Nico Rosberg was forced to settle for second at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada, admitting his race was compromised by his qualifying effort on Saturday that saw him out-qualified by his team-mate.
The German driver admitted he was helpless to make his strategy work as his Mercedes AMG PETRONAS team-mate Lewis Hamilton was informed of his tactics as he made attempts to close the gap to the eventual race winner.
“It was a tough race, with tyres, brakes and fuel all on the limit,” revealed Rosberg. “The problem for me was to cool my brakes behind Lewis. I had to take different lines to get some fresh air.
“In the last 10 laps I ramped up the pace and started to attack by using some of my electronic Hybrid power, which I had saved until this point.
“But the problem is that your team mate’s engineers always have knowledge of your activities and can ask him to ramp up the pace too. So, he was mirroring what I was doing and there was no chance of a surprise attack. That was a bit of a shame – but it is how it is.
“Really, I lost it in qualifying so I need to do a better job there and get together a perfect weekend like in Spain. I’ll move on now and look forward to Austria, where I have very good memories from last year with my win.”
