Narrow Singapore Driver of the Weekend win for Rosberg

2016 Singapore Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend result

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Nico Rosberg won the Singapore Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend poll by a margin of just three votes.

The race winner and championship leader topped the poll for the first time since last year’s Mexican Grand Prix.

Vettel narrowly missed out on winning the poll following his charge from the back of the grid to finish fifth.

Nico Rosberg’s Singapore Grand Prix weekend

Rosberg was chased by Ricciardo
It could be argued Rosberg won the race – or at least the battle against his team mate – in practice. He got into a groove much quicker around the Marina Bay circuit than Lewis Hamilton and didn’t suffer the same reliability woes on Friday afternoon.

All of this culminated in Rosberg scorching to pole by a whopping six-tenths of a second ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. There was no repeat of Mercedes’ previous poor getaways as Rosberg held his advantage and pulled away in the first stints, steadily building a margin.

This was completely eradicated by the race end however, as fresh tyres on Ricciardo’s car aided the Red Bull against Rosberg’s worn soft tyres. Nonetheless Rosberg dealt with the rapidly closing Ricciardo superbly and held on to win by a smaller margin than he’d taken pole position by.

He was under pressure through the race and never faltered. Set the car up better than Hamilton, felt with the brakes better than Hamilton. All around great weekend.
@ColinChapman

Rosberg has indeed the best car on a normal track, but here the power of the engine doesn’t count so much, so the famed Red Bull chassis should have been at least on par. Ricciardo didn’t come close in qualifying, while Hamilton barely came third in the race.
@Gechichan

What more could have Nico Rosberg done?

Pole by quite a margin. Never in doubt in the race except when a well timed pit stop by Red Bull and traffic brought his victory again in danger. Even then, he kept his head cool in the physically hardest race of the season whilst knowing that any points loss might decide the championship from now on and did not the slightest mistake.
Feuerdrache (@xenomorph91)

My vote went to Rosberg who was sublime in qualifying and kept cool under the pressure, despite having a fast Red Bull breathing down his neck towards the end in a somewhat wounded car. Especially when his team mate at one point looked like he might not have gotten on the podium. Great weekend from him.
@Jamiefranklinf1

Singapore Grand Prix winners and losers

Vettel came within four votes of winning
Vettel’s comeback drive saw him the catch the attention of many, while Ricciardo also earned plaudits after narrowly missing out on victory for the second year running.

Kevin Magnussen also received many positive comments, but not the votes to match. While Sergio Perez’s drive was also highly rated, but his yellow flag penalties earned him some criticism.

We can not forget the fact that Vettel finished 43.5s ahead of Max Verstappen, and ‘just’ 27.7s behind the race leader after almost two hours of racing. Not to mention he was 2.7s away from going through Q1 on three wheels.
Emilio Robles (@Kimiraikkonen5)

I voted for Ricciardo, I thought he couldn’t have done better throughout the weekend and while Rosberg drove amazingly to stay ahead and Vettel battled hard to work through the field, it’s harder to know if they could have done better, Ricciardo though definitely appeared to extract every last bit of performance out of that Red Bull.
Hans Herrmann (@twentyseven)

Magnussen managed tenth with arguably the worst car on the grid. He did it in the hottest race of the year without getting a single drop of water because his drinking system was defect.

He had a good qualifying just outside of Q2 and a great start in the race.
2face

Perez had a good race, but the recovery was his own doing picking up the penalty. The stewards may be inconsistent, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t right here.
Philip (@philipgb)

2016 Driver of the Weekend winners

Rosberg is the tenth different driver to win Driver of the Weekend so far this year:

RaceDOTW winnerVotes
2016 Australian Grand PrixRomain Grosjean61.0%
2016 Bahrain Grand PrixRomain Grosjean39.4%
2016 Chinese Grand PrixDaniel Ricciardo44.7%
2016 Russian Grand PrixKevin Magnussen32.6%
2016 Spanish Grand PrixMax Verstappen68.5%
2016 Monaco Grand PrixDaniel Ricciardo49.6%
2016 Canadian Grand PrixLewis Hamilton28.5%
2016 European Grand PrixSergio Perez67.3%
2016 Austrian Grand PrixPascal Wehrlein43.2%
2016 British Grand PrixMax Verstappen55.2%
2016 Hungarian Grand PrixKimi Raikkonen38.3%
2016 German Grand PrixDaniel Ricciardo45.5%
2016 Belgian Grand PrixFernando Alonso43.3%
2016 Italian Grand PrixDaniel Ricciardo37.4%
2016 Singapore Grand PrixNico Rosberg34.0%

2016 Singapore Grand Prix

Browse all 2016 Singapore Grand Prix articles

14 comments on “Narrow Singapore Driver of the Weekend win for Rosberg”

  1. @keithcollantine A suggestion that it’d be better if we can have the % of votes break up not just for the DOTW but for the top 3 to give us a better sense on how close or dominant win it’s for the DOTW.

