MELBOURNE — Three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton will renew his tense rivalry with Nico Rosberg as Mercedes look to pick up where it left off in Sunday’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
The German team has ruled Formula One for two years, winning 32 of the 38 races and posing the burning question heading into this year’s record, 21-stop season: who is going to stop the Silver Arrows?
Flamboyant Englishman Hamilton, 31, is bidding for his third win at Melbourne’s 5.303 kilometer (3.295 mile) Albert Park street circuit — one with McLaren Mercedes in 2008, and last year’s dominant start-to-finish victory over team-mate Rosberg.
He has savored a celebrity lifestyle in the downtime after his triumphant 2015 season, and claimed the last six months have been the best of his life.
Rosberg claimed pole at the last six races of the 2015 season, and swept to victory in the final three grands prix.
But pundits point out that each of those victories came after Hamilton had clinched the drivers’ championship in the United States.
The acrimonious rivalry between the two Mercedes drivers reached breaking point when Rosberg petulantly threw his cap at Hamilton after he sealed the title in Austin.
The German, who again shapes as Hamilton’s fiercest championship rival, has vowed to fight all the way during the 2016 title race.
Adding spice to this year’s exchanges is Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff’s vow to stand back and allow Hamilton and Rosberg more freedom to battle on the track, with no team orders from the pit wall.
Four-time drivers’ champion Sebastian Vettel, who won three GPs last season, looms as the biggest threat to the dominant Mercedes duo in his Ferrari.
Vettel and Ferrari chipped away at the tearaway Mercedes team last year and the German is steadfast in his belief that good times are just around the corner for Ferrari, who have won six times in Melbourne.
