Rosberg tried to ignore Hamilton’s progress in Spa

From 21st on the grid, Hamilton made it up to third by the finish, and thus the German cut only 10 points from his teammate’s championship lead.

“That’s not what I was focusing on," said Rosberg. "I came here, [to the] Belgian GP, I wanted to win it.

"The opposition was unusually close this weekend. Not eventually in the race, but up to that point they were very close.

"I'm just happy it worked out, [it was the] perfect weekend for me, and Lewis did a great job and finished third.

“He’s done a great job to come all the way through. I don’t know, I haven’t looked at the details, but for sure he must have done a great job.”

Rosberg insisted that he didn’t know that Hamilton was up to fifth by the red flag period, despite having got out of his car and walked back down the pitlane during the break.

“That I didn’t see," said Rosberg. "Just after the chequered I looked at the results, and I knew that Daniel was behind me, and then I see ‘HAM’ in P3, and I thought 'What? Seriously?'

"I didn’t know until after the race where he was.”

Rosberg added he doesn’t believe that Hamilton now has an advantage over him thanks to having an extra power unit in hand.

“I don’t think about it in that sense," he said. "He had the big disadvantage today, you know. I’m just focussing on my thing, and that’s it.

"I don’t think it’s going to make a big difference any more, after this.”