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Nico Rosberg has tried to reason why the Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was dismissive of Max Verstappen's records after the race in Monza. The German felt that Wolff was already a bit disappointed with the performance of the Silver Arrows, and this meant he was not in the right frame of mind when the question was put in front of him.
As a result, the answer from the Mercedes boss was not as gracious as it should have been, according to Rosberg. The race in Monza was not the best for the German team. The car was nowhere near the front two teams, Red Bull and Ferrari. Not only that, it became evident from Lewis Hamilton's early race pace that the car had a serious deficit in straight lines.
In the end, the Silver Arrows recorded disappointing results as George Russell finished P5 while Lewis Hamilton was P6.
Wolff was asked about Max Verstappen recording his tenth consecutive win at Monza, something that Lewis Hamilton didn't come close to achieving during the dominant era of the Silver Arrows. The Austrian executive responded:
"I don't know if he cares about the record, it is not something that is important for me any of those numbers. It’s for Wikipedia. Nobody reads that anyway."
Rosberg felt Toto Wolff was still upset with the result, which explained his not-so-gracious comments after the race. On the Sky F1 podcast, he said:
"I think Toto got in a moment there where he was not too happy about his own race team’s performance on the weekend. Because of course where they finished, fifth and sixth, miles behind Ferrari and Red Bull is not really the goal. So I think Toto was just a bit down there and that made his answer a bit darker and not quite as gracious."
Rosberg added:
"Not quite as gracious as perhaps he would normally be because I think the right answer would have been hats off and respect to Red Bull for their achievements."
Rosberg disagrees with the Mercedes boss' claims about the importance of records
Nico Rosberg disagreed with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff's claim that he does not care about statistics. Rosberg said that everyone cares about records, even Verstappen, although he claims otherwise. He said:
"We all care about records, of course. And we think a lot about records. So even Max who always says ‘no, I don’t care about 10 races.’ What does he do when he gets out of the car? He puts both of his hands up and points to the world that that’s 10 in a row."
Rosberg himself recorded a seven-race winning streak in the 2016 season with Lewis Hamilton as his teammate, which makes it all the more impressive.
