Yahoo Autos Rosberg Wins Seventh Grand Prix In A Row, Fourth of 2016
After just four races, second-placed Lewis Hamilton is just seven points away from being two full races out of the championship lead. If it weren't for the last two years of results at Mercedes, it would be easy to think that Nico Rosberg had more or less already secured his championship.
Observers of Formula 1 know better, of course. While it isn't exactly uncommon for a single driver on a single team to come out of the gates incredibly hot and make it clear from the first quarter of the season that it was theirs to lose, when that happens it usually doesn't happen for a driver still teamed with the twice-over defending World Driver's Champion. Rosberg's lead is massive after today's win (another quiet one for him, albeit mostly because he was a few seconds ahead of Hamilton's drama), but he's still not the favorite, and it'll take another five or six races like this for him to be favored over his teammate.
Despite starting 10th after yet another engine miscue yesterday, Lewis Hamilton was up to second and catching Nico Rosberg at a pretty quick pace by lap 25. After getting a boost from two separate first-lap incidents found to be by Daniil Kvyat, including one that would end the race of Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton had to pass just four cars in the race's first half to get to Rosberg in time to catch up to him. He did so, and by lap 35 had closed the gap to Rosberg to just 7 seconds, only to be told by his team that he had a water pressure issue and needed to slow his pace. He had to settle for second behind his teammate, and though Mercedes would yet again claim a 1-2 finish, Hamilton himself would have to settle for second by nearly 30 seconds.
With Vettel, who has quietly had nearly as many setbacks as Hamilton this season, out, Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen would claim a quiet third and final spot on the podium, ahead of the Williams duo of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa. Impressively, a struggling McLaren team would get Fernando Alonso's Honda-powered racer all the way up to sixth, while the driver he was pushed out for, Kevin Magnussen, would finish seventh for a Renault team that has had its fair share of struggles itself.
In eighth, Haas F1 would return to the points with Romain Grosjean. The finish makes three points finishes in four races, with the American team again proving that the realities of a wholly new Formula 1 team don't necessarily involve that team being a backmarker for its first few seasons.
Formula 1's next race, its first of the traditional European season and last before the Monaco Grand Prix, is in Spain in two weeks.
