Notwithstanding Nico Rosberg’s media strategy, Alex Wurz thinks the German is now playing a defensive game for the championship.
At the decisive phase of the season and 26 points ahead of Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, Rosberg has effectively closed himself off to the press, insisting only that he is focused on winning every single race.
But Alex Wurz, a former driver, doesn’t think so.
"I can see clearly that his head has gone from ’I’m only thinking of me’ to ’Now I’m in the lead and I’m defending’," he told Austrian television ORF.
"But this is dangerous," Wurz said.
The evidence of that is Austin and now Mexico, where despite dominating Hamilton recently he is now clearly trailing the Briton’s pace.
However, one paddock theory is that Mercedes is not giving Rosberg every engine power ’mode’, to give Hamilton a fair chance of catching up after his recent technical trouble.
Team boss Toto Wolff denies that, saying the balance of power is simply swinging.
But Rosberg can afford to keep finishing second to Hamilton and still be world champion, so Wolff thinks Rosberg’s last qualifying lap in Mexico was particularly crucial.
"It was perhaps Nico’s most important lap of the season," he said, referring to the fact that, prior to that lap, the Red Bulls were ahead of him.