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F1 Belgian GP: Rosberg extracts maximum with smooth Spa win

Nico Rosberg insists he isn't dwelling on the relatively minor in-roads made into Lewis Hamilton's F1 championship lead after a comfortable run to victory in the Belgian Grand Prix.

With Mercedes team-mate Hamilton starting on the back row following a raft of pre-planned engine penalties, Rosberg made good on his pole position to convert into an early lead and stay clear of incident in a frantic opening few laps before the red flag was shown to repair a barrier damaged in Kevin Magnussen's Eau Rouge shunt.

Undeterred by the interruption, Rosberg made no mistake from the restart and would keep it tidy to pull out a 14secs winning margin over Daniel Ricciardo for his sixth win of the year, albeit his first since Baku in June.

However, with the race seen as Rosberg's opportunity to make big gains on Hamilton's erstwhile 19 point lead, the Briton's charge to third place would subsequently lessen the impact to a 10 point dent. Ensuring Hamilton remains ahead by nine points heading to Monza, Rosberg was satisfied with his own efforts regardless.

"It's not disappointing, I'm happy with today," he said. "I'm happy to have won the race, it's been a great weekend for me, that's it, and fair play to Lewis he did a good job."

"It wasn't the toughest race of course because Lewis wasn't there, that's for sure, and the car was great in the race. Of course everything still needs to come together.

"The start is critical and with the red flag and everything it becomes a bit more complicated and messy, but once I got ahead I got a little bit of pressure from Daniel in the second stint, because he was on the soft tyre, but after that I really had good control on everything." 

Zdroj: crash.net