May 26 (GMM) Nico Rosberg admits he needs to up his game in order to beat teammate Lewis Hamilton to the 2015 title.
The German was ecstatic on Sunday after winning a third consecutive Monaco grand prix, and it was also his first ever back-to-back win in his long career.
On the fact of it, Rosberg is right back in the game following his early-season slump; psychologically buoyant and now just ten points behind the championship lead.
But in his column for the major German daily Bild, Rosberg also called Sunday the “luckiest day” of his decade in formula one.
Beaten to the pole on Saturday, he only inherited the win late in the day after Mercedes badly bungled Hamilton’s pit strategy.
Rosberg admits: “Lewis was faster than me on every day of the weekend. So for him it must have been a horrible feeling” to lose because of a team error.
“You do everything right all weekend,” the 29-year-old added, referring to Hamilton, “and then in one second your victory is gone.
“I had the same problem last year in Budapest. I was leading by ten seconds, the safety car came out at the wrong time and suddenly I was fifth. This is pure horror,” said Rosberg.
So he said he is under no illusions that, while happy with the inherited victory, he needs to up his game in order to take Hamilton on based purely on performance.
“This race was a warning for me,” admitted Rosberg.
“I need to go up a gear in two weeks in Canada, because Lewis will come back even stronger. And then he will be even more dangerous!”
Finally, Rosberg backed Mercedes, despite immense criticism of the basic strategy error that cost Hamilton his victory and the team an easy one-two.
“I don’t know exactly what happened (with Hamilton),” he is quoted by the news agency SID.
“But I think we have the best possible strategy guys. They do a fantastic job, which on this occasion did not pay off. And what did the team lose in total? Three points,” said Rosberg.