    1. A pie chart would suffice. @neelv27

      1. A pie chart would look equal, I suggest a bar chart. :D

  2. This was a deserved win for Nico. He was driver of the Weekend. I am just amazed that it was such a close run thing. I was watching the poll and saw him in front to begin with and then saw Sb run it close at the end by a handful of votes. Seb did good, but so did Ricciardo, Raikonnen and Alonso. Rosberg was better though across the weekend.

    1. Vettel’s performance was really good calmly moving from last to a decent finish and with the Mercedes so much faster than anything else, when one of them qualifies on pole and remains in front for the whole race, it’s hard to work out how well they have they done.

      For me it was close between Vettel and Rosberg – if Ricciardo had caught him up with 3 or 4 laps to go and Rosberg held him off, that would have tipped it his way for me but I just find it hard to give DOTW to someone who qualifies on pole and leads every lap in the fastest car.

      1. I generally agree with your sentiment here, @petebaldwin. And it seems most people do this year, hence this is only the second Mercedes-driver DOTW win in 2016.

        But in this case after Rosberg put a foot wrong in FP1, he then controlled every session thereafter, including a dominating Q3. I agree that it is sometimes difficult to award a DOTW to either Hamilton or Rosberg given the car they have, but I think this time it was a deserved win.

        Honestly, had Ferrari let Kimi stay out and get a podium (if he had been able to do so), having passed Hamilton… I probably would have voted for him.

  3. ROS deserved it I guess. But a margin of 3 votes wow !

  4. That was really tight!
    But while ROS began his weekend with the wrong foot by himself, VET struggled with the balance of a car that finally broke down in the worst moment.
    ROS did ALMOST everything right, but had the best car and was in a comfortable possition to get the job done.
    In the other hand, VET did EVERYTHING right, began the race in the worst-case scenario, and made it to P5 with no best car.
    IMHO, there’s no doubt VET went the extra mile.

    1. Not saying you’re wrong, but Vettel had a recovery race with no pressure, because he’s out of the championship fight. It was very different from Hamilton’s recovery race in Spa.

      On the other hand, Rosberg had maximum pressure all the time: getting everything right in qualy (and his 2nd best lap would still be enough for pole), starting well, managing brakes early on the race and the tyres to avoid Ricciardo’s surge

      1. Amazing….

        When Vettel dominated for 4 years and people would not vot him, was he out of pressure also?

  5. It’s kinda funny how just a few weeks ago, there were so many unremarkable drives at Italy that we got a new poll option for nobody.

    This race, we’ve got so many choices that KMags doesn’t get a ton of votes despite his great points finish.

  6. Magnussen has to be the driver with top physical condition. He also had a water bottle problem (namely overheating from a mechanical issue) two years back in Malaysia, traditionally another very hot and demanding race.
    This all only sharply contrasts with his father admittedly barely even working out during his own F1 experience.

  7. I don’t see how anyone ,this race , could vote for a driver not named Vettel or Magnussen .
    Magnussen had to deal with an inferior car . A car with NO chance of a pole or even a second or third row and no chance of a podium unless a dozen or so cars DNF.The car he has is not in the same class as those found in the top few qualifying rows ,period. His progress in the race has to be based a pure skill and will power, there are no relatively easy overtakes or defends. The whole race is a strain .
    Vettle had a very good car but no better than the two Red Bull cars and clearly not as fast as the two Mercedes nor as good on tires. Add to that he started dead last and had to deal with car after car with most every driver trying to base his day on keeping Vettel at bay for as long as he could and most important : Vettel has ,each race,to deal with the heavy burden of a failing empire with virtually no help with that task. He has ,each week or so it is reported, to divide his attention between the drive and all of the problems presented by an underachieving empire slipping back into mediocrity .
    It seems that most have voted for Rosberg . Did he drive well -yes but, all he had to do was all he every has to do: beat Hamilton. The Silver Arrows are in their own class . Mercedes ,got it right with the hybrids , perhaps because they ,as a major car manufacturer had an incentive that many others did not in that hybrids and electric power has such a place of value in the general car market but, only in F1 racing because it was mandated for the design period . Does Haas ,for example, have anything to gain by researching battery power or energy recovery ? To this add the size and money Mercedes can and does devote to the Silver Arrows. Hamilton said that Mercedes has over 1000 staff members who do nothing but, work on those two cars. Then there was the split-turbo which Mercedes alone figured out from day one. All that power and the added aerodynamics and weight distribution advantage the split-turbos add ,the 1000 + member team and virtually unlimited money to spend ( Mercedes said that the F1 program is worth 1 and 1/2 billion dollars per year to them) so if they spend a billion on the cars they are still WAY ahead financially . Who else can say that ? Who else would spend that ?
    The bottom line is that the Sliver Arrows are in their own class and we all know that in any car racing the number one factor is the car.
    So, when Rosberg has only one real opponent and he beats that opponent and nothing more he has done a good job but, driver of the week ?If you are being intellectually honest I don’t think you can say that. IMHO .

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