Mercedes chairman Niki Lauda has warned Nico Rosberg that he must break team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s momentum if he’s to put the Briton under pressure.
Thus far, Rosberg has failed to beat Hamilton in any qualifying session or race and therefore trails the two-time champion by 27 points after just four races.
It’s imperative that Rosberg puts pressure on Hamilton, but he will only do so by beating him, a task Lauda described as “the hardest job imaginable”.
“Lewis is in top form at the moment – he makes virtually no errors and his self-confidence is boundless,” the Austrian told Auto Motor und Sport.
“Nico has the hardest job imaginable,” he added. “He has to break this run from Lewis and put him under pressure. If he beats him just once, then the other one will start to think about it.”
Meanwhile the 66-year-old offered Rosberg some words of advice after he gave a very “complicated” answer as to why he was beaten by such a huge margin during qualifying in Bahrain.
“He should forget the complicated explanations and just say ‘I made a mistake’.
“Get the ballast out of your head and do your race as though the world championship is starting from scratch every time,” insists Lauda.