Has Rosberg really upped his game?

Three rounds and 75 maximum points on offer and Championship leader Rosberg has a 26 points lead which ensure him his maiden title even if he finishes 2nd in all the remaining races and Hamilton wins.

However if the season has showed us anything its that anything can go awry at any point of time (cue Hamilton in Malaysian GP) and this is why Rosberg is sticking to his “one race at a time” mentality and that has worked for him the whole season.

But critics are quick to point out that Hamilton’s reliability and not the German’s own capability is the reason for his lead and joining this bandwagon was Hamilton himself who pointed this out yesterday discrediting Rosberg’s form.

But is really Hamilton’s reliability the reason Rosberg is edging towards a title or is there’s something different that Rosberg has done to capitalise on any chances that come his way.

Having left McLaren at the end of 2012 to join his childhood friend/rival Rosberg at Mercedes, the Brit and the German shared a fairly easy going relationship as Hamilton went on to outscore him by an ok margin but at occasions Rosberg showed that on his day he can beat the grid’s arguably best driver. So in 2014 riding the wave of regulation changes was Mercedes, the duo found themselves fighting for the title and Hamilton in pursuit of a 2nd world title brought his ‘A’ game what was surprising was that Rosberg rather than being beaten by the Brit instead gave close competition to him and for the entire season it was Rosberg leading the way on Saturday. Accepted Hamilton ran in a lot of trouble because of the fast but fragile W05 but some of the blame for that can be accredited on his shoulders as well because of his “drive it like you stole it” style as opposed to the technical grafter Rosberg who was more successful in bringing the car home because of his ability to nurse his car better.

However despite all odds it was Hamilton who triumphed and deservedly so by putting stellar drives on Sunday to which Rosberg never had any answer to baring a few races and in all fairness his title challenge remained alive till the last race only because of the double points on offer in Abu Dhabi.

And then for 2015 when Mercedes built a faster and more robust car, Hamilton worked in the winter to solve his qualifying woes and the result was a complete washout by the Brit where he utterly dominated the year and won the Championship with 3 races still to spare. As regards to Rosberg’s last 3 wins, Hamilton himself accepted he eased off after lifting the cup.

So this begs the question what’s different this year afterall his woes are not much graver than 2014. Does that mean Rosberg has really gone one up on Hamilton? The answer is No and Yes.

No because along with his reliability woes, Hamilton has been the victim of on track incidents that has robbed us of a fair fight between the two and so as to know what’s really different this year. Getting into a tangle with Bottas in Bahrain or punting the wall in Baku in qualifying, something or the other has worked in preventing the two battling wheel to wheel.

Now coming to the Yes, Rosberg has indeed improved his game not to the extent to beating Hamilton but rather its a combination of many things the end result of which is putting up a better campaign that previously.

Mid season last year FIA introduced manual starts in order to lessen the dependency on electronic sorcery for getting a good start with an aim to bring uncertainty to race starts as well as tipping the scale in favour of Human element in racing amidst the growing criticism of Electronic aids to a driver. And for this year these rules were revised further to produce this effect leading to the presence of a single clutch bring the whole “bite point” into debate.

And this is where Rosberg’s strength has lied the whole season. From the season opener in Australia where he had beaten his team mate at the start line to turn one before the Ferrari squeezed both of them leading to Hamilton dropping down the order. In Bahrain too despite being on pole Rosberg was comfortably ahead come turn one before Bottas ploughed his Williams into the Mercedes and even Spain where splendidly used his teammate’s splitstream to go right around his outside before the duo crashed into each other.

The latest result of Hamilton dropping the ball was in Suzuka where he went from P2 to P8 in a matter of few meters allowing Rosberg to rake up his first win in Japan. Starts have really handed the advantage to Rosberg who as opposed to so many fumbles by Hamilton, has messed up his start only twice, in Germany and Hungary to be precise.

Rosberg, fair credit to him, is quick and even unbeatable on his day but so far in his career has lacked an aggressiveness that his critics have pointed out to be the biggest chink in his armor. However getting beaten by Hamilton for 2 years in a row has perhaps finally resulted in an elbows out approach as was evident in his overtake of Raikkonen at Malaysia this year following which even Paddy Lowe pointed out that finally Rosberg has grown the teeth to no longer allow himself be pushed over by others and that is the biggest change in him which may not be as big as seen from the outside but is making all the difference for the German at least in his mind, allowing him a level of self confidence not seen before.

Marrying his long time Girlfriend Vivian and fathering a daughter appears to provide Rosberg the stability and emotional strength he needs off the track while Hamilton’s antics continue to receive flak from some in the fraternity. How much of a toll it takes on him though only he knows.

The question of Rosberg’s Racecraft improvement is still doubtful as he did err in the last lap of Austrian GP while being chased by Hamilton resulting in a clash with him coming out as the loser while the final 10-12 laps of Singapore GP showed his grit as he raced on fading soft walled Pirellis managing his degradation and pace while a Supersoft shod Ricciardo came charging bringing the gap from 20 odd seconds to 0.4 seconds as they crossed the line.

The race earned the German world wide praise and Toto Wolff branded this race as Rosberg’s best to date but people had forgotten the 2014 Brazilian GP where the Brit and the German raced from flag to flag with mere tenths separating them and Rosberg held his nerve throughout the race and it was Hamilton who spun while giving the chase.

To sum it up, Rosberg has not drastically improved his performance to the extent of becoming a Hamilton beater but credit where credit’s due, he has got to terms with the changes introduced for this season in a better manner of which now he reaps the dividends. How good he fares in a battle with his teammate is something only time will tell and I for one hope to see another Bahrain or Brazil-esque battle in the upcoming races.