Nico Rosberg joined a closed group of Formula One drivers (Alberto Ascari, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel) after winning his seventh consecutive race at the Russian Grand Prix.
Unlike the aforementioned drivers, Rosberg has reigning world champion in Lewis Hamilton as his teammate. Good fortunes have showered on Rosberg thus far in the season and each of his last three wins barring the opener Australian Grand Prix was relatively easy and lacked on-track competition. However, Rosberg isn’t complaining as he leads the driver’s race by 43 points over his teammate.
While Hamilton has had issues with reliability, in contrast Rosberg has had a bulletproof machinery and to top it, Ferraris have been inconsistent. As it stands, it appears for third year in a row the German team is set to dominate the season unless Ferrari, Williams or Red Bull up their game.
There is a golden rule for winning championships in Formula One – finish the races and finish them as high as possible.
Rosberg has scored a perfect 100 so far while Hamilton has yet to showcase his brilliance and Vettel has not gone beyond a lap in two of the four races.
Irrespective of how Hamilton bounces back or Ferrari as a team fight, there is no doubt Nico Rosberg will be the man to beat this season. He has endured the scars Hamilton inflicted upon him in the past two years and now the German seems to have come out of his teammate’s shadows, stronger with renewed focus with an aura of ‘ruthless perfection’ attached.
This season is for Rosberg to lose and it remains to be seen how many points will he accumulate out of 425 points that are available. Equally interesting would be to watch his response if and when Hamilton makes a strong comeback to fight for the title.
As it stands, Rosberg looks set to follow his dad’s footsteps of becoming a world champion. All he needs to do is prolong the current form he is in, easily the best form he has been in his driving career.
However, for the sake of the audience, we expect there would be a fight for the championship, true to legendary Murray Walker’s words – “Stranger things can happen in Formula One and they always do.”
Having recalled those words, I only hope if a Mercedes driver is going to win the driver’s title, let that be Nico Rosberg.