Grand Prix.
Rosberg fell back as low as fifth at the beginning of the race while his team-mate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton maintained the race lead.
The German admitted after the race that there’s work to be done on his race starts following a series of races where he has lost ground on the first lap.
“I completed messed up the start, which was very annoying,” Rosberg told AUTOSPORT
“The start was really bad so I need to practice that a bit more.”
Rosberg managed to clear the cars ahead of him during the first round of pitstops but found it difficult to reduce the time gap to Hamilton, who extends his championship advantage to 28 points.
“When I had clear air in front, I chased Lewis, I was always coming close, apart from one phase in the second stint when he pulled away.” said Rosberg.
“I tried to hunt Lewis down, but it wasn’t enough”
A potential cause Rosberg pointed to for his poor start was the extra formation tour taken as a result of Nico Hulkenberg enduring problems with his Force India but refused to use it as an excuse.
“We did another formation, which puts more temperature in and things change, that also caught me out,” he added
“But it’s my job to do it well and I didn’t do it well.”
