F1 Championship: Why abandoning Rosberg now would be madness

Despite making pole in four of the last five grand prix, winning three of those five and building a 14-point lead over teammate Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes maestro Nico Rosberg can still be backed at 4/5 to win this year’s Formula One championship, just ahead of the 1/1 Englishman.

As was stated on these pages here after Rosberg’s win at the Red Bull Ring in Austria last month, and here following Hamilton’s arguably lucky home triumph at Silverstone, the German has been by far the more consistent driver of the pair for the runaway constructers’ championship leaders.

The Stevenage-born Switzerland resident may have struggled manfully when moving up from 20th on the grid to eventually finish third at the Hockenheimring, but Hamilton’s dreadful qualifying record in recent races is a serious threat to his chances of a second title.

In Austria, the 29-year-old’s awesome start saw him just two places behind Rosberg in third before the second corner, having begun all the way down in ninth, but the championship leader held firm after burning off the two Williams’ ahead to stay in front of Hamilton all the way to the chequered flag.

The same result looked extremely likely at Silverstone, where Hamilton started down the pack in sixth before making an early charge to second, but was kept there quite comfortably by his teammate until Rosberg’s gearbox gave out.

Hamilton’s talent is not in question – the 2008 champion strung together four successive victories in a row early in the campaign and his performances on the grid prove he has more than enough speed to see off all around him, but Rosberg just won’t get out of the way.

On current form, and with a German driver for a German team in the championship lead, odds of 4/5 on a first Rosberg title look overpriced, while the baffling 1/1 about Hamilton seems somewhat Anglocentric.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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