Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes is still a contender in the championship
Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes can still be a serious contender in the world championship fight this year, despite a disappointing Spanish Grand Prix

The German struggled with tyres throughout the Barcelona weekend, and finished seventh after losing positions in the closing stages of the race.
However, having not lost much ground to the championship lead (currently shared by Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso), Rosberg believes that the next races on the calendar will be better suited to the Mercedes package.
"I only lost two points on the championship lead, which was good, and I am still only 20 points away which is good, as long as we can push on and improve," explained Rosberg on his own video blog.
"Hopefully the conditions in Monaco and Montreal will favour us again. It is possible. But it is difficult to understand how the next race is going to be: let's wait and see. For us onwards and upwards as Ross [Brawn, team principal] would say."
Rosberg said that the Mercedes form over the Spanish weekend was simply a consequence of it failing to get on top of the tyre situation.
"It was a difficult weekend for us," he said. "It is really unbelievable in F1 at the moment - the ups and downs of everybody. That Williams win is fantastic for them and I am very happy for Frank [Williams], his 70th birthday and the win is fantastic stuff.
"For us, it was a much more difficult weekend. It was just tyre management. In qualifying we were eating the tyres and that was why we were struggling more than some other teams like Williams. It was the same in the race."

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About this article
Series | Formula 1 |
Drivers | Nico Rosberg |
Teams | Mercedes |
Author | Jonathan Noble |
Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes is still a contender in the championship
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