Nico Rosberg Says Wins Lack Ecstasy Without A Lewis Hamilton Fight

Nico Rosberg admits he cannot feel ecstatic about winning races when team-mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton has been handicapped by unreliability. After securing his seventh consecutive win with a straightforward victory in Russia, Rosberg has opened up a 43-point lead at the top of the world championship. But while Rosberg has enjoyed a trouble-free start to the new campaign, reigning champion Hamilton, who has previously beaten Rosberg in every season of their three-year partnership, has been waylaid by two engine failures and three separate first-corner collisions.


With the critics claiming that Rosberg's title lead will lack credibility unless the German prospers in a head-to-head fight with Hamilton, even Rosberg himself admitted that his joy at opening up such a large lead in the title race has been diluted.  He said “I can't say l miss it [fighting with Hamilton] because it is awesome to win races and in the end it doesn't matter how. Winning is great and what I'm here for. But the ecstatic feeling isn't there, it's there when l win a battle with Lewis, that's what gives the ultimate thrill”.


Except for beating Hamilton off the line in Bahrain, Rosberg is yet to make a single overtaking move on track this season. While his victory in Sochi represented his first F1 'grand slam' - pole position, fastest lap, and victory after leading every lap - Rosberg acknowledged that it was bereft of the special ingredient that only a wheel-to-wheel contest with Hamilton could provide.


Hamilton, meanwhile, has defended his Mercedes team but admitted he doesn't understand why the world champions swapped personnel from one side of their garage to the other during the winter in an apparent bid to improve team harmony.