Rosberg keeps cool under pressure to win his 1st F1 title

“Most of the time it’s like “pedal to the metal tomorrow, full stop, exclamation mark”, Formula One’s newest world champion smiled on Sunday after achieving his lifetime’s ambition with Mercedes.

ABU DHABI, U.A.E. -With Lewis Hamilton slowing him down on goal, two other drivers hard on his tail and the title on the line, Nico Rosberg held his nerve to win the Formula One championship for the first time on Sunday.

Hamilton disobeyed team orders to speed up towards the end of the race, even one that came from Mercedes’ executive director Paddy Lowe. Nico Rosberg is your 33rd F1 World Champion.

Nico Rosberg finished with nine victories, eight pole positions, six fastest laps en route to 385 points that helped him win the F1 world championship. The other father-son world championship dup are the late Graham Hill (1962, 1968) and Damon Hill (1996).

Rosberg eventually finished in second place behind Hamilton at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, meaning a first title success for the German who later accused Hamilton of using “dirty tricks“.

He was supported by Red Bull’s Christian Horner, who said: “I wouldn’t have expected him to do anything different”.

Wolff spoke out strongly after the previous Hamilton-Rosberg argument in Austria in July, saying that he would not be scared to suspend or dismiss a driver who failed to follow the team’s directives. Rosberg’s father Keke viewed from afar, but was due to arrive in Abu Dhabi on Sunday evening to join in the celebrations.

The 31-year-old began his F1 career at Williams, where he drove until 2009 before signing for Mercedes the next year alongside Michael Schumacher.

“The other half says it was his only chance of winning the championship at that stage and maybe you can not demand a racing driver that is one of, if not the best out there, a real guard dog in the vehicle, to comply in a situation where his instincts did not make him comply. So I’m very thankful for that”.

“I’m glad it’s over, and I am ecstatic”. “Two laps from the end I was nervous”.

Lewis Hamilton has defended his “unsporting” tactics in the season-concluding Duel in the Desert when he sought to back Nico Rosberg into a title-losing result.

His attempt to push Rosberg into the clutches of those behind, by deliberately slowing to the concern of team bosses, produced a nail-biting finish with the top four separated by just 1.6 seconds.

Rosberg and Hamilton were involved in a close fight till the last race, and the German finally won the title by five points.

The defending three-time world champion won, but his Mercedes team-mate Rosberg finished second under intense pressure to claim the championship.

Still, he expects to find plenty of energy to celebrate his win. I am not sure yet where my finger is going to point or the needle is going to go.

“Toto Wolff feels that he needs to perhaps sit with Nico to see where his head is at, because we don’t want tension in the team”.

The teenager passed half the field, including the likes of Sebastian Vettel, and his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, in 15 sensational laps to finish on the podium. The Briton closing the season with his fourth straight win, and 10th overall, but it’s not enough to deny his teammate the big prize.

Hamilton again ignored them. “We had lots of ups and downs throughout the season, starts where I fell back and I fought back and I never gave up”, Hamilton said.