F1 2016: Rosberg renews contract with Mercedes till 2018, tops practice in HungaryGP

Ahead of the HungaryGP, Mercedes has announced the renewal of Nico Rosberg's contract for two more seasons till 2018.

Nico Rosberg has renewed his contract with Mercedes and will be racing with Mercedes AMG Petronas team till 2018. By penning down a new deal with Mercedes for next two seasons, the driver line-up for Mercedes remains unchanged for the next two seasons. Teammate Lewis Hamilton had already signed a three-year contract with Mercedes last year, which means his seat is also reserved till 2018.

Rosberg has been racing for Mercedes ever since the team returned to Formula One in 2010. In the last 7 seasons with Mercedes, Rosberg has taken 19 wins, 25 pole positions and 47 podiums – a majority of which came in 2014 and 2015. These two seasons also marked the beginning of Mercedes’ current dominance in Formula One since the German team bagged both the constructor and driver’s championship title in 2014 and 2015. On both of the occasions, Rosberg finished runner-up to teammate Hamilton.

Even in 2016, things have remained largely unchanged from the previous two years – Mercedes has been dominant all through the season so far while Rosberg and Hamilton are fighting tooth-and-nail to claim the driver’s title. After 10 rounds, Mercedes has won 9 races (Rosberg -5 and Hamilton – 4) and the drivers are separated by just 1 point with Rosberg leading the points table.

The 11^th round is currently underway in Budapest, Hungary. No prizes for guessing who’s dominating the field, though.  The Mercedes duo set early pace in FP1 with Hamilton topping the session, clocking  a lap time of 1’21.347. Rosberg was second with 1’21.584, albeit he was more than a second quicker than Sebastien Vettel of Ferrari (1’22.991) who finished third in the session.

FP2 saw Hamilton face a massive side-on shunt as his car slid off the track in early runs. While he was declared unharmed, same could not be said about his car. This forced Hamilton to retire prematurely in FP2. Rosberg, meanwhile, put a flying lap on super-soft Pirellis and clocked a lap time of 1’20.435, which put him at the top of the timesheet. Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull Racing came second as he put a 1’21.030, just managing to edge past Vettel’s best FP2 time of 1’21.348. Max Verstappen’s lap time of 1’21.770 pushed Hamilton to 5^th place. That's because before crash Hamilton was running on soft tyres, and not ultra softs like others, and could only manage a best lap time of 1’21.960.

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished the session in 6^th place followed by the McLaren duo of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button in 7^th and 8^th position. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez completed the top ten in FP2 of 2016 Hungary GP.