Nico Rosberg Clinches Formula 1 Driver’s Championship Amid Another AMG-Winning Year
AMG fans saw one heck of a show at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix recently. The driver’s championship was literally down to the wire, with only a few points between last year’s champ, Lewis Hamilton, and teammate, Nico Rosberg.
With Hamilton trailing slightly in points, if he won the race and wanted to secure another world title, Rosberg would have to place in 4th or worse. However that played into some late race mind tricks between the two AMG drivers.
With ten laps to go, Hamilton was leading the race, but had suddenly slowed his pace unexpectedly (to everyone but him). The trick he was trying to pull was to get Rosberg caught up by the quickly approaching RedBull of Verstappen, and the Ferrari of Vettel. This put Rosberg in danger of losing that essential podium spot. However he was able to finish in 2nd place, which gave him 385 driver’s points. Just 5 points separated him from Hamilton.
All the while, AMG’s constructor championship points continued to climb. At the end of this season, Mercedes-AMG totaled an astonishing 765 points. There wasn’t even a thread from second or third place, which went to RedBull (468 pts) and Ferrari (398 pts) respectively.
New rules for 2017 leave a gap of performance that some manufacturers can take advantage of. New aero and tires are being tested, and one team might find the magic formula that AMG has had these past few years. Think of RedBull’s string of victories with Vettel.
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Via [Motorsport]
