Nico Rosberg has refused to rule out pushing to be allocated the lower race number at Mercedes next year.
Ever since teaming up with Michael Schumacher at the Brackley squad in 2010, the younger German has accepted the higher race number, despite always finishing higher in the previous year’s points standings. Normally, the driver best-placed in the previous year’s championship gets the lower race number, but Schumacher always argued that he preferred an ‘odd’ number, mainly for reasons of superstition. But Rosberg’s reticence came back to bite him in Singapore this weekend, after both Mercedes cars stayed in the garage for strategic reasons during the decisive ‘Q3’ qualifying segment.
With laptimes unable to sort out the grid places of the two silver-clad drivers, the FIA had to revert to their race numbers to divide them. And because Schumacher wears the number 7, and Rosberg the number 8, it was the seven time world champion who lined up ahead of 27-year-old Shanghai winner Rosberg.
“Given the outcome (for the grid placings) here, I would have preferred to have the lower starting number,” Rosberg is quoted by German RTL television. “For next year, we’ll have to have a look at that (situation),” he admitted.
Rosberg is currently seventh in the 2012 standings, five places ahead of Schumacher.
Source:GMM
