Rosberg: Championship still open to Mercedes 14 May 2012
Nico Rosberg has admitted he was just grateful to limit the damage to his title chances in Spain, after another difficult Grand Prix for the Mercedes team. Rosberg, a winner in China just two rounds previously, came home seventh as he again struggled to get the best from his tyres.
“A difficult weekend for us,” he said on his official website. “Just tyre management really, even in qualifying, just reading the tyres and that’s why we’re struggling more than some other teams, especially Williams I guess. And the same in the race.”
The consolation for Rosberg was that with some unexpected results further up the Barcelona order, notably Pastor Maldonado’s win, he lost hardly any ground on the championship lead, now shared by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
“The race for me was okay,” he said. “I only lost two points on the championship lead, which is good, and I’m still only 20 points away, so it’s still open as long as we can really now push on and improve.”
The German driver admitted that with five teams having won in the first five races of 2012, predicting form from one round to the next is tough, but insisted there’s no reason the forthcoming Grands Prix in Monte Carlo and Canada should not be better for Mercedes.
“Hopefully the conditions in Monaco and Montreal will favour us again - it’s possible,” he added. “It’s just very difficult at the moment to understand how the next race is going to be. We’ll have to wait and see.”
With Rosberg’s team mate Michael Schumacher having failed to score in Spain, Mercedes are now fifth in the constructors’ championship, level on 43 points with Williams.
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