21 May,2015 08:15 AM IST | | AFP
Nico Rosberg will seek to follow his championship-boosting triumph earlier this month by completing a rare hat-trick of successive Monaco Grand Prix wins on his hometown streets this weekend
Nico Rosberg
Monaco: Nico Rosberg will seek to follow his championship-boosting triumph earlier this month by completing a rare hat-trick of successive Monaco Grand Prix wins on his hometown streets this weekend.
Nico Rosberg
The 29-year-old German ended a spell in the shadow of his Mercedes teammate and two-time world champion Lewis Hamilton with his victory ahead of him at the Spanish Grand Prix, cutting the Briton's lead from 27 points to 20. A repeat in Sunday's classic race around the unforgiving narrow roads of the Mediterranean principality will confirm his return to form and add his name to a revered list of Monte Carlo victors.
Not since three-time world champion and six-time Monaco winner Brazilian Ayrton Senna won five in a row from 1989 to 1993, has any driver won three in a row at Monaco. Alain Prost won three successive races from 1984 to 1986. Before them, only Briton Graham Hill managed the feat, winning thrice from 1963 to 1965.
Nico on cusp of record
All of which leaves Rosberg on the cusp of a potentially famous achievement as he attempts to rein in Hamilton, who has won three of this year's five opening races. Hamilton's only win at Monaco came with McLaren in 2008 in his first title-winning season.
The race will be important, and emotional, too for the Manor Marussia team as it marks the anniversary of their only points-scoring finish, achieved last year when Frenchman Jules Bianchi came home ninth. Bianchi, however, is unlikely to celebrate as he remains in hospital in Nice recovering from his life-threatening crash during the Japanese Grand Prix last October.
