Mercedes thought about retiring Rosberg - Wolff

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff revealed the team came close to retiring Nico Rosberg before the German went on to win the Australian Grand Prix.??

Rosberg finished ahead of team-mate and defending Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton to take the chequered flag in the season-opening race, sealing his 15th career F1 victory.

However, Rosberg??almost did not make the finish line in Melbourne, with Wolff admitting the 30-year-old??came very close to retirement.??

"We had a problem on Nico's car with brake caliper temperatures which kept creeping up, almost to a stage where we thought about retiring the car," Wolff said.

"That was two-thirds into the race. It was from debris we caught in the caliper.

"Then??it stabilised at maximum value. And then it started to creep down again, very slowly, and recovered. [At] a??certain stage, it was very difficult for the team to handle."

He added: "[Nico] didn't know. You can't tell him. The alarm would come up [if it was dangerous], but we were really super close to that and there's nothing you can do about it."