Rosberg: Spanish GP win boosts confidence in Mercedes F1 fight

Rosberg secured the ninth victory of his F1 career by winning the Spanish Grand Prix, finishing 17.5 seconds ahead of Mercedes team-mate Hamilton.

The result means Rosberg has trimmed Hamilton's lead to 20 points in the drivers' standings heading to his home race in Monaco, where he has triumphed the last two years.

Asked by AUTOSPORT about the impact of the result, Rosberg said: "Of course, it's a positive boost. It's better than the opposite, for sure.

"It's difficult when Lewis wins in a consecutive manner like he did, but I'm fully confident in my abilities and my approach, so I did believe the win was going to come very soon.

"In Spain it did. Everything came together, and it hadn't come together until now, so the weekend was awesome."

Rosberg maintains that was the key factor, adding: "There was no different approach.

"Of course, I'm always modifying, always trying to optimise my approach, making small changes here and there, but fundamentally everything was the same."

After Hamilton's start to the season - in which the reigning champion turned four consecutive poles into three wins and a runner-up spot - Rosberg acknowledges he had to stop the rot.

Sebastian Vettel failed to do him a favour by holding onto the second place the Ferrari driver captured on the run to the first corner at Circuit de Catalunya.

Mercedes turned to a three-stop strategy for Hamilton, after a problem at the first pitstop with the wheel gun for the left-rear tyre, that Ferrari opted not to cover.

Hamilton made the plan work to perfection and comfortably overhauled Vettel to limit the damage to Rosberg.

"For me personally it would have been interesting if Sebastian had stayed in second place and I would have gained a few extra points on Lewis," Rosberg said.

"There's always that compromise because I know for the team, of course, what's important."

The one-two was the 14th for Hamilton and Rosberg as a pairing, matching that of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost during their tempestuous time at McLaren.

It remains 10 shy of the record set by Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello with Ferrari.

"That's very good, and also we have more points now than we had this time last year," Rosberg said.

"That's pretty impressive because last year was the ultimate season, and we are topping that at the moment because we are better on reliability now."