“Honestly, that’s not what I was thinking about when I was crossing the
finishing line, definitely not.
“But I’m just extremely happy to win the race. This is my home. I’ve
grown up here, lived all my life here, I’ve gone to school here.
“So now to win at home is very special; a very special day for me. The
whole weekend really went perfectly.
“And we (Mercedes) have again had such a difficult time behind us, in the
last couple of races with pole position, but dropping back so much.
“There was always that a little in the back of my mind in the race,
thinking ‘I hope it’s going to last and I’ll be able to pull it off and not
drop back again’.
“It’s not nice when you start in front and drop back, but the team gave
me a great car.
“It’s really fantastic to see how they’ve been able to improve in such a
short space of time.
“Little improvements here and there, although this track suited us
anyway, and it was enough to make it happen.”
In addition to the backdrop of the protest, which Rosberg refused to discuss
post-race, he also took the chequered flag after two safety car periods and
a red-flag incident.
There was a mirror-image crash for Felipe Massa in his Ferrari after smashing
his car in final practice that brought out the safety car for the first time
this year.
Then Pastor Maldonado hurtled into a barrier that required repairs in the wake
of a collision with Marussia’s Max Chilton that held up the race for 25
minutes.
The safety car then appeared again when Lotus’ Romain Grosjean ran into the
back of Daniel Ricciardo in his Toro Rosso, the Frenchman incurring a
10-place grid penalty for the next race in Canada.
Behind Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were second and third, with
the second Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton fourth after a miscalculation with his
pit stop in the first safety-car spell dropped him behind the Red Bull duo.
McLaren’s Jenson Button was sixth, with Force India’s Paul Di Resta rising
from 17th to ninth, while Kimi Raikkonen was 10th for Lotus, the Finn
extending his run of points scoring to 23 consecutive races.
(Edited by Nick Pearce)