F1: Rosberg Delighted After Win In 111th Attempt

Formula 1

F1: Rosberg Delighted After Win In 111th Attempt

Nico Rosberg showed considerable pace on Sunday in Shanghai...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted April 15, 2012 Shanghai (CHN)

Having taken his first pole on Saturday, Nico Rosberg followed up with his first win in the 111th attempt after a near faultless weekend for the German.

Rosberg got the start right and, against the expectations of the opposition, managed to not only keep his tires alive but make a two-stop strategy work successfully in the Chinese GP.

“It’s been the perfect weekend,” said Rosberg. “It was a great race. It was impressive to see really how we’ve managed to progress so quickly. We’ve really had some difficult times in the races, the first two, but we’ve made a lot of changes, worked hard at it and all of a sudden it’s come good. That’s been fantastic to see today.

“It’s never easy. Especially taking care of the tires was a big difficulty and a big challenge today because there was a lot of tire wear, but it worked out well.

“I think we got it all right today, even tire strategy. Everybody in the team did a great job, all the different people, my engineers at the start, the strategy, this and that – everything came together.”

Rosberg was pleased with the way the team had worked through its problems in the early races.

“Well, it’s setup really, really thinking about what’s going on in the race and why are we struggling, and trying to improve that situation," he said. "Surely the conditions helped us today, I think, but even so, we’re just moving forward and that’s very nice to see.

“Already from the beginning of the year we’ve been very strong in qualifying, perhaps more difficult in the race. Now we’re still strong in qualifying – very strong, maybe even stronger – and also improving the race, so it’s good progress forward, and I’m sure that we will continue this ongoing development. It was mainly setup.

“For sure we’re not where we want to be in the race. I had a great race today but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be like that at every race. We still need to push hard and continue progressing. Bahrain could be a little bit of a different story again. We need to wait and see. It’s difficult to predict. I couldn’t have predicted today, so we’ll just take it as it comes, but for sure I’m looking forward to what’s to come because we’re looking much stronger.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.