Nico Rosberg lays bare Lewis Hamilton reality: ‘Testament to how bad it was’

Nico Rosberg believes Lewis Hamilton’s improved showing at the Italian Grand Prix weekend is evidence of “how bad it was before”.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton suffered a narrow qualifying defeat to teammate Charles Leclerc and recovered from 10th after a five-place penalty to finish sixth at Monza.

Hamilton was in a far more upbeat mood across the weekend and feels like he has made progress with Ferrari’s SF-25 car after a challenging debut campaign with the Scuderia.

While Rosberg praised Hamilton’s performance at Monza, he also claimed it shows just how bad things had got.

“It was nice to see Lewis having a really solid weekend, feeling comfortable in the car, being quick at times, showing flashes of his brilliance,” the 2016 world champion told The F1 Show.

“I think that was an important weekend for him, but at the same time it's testament to how bad it was before. Just by him being close to Charles we're all saying 'this is a great weekend', because so many mistakes before and troubles with pace also.

“But anyways, good to see him have a good one and let's hope he can carry it forward. That would be important for him.”

Will Ferrari be feeling the pressure?

Rosberg also claimed Ferrari will be “under a lot of pressure” after an underwhelming P4 and P6 at their most important race of the season.

“Ferrari will be under pressure because they are always measured a lot by their home race and it was a poor home race with no pace, no chance to win and no chance for a podium. So they'll be under a lot of pressure,” he added.

“It's 18 years since they won a champion drivers’ championship. The last worst period was 1979 until 2000, which was Jody Scheckter to Michael Schumacher - 21 years. And they're almost nearing that again.

“So it's been a massively rough patch again for them.”

F1 commentator David Croft said: “Lewis had a really good race, a really strong race. In qualifying he took the five place penalty going into the race and it was going to be tough.

“Ferrari said they wanted to protect the overall grid spots of the team rather than just prioritising Charles, but this to me seemed like Ferrari’s best chance of getting right amongst it from the outset of the weekend.

“Lewis was prepared to give a tow and if I was Ferrari I would have asked him to do that at the end of Q3 just to try and get that pole position.

“Charles battled with Piastri early on but then fell away. They were just kind of where they were. It wasn’t a wretched weekend, it wasn’t a brilliant weekend, but it was Monza and I think the Tifosi were expecting a lot more.

“Certainly going into that race we were predicting that Ferrari would be a stronger team on the track than we saw.”