尼科-罗斯伯格: Lewis Hamilton had ‘team-mate just beat me face’ in Saudi Arabia

Losing to George Russell at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton had his “I got beat by my team-mate face” on after the race, and that’s according to someone who knows that look rather well, Nico Rosberg.

Russell qualified fourth around the Jeddah street circuit and briefly sat third in the race’s classification before Fernando Alonso’s penalty was overturned, reverting to fourth, with Hamilton lining up P7 before finishing the race P5, five seconds behind Russell.

While the younger of the two Briton’s declared that was “probably one of my strongest weekends in F1” and that he had “exceeded the potential of the car”, Hamilton was left feeling “miserable” as he “just can’t connect” with the car.

Speaking after the race, he admitted that while his team-mate had gone with the“wrong” set-up for his W14, it turned out to the better one.

“I think if I had the set-up George had,” he said, “I would have been in a better position.”

Asked about Hamilton’s glum demeanour after the race, his former Mercedes team-mate Rosberg declared to Sky Sports: “That was just the ‘I got beat by my team-mate’ face. That’s pretty simple.”

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Being beaten by Russell isn’t a slight on Hamilton given Rosberg reckons one day the 25-year-old will lift the Drivers’ Championship title.

“George is the future World Champion,” he added. “This is a difficult one for Lewis to stay in front.

“We saw it last year, what an awesome season George did and George is continuing on that form once again.

“It’s going to be a big, big challenge, but let’s not forget Lewis is the best of all time so if there’s going to be someone who can beat George then it will be Lewis.”

Rosberg however, one of only three team-mates to have ever beaten Hamilton in the F1 standings and the only one to have won a World title doing so, says one can never discount Hamilton even if he does drop his head at times.

“No, absolutely,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a weakness that Lewis has that sometimes he’ll mentally go into this down a little bit and lose a little bit of flow.

“But,” he added, “he comes back with a bang every single time so dear George don’t get too comfortable.”

After two races Hamilton is P4 in the Drivers’ standings on 20 points, two ahead of Russell.