Nico Rosberg: “What Ferrari did at the Australian Grand Prix was really awesome”. Nico Rosberg, speaking in his vlog, hailed the Maranello team's decision-making.

Scuderia Ferrari’s “really awesome” strategic masterclass was the main reason for their Australian Grand Prix victory despite the highly welcomed luck received as a result of the virtual saftey car arriving at the best possible time. This was also the view of former world champion Nico Rosberg, as the ex-Mercedes driver released a vlog to his official YouTube channel giving fans exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the race weekend.

The German was in Melbourne as part of his new role with Sky Sports and German broadcaster RTL Television and also offered some insight into the events of a hectic season-opener at Albert Park. Scuderia Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel claimed the season’s first victory ahead of Mercedes rival and Nico Rosberg’s former team-mate Lewis Hamilton, pitting under the Virtual Safety Car in order maximize his chances of overtaking the pole-sitting Briton and thus scoring the first victory of the 2018 title race.

Nico Rosberg, speaking in his vlog, hailed the Maranello team’s decision-making despite acknowledging that they were also lucky with the timing of the VSC and Mercedes’ miscalculations: “[They were] Very, very smart. Ferrari knew exactly what they were doing and know exactly that Sebastian was going to come out in front. That is because as he was coming into the pits Lewis was going super slow due to the VSC so it was going to take him forever to get past the pits. And so Sebastian has all the time in the world to do his pit stop and he drives out and with Lewis going so slowly, Sebastian comes out in front. On top of that there was the good luck in Ferrari’s perspective that Mercedes had a software glitch and thought they were safe. They were telling Lewis: ‘You don’t need to push.’ So Lewis was chilling and then Sebastian comes out one-point-something seconds in front. Lewis could have easily gone faster in all those laps leading up to that point in time and could have easily been more than 1.5seconds down the road and would have been in front. All these things coming together, Sebastian went for the win. Really awesome strategic job from Ferrari, really opening up that possibility for Sebastian with some luck to go for the win. It all worked out perfectly. Poor Kimi, really. He was a little bit ‘used’ of course, to try and help Sebastian but Kimi wouldn’t have won anyway so it was completely understandable that Ferrari would want to try that.” – the German explained in his vlog.

The season moves on to Bahrain next where Sebastian Vettel and Scuderia Ferrari will be “rapid”, four-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has warned. And Nico Rosberg continued: “It was a good start to the season for all F1 fans, now we’re on to the next race. I’m going to miss the next race though. I’m not going to Bahrain, I’m going to China. I have a huge new sponsor announcement there. That’s going to be nice.” – Nico Rosberg concluded.