Analysis: Is Formula 1 history on Nico Rosberg's side?

Rosberg's Chinese GP victory makes him officially the seventh man to win the first three GPs of a season, but effectively the 10th when the anonamlous inclusion of the Indianapolis 500 - which often appeared early in the F1 calendar - in 1950s world championship scoring is discounted.

All those who previously achieved the feat won that year's title, but Rosberg argues the presence of Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes garage makes history irrelevant, while 2016 will also be F1's longest season with 21 races.

"They didn't have Lewis Hamilton as their team-mate, those other nine," he said when the statistic was put to him.

"So I don't see it that way [as as good omen] at all.

"It's a handful of races now and it's gone really well, but it's the longest season in F1 history."

IS ROSBERG RIGHT?

Revisiting the other nine seasons opened by a victory hat-trick suggests Rosberg has a point for on paper he faces tougher obstacles than his predecessors.

THE 'OTHER NINE'

1953: Alberto Ascari (nine-race season)
1954: Juan Manuel Fangio (nine-race season)
1957: Juan Manuel Fangio (eight-race season)
1991: Ayrton Senna (16-race season)
1992: Nigel Mansell (16-race season)
1994: Michael Schumacher (16-race season)
1996: Damon Hill (16-race season)
2000: Michael Schumacher (17-race season)
2004: Michael Schumacher (18-race season)

EXTERNAL OPPOSITION

Some of those champions benefited from their teams being crushingly dominant that year - notably Mansell with Williams in 1992 and Schumacher with Ferrari in 2004. Though Mercedes is a clear benchmark in 2016, its level of superiority over Ferrari is not as great as those two displayed over their peers.

Others on that list enjoyed a strong start before tough opposition found its feet or reliability.

By the time Fangio's Maserati was tailored to the Formula 2-based rules in 1953, Ascari had racked up the wins in his Ferrari, while four years later it was the well-developed Fangio/Maserati combination stealing a march before Stirling Moss and Vanwall found winning pace.

Williams-Renault's dominant 1992 potential was evident during '91, but its early teething troubles helped Senna and McLaren-Honda escape.

The Ferrari/McLaren battle in 2000 was as close as Mercedes/Ferrari arguably could be this year if both teams' belief in Ferrari's yet-untapped potential is correct, but unreliability for Mika Hakkinen's McLaren proved costly.

That 2000 tussle is perhaps the only other time a driver who opened with a hat-trick has faced a rival team as competitive as Ferrari is to Rosberg's Mercedes.

THE TEAM-MATE THREAT

The majority of those three-race-streak winners had team-mates who were clearly subservient either contractually, by the logic of the stopwatch or because of an experience deficit.

Senna and Mansell were able to put Gerhard Berger and Riccardo Patrese respectively firmly in the shade in 1991 and '92, and Schumacher did likewise to Rubens Barrichello in 2000/04.

Rookies Jos Verstappen and Jacques Villeneuve were always going to be hard-pressed to destabilise Schumacher and Hill in 1994 and '96, though Villeneuve got there before long.

Ascari's 1953 team-mates included past and future champions Nino Farina and Mike Hawthorn, but they were respectively beyond and not yet at their peaks.

In 1954, Fangio was not only quicker than Mercedes team-mates Karl Kling and Hans Herrmann, but allowed to contest (and win) the first two GPs in a Maserati in their absence before the dominant Silver Arrow was ready.

Rosberg is up against not just a reigning double champion team-mate, but one who has emphatically beaten him for the past two years.

Even with his current run of wins, Rosberg still trails Hamilton 16-22 for victories during their time as team-mates and the Briton has outqualified him at both the 2016 races where his car functioned on the Saturday.

"He's at the top of his game as ever - fully concentrated, motivated, everything," Rosberg insisted of Hamilton.

"I'm just focused on my thing and getting the job done to the best of my ability and that's working out well for me.

"It's going to be a great battle and I look forward to it.

"Of course, I have a little bit of an advantage now, which is good. Better that way than the other way."