Rosberg: Gave it everything and didn’t work out

Nico Rosberg had to graft hard to finish second in the British grand Prix, and in fact at one stage even looked as if he would steal victory from his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton. But in the end lady luck favoured local hero, but nevertheless second at Silverstone was better than fourth which was where Rosberg languished before he turned his race around late in proceedings. He spoke to media afterwards.

A good second, how hard was it driving the last few laps in the rain?
Nico Rosberg: Yeah it was a good race. I was pushing hard to try and catch Lewis under the difficult conditions but then he just made the better call with the pit stop, so that’s where I lost it. Fair play to him, he did a great job all weekend. You’ve been amazing, really absolutely unbelievable, a great atmosphere here, really a pleasure to drive in front of all of you and that’s it.

Perhaps not the start that anybody expected. It was a Williams 1-2 for the first 20 laps of this grand prix. You, obviously, weren’t able to get ahead of them – because you had second choice of strategy I guess at the first stop – so you found yourself behind them and you were then told, “right, we go Plan B, be aggressive”. Tell us a little bit about that phase of your grand prix.
NR: Yeah, that was not such a great phase because I had these two Williams in front and was completely blocked and couldn’t get close. So that was a bit annoying. And then I was very thankful when the rain came. I felt great when it started raining. I really was able to attack and pass both Williams and close in on Lewis a lot. I was hoping it would stay more or less like that, and I thought I could attack Lewis at some point – and then Lewis boxed. I was pretty sure it was the wrong call because it was still touch-and-go at that time. So I was actually quite happy that he boxed. But then it was the right call in the end. It started raining more on that lap. So, that was it. Anyways, I had to take that chance because just following Lewis into the box is definite lose for me, so I might as well take the chance, stay out and do one lap more at least. It didn’t work out. So that’s it. Gave it everything and didn’t work out.