03 September 2023 , 10:45
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Nico Rosberg believes Lewis Hamilton was "really down" after qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix because he "still hates to come behind his team-mate".
Rosberg and Hamilton were involved in a bitter rivalry while team-mates at Mercedes between 2013 and 2016. Hamilton proceeded to win back-to-back F1 world titles in 2014 and 2015, with Rosberg finishing second.
However, in 2016 the German prevailed, beating Hamilton by just five points to claim his first world title and promptly retired. Hamilton, meanwhile, has continued to race and has won four more world titles since Rosberg retired.
He has now signed a new two-year deal with Mercedes, but was left disappointed with how things went in qualifying in Monza. Hamilton placed eighth on the grid, while team-mate George Russell impressed as he placed fourth.
"It started off actually in P1, run one, it was the best the car felt but it's fallen off since then," Hamilton said. And when asked why, he simply said: "I don't know." The 38-year-old is also concerned he will be unable to make up much ground during the race itself, adding: "I think we are all similar pace.
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"What is impressive is how quick the Williams is – to be leapfrogged by the Williams and McLaren, it's not easy. George did a great job today so I just go to progress somehow. The Williams will be impossible to overtake as they're fastest on the straights, but where there's a will, there's a way."
And when asked about Hamilton's struggles, Rosberg said: "It was just a bit strange from Q2 onwards Lewis started to struggle a little bit even though in Q1 he was going well on the hards.
Lewis Hamilton was downbeat after qualifying in Italy (Stefano Guidi/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)"It's a challenge because you go from hard to medium to soft so the balance of the car can run away from you a bit. Being a little bit off with the balance can cost you a lot of time so for some reason Lewis just didn't find his way here today.
"It can happen that you have day like that. You can see he's really down, he still hates to come behind his teammate. That's still the case." Russell, however, was unsurprisingly a lot more optimisitic, saying: "You need to be dynamic in this new qualifying format as you jump down the tyre compounds, and I think we did a good job managing it today.
"The engineers did a great job overnight and we hit the ground running this morning, I felt more comfortable in the car. With the softer tyre compounds Pirelli have brought here, I think there's the option to tune the set-up more aggressively for qualifying or favouring the race pace a little bit more. We've done the latter, so I hope it pays off tomorrow."