Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg has said that he had a bad day as he finished the Monaco Grand Prix in seventh place from second on the grid.
The German stayed in second from the start of the racing laps on lap eight, moving five seconds behind leader Daniel Ricciardo by lap 12 which developed to over nine seconds on lap 14 and 12.1 seconds by lap 15.
He then started moving down the order on lap 16 when he was overtaken by Lewis Hamilton and continued to when the track later got drier and pit stops for slick tyres were made around laps 31 to 33.
This means that his championship lead has decreased from 39 points to 24 as Hamilton again becomes his nearest challenger in the Drivers’ Championship, with Rosberg moving onto 106 points compared to Hamilton’s 82.
“In racing you have good days and bad days,” Rosberg said.
“Today was a bad day for me. I didn’t have the pace to fight for the win and we need to understand why.
“It was possibly a brake issue – but I don’t know for sure yet. I didn’t feel like I could push to the limit at the beginning of the race on the wet tyres.”
Rosberg went on to explain the thinking behind letting Hamilton past when he did, saying it was team etiquette to give the other car the chance to win the race if the other is struggling ahead of them, something that Hamilton went on to do.
“It was a simple decision to accept the request from the team to let Lewis past – even if it hurt very much in that moment.
“I was very far off the pace and Lewis quite clearly had the speed to win for the team. We’ve always had that rule – if you’re ahead and the other guy has a chance to win, you give him that chance.”
With the circuit drying, Rosberg lost more ground in the pit stop phase, falling behind Force India’s Sergio Perez, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, just ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, and he had a large task on his hands to improve from there.
“From there it just didn’t go my way. I had a tricky pit stop and was held in the box because there was traffic in [the] pit lane. So the cars were just streaming by and suddenly I was down to sixth.
“Once you’re behind in Monaco that’s it – you’re stuck. At the end, Nico [Hulkenberg] had a lot more rubber left on his soft tyres and my ultra-softs were finished, so I lost temperature in the drizzle and lost grip, which let him past too.
“That kind of summed it up, really. I’m massively disappointed with today – I really wanted to win my home race again but it didn’t work out. It’s been tough and I’ll probably need a day to take it all in – but then I’ll shift my focus to Canada and a chance to come back stronger.”
