FORMER world champion Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes copped the blame for Lewis Hamilton’s woeful result at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to keep the British driver motivated.
Hamilton finished 13th, a lap down on winner Max Verstappen and nine places and one minute behind team-mate George Russell.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Hamilton the car was “undriveable” and issued an apology to the seven-time world champion in a grovelling radio message after the chequered flag.
But Rosberg said his former adversary and team-mate at Mercedes should have performed better.
“Toto was playing the mental game,” Rosberg, who beat Hamilton to the 2016 title before retiring five days later, told Sky Sports.
“Taking the blame allows them to support Lewis mentally. By saying, ‘hey, Lewis, it is none of your doing, it is really on us’, is very smart because it is not really the truth.
“Let’s not forget that Russell finished fourth with that same car so Lewis definitely had a big role to play in that poor result.
“There was more in that car, but Toto is trying to lift Lewis up because it is so important to make sure Lewis is motivated for the whole season.
“It is easy for him to lose motivation in these types of situations.”
Hamilton is already 58 points off the title pace with his hopes of a record eighth world championship over for this year, and possibly beyond.
Russell has added additional salt to the wounds by beating his established team-mate at three of the opening four rounds, as well as Saturday’s sprint race.
But the younger Briton, 21 points ahead of Hamilton in the standings, said: “Lewis will come back incredibly strongly, and I have no doubt about that.
“He is so strong and the way he is motivating and pushing the team is inspiring.
“I am not getting comfortable in this position because I know what he is capable of.”
Hamilton will return to action at next Sunday’s maiden Miami Grand Prix.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here