Rosberg not impressed with Hamilton's race tactics
Mercedes secured another one-two victory at the Chinese Grand Prix today, but it wasn't all sunshine within the team as Nico Rosberg proved extremely unsatisfied with Hamilton's performance.
In the post-race press conference, Rosberg proved angry, feeling Hamilton backed off intentionally to put himself at risk of being overtaken by Vettel during the pitstops.
"I'm also a bit frustrated today", Rosberg said, "as I saw how much of a difference four hundredths of a second to Lewis in Qualifying can make.
"Lewis managed his tyres a lot in the middle stint and that put me at risk with Vettel right behind. But the team adapted to box me earlier for the second stop and stay ahead of the Ferrari after he had pitted to try and jump ahead through the undercut on new tyres. So that worked out - but I then had a long final stint to do and the tyres were beginning to give up in the final laps.
"I'm sure we will sit down and discuss it all now. But in general it's up to me to change the situation. I just need to make a better job on Saturday."
Hamilton though said he was totally focused on himself.
"Going into today we expected it to be close with Ferrari as they had been good on the tyres on their long runs. The goal was to run my own race and manage the tyres as best I could; I was driving as hard as I could within the constraints of the tyres and just trying to stretch out the Option stints for as long as possible. I never really had a threat from Nico but I didn't do anything intentionally to slow him up."
Rosberg however wasn't impressed, saying "It's good to hear now that Lewis was only looking at himself".
Asked for another comment, Hamilton attempted to avoid any conflict, and said "It's not my job to manage Nico's race. I was out there, managing my own race".
