The 2016 Formula One World Championship has been won by Nico Rosberg.
After watching his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton take back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015, Rosberg was able to break Hamilton’s streak and claim his first title.
Unfortunately for Nico, his title achievements will, for a while at least, be remembered for the ultimately good luck he received over the course of 21 races and the bad luck his team-mate received.
Rosberg didn’t have the worry of any reliability issues during 2016, whilst Hamilton suffered multiple engine failures.
Hamilton would battle back from his early season mishaps to not only recover, but get in front of Rosberg in the championship.
But following Lewis Hamilton’s engine failure whilst leading the Malaysian Grand Prix, the title was always in Rosberg’s hands.
That one result, ignoring all the other bad moments Hamilton also suffered, that one result cost him 25 points, a race victory and boosted Rosberg’s points tally by 3 points.
If Hamilton had won that race, his victory in Abu Dhabi would have seen him clinch the title by 20 points, instead he lost it by 5 points.
‘I did everything I could, particularly towards the end. Nico had a clean year without any real issues and that’s why we sit in this position, But he did a fantastic job, so big congratulations to him.’ Hamilton told the BBC.
On the backing Rosberg up tactics in Abu Dhabi he added:
‘I’m in a position where I’ve obviously had a lot of points lost during the season so, for me, I’m out there fighting and I generally never try to do anything to harm the team or the brand or anything like that.
‘But we’ve won the constructors’ championship so it was down to me and Nico and yet they still felt they needed to make comments.
‘We’ll discuss it afterwards as a team as we always do and pull back in. But we can’t let that overshadow the fact Nico’s just won a championship and the team has dominated all year long. It’s been an incredibly successful year.’
Hamilton blames Mercedes for lost title
