Dubai: Nico Rosberg must act now if he is to stop Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton from retaining his Formula One title, according to former F1 driver Mark Webber.
Hamilton is 27 points clear of second-placed Rosberg in the current driver’s standings with three wins from the first four races of the 19-stage season.
The pair battled for the title right up until the last day of the season in Abu Dhabi last year, but Webber fears Hamilton will run away with it this year if Rosberg doesn’t mobilise.
“He has to make a move now,” said Webber on the sidelines of an Arabic concert announcement for this year’s F1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Dubai World Trade Centre on Monday. “If you look at his momentum from the back of last year to the start of this season, Lewis Hamilton has been on fire.
“Nico has to find anyway he can, whether through rivalry or friendship, to get himself back into performing. If he’s executing his maximum then that’s his maximum, but in his own words he knows he’s going to have to find that little bit more to try and beat Lewis,” said the 38-year-old Australian who won nine races and made 42 podiums in 215 F1 starts.
A bitter rivalry between the Mercedes pair resurfaced after last month’s Chinese Grand Prix when Rosberg accused Hamilton of driving too slow while in first, enabling third-placed Sebastian Vettel to put pressure on Rosberg in second. Hamilton said Rosberg should have overtaken him, but Rosberg said he didn’t want to jeopardise his tyres trying.
Webber knows all about rivalries with teammates from his time - playing second fiddle to Vettel at Red Bull from 2007 to 2013 - but said such spats could be drawn upon for inspiration and were good for racing.
“The hardest guys to beat are where a rivalry is formed,” he added. “I think a rivalry has to be there and hung on to from a media perspective. It’s important for the sport that Lewis isn’t going to run away with it.
“What could happen that takes things too far? They might have a bit of contact on the track but that’s racing. The Prost-Senna days were extremely intense and the rivalry was incredibly deep but I don’t think we’ll see those days repeated.”
Asked who could break up the Hamilton Rosberg showdown, Webber replied: “I think Kimi [Raikkonen] is a sleeper, a dark horse, those two Ferraris [Vettel and Raikkonen] and Nico, it’s a no brainer, have to try and get the momentum back from Hamilton.
“Ferrari look like they need hot tracks that are super hard on rear tyres. So, let’s see how they do in cooler conditions. But Mercedes have a few more strings in their bow with momentum from last year. Once you win the constructor’s title early you can start focusing on the driver’s championship. If they can sort that early they can do it the next year as well, so it becomes hard to break down that dominance.”
